ABSTRACT
This chapter looks at how the messages we receive from our surroundings are embedded into the built and social environment and considers some of the mechanisms by which they are broadcast and received. It finds they are authored by all the occupants of the city, not just those who formally build the city. It further suggests that our sensitivity to these messages varies because of multiple factors—although most of us are receiving a similar set of encouragements and discouragements from our surroundings, everyone’s interpretation will be different in detail. The chapter concludes that we all subconsciously or consciously balance a mix of quantitative and qualitative factors to inform our choices and this balance might be altered by changing any of these factors or the weight we give them.
