Assessing public aesthetic preferences towards some urban landscape patterns: the case study of two different geographic groups

Abstract

Landscape aesthetics is closely linked to people's daily life, and a large body of studies has been conducted to understand the public's landscape preferences. These studies commonly focused on comprehensive landscape configuration, yet limited emphasis was placed on the patterns of individual landscape features. This research explored people's preferences towards the composition and patterns of some specific urban features. Questionnaire-based survey was conducted in two cities: Cambridge, UK and Nanjing, China and more than 180 responses were collected, respectively. Respondents from both sites showed similar preferences towards freely growing trees, individual houses, gable roofs and mixed design of green spaces. On the other hand, respondents from Cambridge and Nanjing have different preferences towards the height of trees, the size of green spaces, and the height diversity of buildings. This survey also proved that the factors of age, education, status and length of living have larger influences on landscape preferences than the factors of gender, and major. Furthermore, strong correlations were found between people's aesthetic preferences towards comparative landscape patterns, building types, tree shapes and roof structures. The existence of generally shared landscape preferences makes it feasible to conduct international and standardized projects for acquiring comparable and transferable criteria. The methodology and findings of this research provides landscape planners and decision makers with useful reference to compare, evaluate and improve urban landscape configurations to meet people's needs.

Keywords: Aesthetic preferences; Correlation analysis; Group differences; Landscape patterns; Urban.