The City’s Retina Scan: Visual Expression of the Identity of Cities and the Competition Between Them

Visual Expression of the Identity of Cities and the Competition Between Them

Abstract

The processes of population concentration in large and super-large urbanized agglomerations continue throughout the world. The resulting megacities and megalopolises absorb local urban cultures of the settlements. As a result, the diversity of lifestyles and local cultures is reduced – a process similar to the reduction of species diversity during the degradation of biocenoses. Counteraction to degradation processes includes the formulation of the identity of small towns. It is shown that the verbal identity formulation is less effective than the visual one. The material of the city of Sofia (Bulgaria) shows the results of an experiment on the visual identification of the city’s identity as a series of graphic collages.