The Role of Green Spaces in the City Image of Sapporo

Abstract

Sapporo is considered one of the most attractive cities in Japan, a city image it partly owes to its rich greenspace. But we know little about how exactly greenspace contributes to a city’s image, because prior research has focused mostly on its quantitative aspects. Using a mail-back questionnaire (n = 130), this study examined the relationship between two types of greenspaces, those forming residents’ image of Sapporo and those residents frequently use. In addition to questions about residents’ used greenspaces we employed the Landscape Image Sketching Technique, asking respondents to draw a visual sketch of a ‘typical Sapporo landscape’. Visual sketch data were then analyzed for objects and line of sight distance, and compared with the greenspaces respondents used. Results showed that reported city image-forming greenspaces and used greenspaces largely overlapped, and their spatial positions were consistently related. Residents combine greenspaces they use in daily life with those they see to form their city image. In this image of Sapporo, parks and mountains create the main structure of the city and connect its center and periphery. These findings suggest an attractive city image is derived from symbolic scenery perceived by residents in their daily life.