CULTURAL DYNAMICS AND URBAN AMBIENCE: A REVIEW OF THE LITERATURE WITH IMPLICATIONS FOR FORT PORTAL CITY, UGANDA

Education

Urban ambience is simply the mood of a public space—what you notice with your senses, who you see around you, and what time it is. Many researchers agree that this mood plays a big role in how pleasant city life feels (Gehl, 2010). But in smaller cities of sub-Saharan Africa, including those in Uganda, we still know very little about how local culture shapes this mood. This paper looks at existing studies published in academic journals that explore the link between culture and the feeling of cities. It pulls together work from urban studies, environmental psychology, cultural geography, and city planning. The review covers findings from many parts of the world, including East Asia, Europe, the Middle East, and North America. From this review, three main ways that culture affects urban ambience stand out. First, culture shapes how people use space, such as whether they bring their shops and home activities out onto the street (Chen, Thibaud, & Guo, 2019). Second, culture influences what kinds of sensations people enjoy, meaning that tastes for noise, crowds, and social buzz differ from one culture to another (Wang & Zhang, 2020). Third, culture sets the timing of street life, including daily and seasonal patterns shaped by weather and local customs (Nasrabadi, Pourjafar, & Bemanian, 2018). After laying out these findings, the paper applies them to Fort Portal City in Uganda. Fort Portal is a quickly growing smaller city with a rich mix of cultures, including the Batooro, Bakiga, and other ethnic groups. The review finds that very little research has been done on urban ambience in Uganda and East Africa more broadly (Kattimani & Devadas, 2024). The paper then talks about what these findings mean for city planning in Fort Portal. Suggestions include designing public spaces that fit local culture, supporting informal activities like street selling, matching nighttime plans to local routines, and finding a balance between what residents and visitors need. Finally, the paper suggests where future research should go in Fort Portal and in other similar smaller African cities.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.