The scope of names defined in class block doesn't extend to the methods' blocks. Why is that?

Reading the documentation I came across the following paragraph:

A scope defines the visibility of a name within a block. If a local variable is defined in a block, its scope includes that block. If the definition occurs in a function block, the scope extends to any blocks contained within the defining one, unless a contained block introduces a different binding for the name. The scope of names defined in a class block is limited to the class block; it does not extend to the code blocks of methods – this includes comprehensions and generator expressions since they are implemented using a function scope.

I decided to try accessing class variable from a method myself:

>>> class A():
    i = 1
    def f(self):
        print(i)            

>>> a = A()

>>> a.i
1

>>> a.f()
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "<pyshell#7>", line 1, in <module>
    a.f()
  File "<pyshell#4>", line 4, in f
    print(i)
NameError: global name 'i' is not defined

I know that the variable i may be accessed by explicitly pointing to the class name A.i:

>>> a = A()
>>> class A():
    i = 1
    def f(self):
        print(A.i)          
>>> a = A()
>>> a.f()
1

The question is why the developers of the language made class variables not visible from methods? What is the rationale behind it?