William whyte city

This is all very well as far as it goes, but it only goes in one direction. What about undercrowding? The researchers would be a lot more objective if they paid as much attention to the possible effects on people of relative isolation and lack of propinquity.

Maybe some of those rats they study get lonely too. It is the measures taken to combat them that is the problem. The multiplier effect is tremendous. It is not just the number of people using them, but the larger number who pass by and enjoy them vicariously, or even the larger number who feel better about the city center for knowledge of them.

For a city, such places are priceless, whatever the cost. They are built of a set of basics and they are right in front of our noses. If we will look. The rich text element allows you to create and format headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, images, and video all in one place instead of having to add and format them individually. Just double-click and easily create content. Body Text Body Link. Headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, figures, images, and figure captions can all be styled after a class is added to the rich text element using the "When inside of" nested selector system.

Close Menu. Close Search. Thank you! Your submission has been received! Something went wrong while submitting the form. Here is some highlighted text from the article. Related Articles. October 8, The first two thirds of the book is essentially an expanded version of his earlier City: Rediscovering the Center takes the reader on a tour of William H.

The first two thirds of the book is essentially an expanded version of his earlier "pre-book" The Social Life of Small Urban Spaces , while the final third diverges into issues of suburban sprawl, the corporate exodus, open space policies, cluster development, gentrification, and more. The organizing idea of the book—that cities must have a center, and planners are now remembering this—is not always strong enough to bring Whyte's brilliant individual insights together comfortably into one book.

But if one accepts that it reads more like a collection of articles, they will find that City is an indispensable retrospective of Whyte's unique contributions to the study of cities. Jun 08, Ed rated it it was amazing. Feb 09, Greg Brown rated it really liked it. This book was sort of a micro-level sequel to the macro-level of Jane Jacobs ' The Death and Life of Great American Cities , more focused on the elements like ledges, walls, and sunlight that made up excellent public spaces.

Whyte also takes a much more methodologically-exacting approach, formally researching and recording behaviors for over a decade, and peppering his book with photos, diagrams, and exact accounts of which policies were the most successful.

Also unlike Jacobs, Whyte had some level This book was sort of a micro-level sequel to the macro-level of Jane Jacobs ' The Death and Life of Great American Cities , more focused on the elements like ledges, walls, and sunlight that made up excellent public spaces. Also unlike Jacobs, Whyte had some level of buy-in with many of the associations and governments he consulted with.

As a result, you get a much better sense of the trial-and-error that accompanied his efforts—as well as evidence of the dramatic results with a handful of modifications. Jacobs' book is more an account and critique of two philosophies, as well as stories about how Robert Moses' planning has scarred or destroyed countless neighborhoods. This comparison to Jacobs is not meant to impoverish Whyte, as his aim is slightly different. I really appreciated the "concrete" details he was able to provide, as well as the lively anecdotes about how surprising and wonderful public life could be in a city.

The stories can be repetitive—and that was my main bone to pick with the book—but they're wonderful enough that you won't be annoyed when he shares them again.

It's been six months since I moved away from Chicago, and I miss it dearly for many of the same reasons. But this book is also a snapshot of an era: New York beginning to climb out of the hole before Giuliani came along to take all the credit, parking spaces increasingly demanding more and more land-area, and cities destroying their urban cores through poorly managed policies and the legacy of white flight.

It's fascinating to see what concerns are shared with today's cities, as well the generational differences in how cities are viewed now—my parents' generation was still attracted by the suburbs, while I see my own generation drawn to Chicago, NYC, Boston, San Francisco even as they are harder to afford than the alternative. I wish I could say that things were getting better, even as the momentum that he describes for suburbs has petered out somewhat, but cities are unique when it comes to public policy.

Our urban planning decisions aren't quite set in stone, but concrete is almost as permanent. Once sprawl happens it can't be undone without a tremendous amount of pain, as Detroit would attest to. Even as more people flee rural areas to live in metropolitan ones, it can't be said that will necessarily redound to the urban core's benefit. Raleigh, NC, where I live now, is a great example of how prosperity can be deeply unequal and harmful to cities.

The area has a tremendous number of white-collar jobs, and one of the better growth-rates in the US. But all that growth is being applied to sprawl. People here love the trees, so much that they leave many up. But they're a false rurality, and all they do is contribute to a placelessness, where you can't see far and don't know how the different areas interrelate.

Everyone drives everywhere, and new roads are constantly being constructed to house them all. People would rather be surrounded by space than by people, and fare lengthy commutes to do so. It's an atrocious area, and because of the bad decisions being perpetuated today, will likely stay that way even as the boom ends and people start to drift away and a city begins to rot because it didn't have any sense of itself.

Apr 21, Paul Signorelli rated it it was amazing Shelves: cities , architecture , community , collaboration , new-york. Every once in a while, we need to step back from newly released books and return to those which have been around for a decade or two--if not much longer.

William Whyte's "City: Rediscovering the Center" is another of those gems, and not just for students and lovers of architecture and city streets--and the way we use them. Whyte's dynamic work, drawn from 16 years of filming life on the streets of New York, is, ostensibly, a study of what makes cities work; it actually is far more than that. In exploring simple themes including how pedestrians in crowded urban spaces manage to navigate sidewalks and streets without continually bumping into each other, he highlights the larger, more intriguing issue of how we learn to collaborate almost wordlessly and effortlessly with one another.

When he explores the importance of well maintained trash receptacles pp. When he suggests that stakeholders in business districts might benefit from actively seeking new proprietors to provide what is currently missing from those centers p.

With variations, it occurs all throughout this book. He'll describe some predicted behavior by people in the city, something logical, or common-sensical, or assumed by planners, and then explain that he and his team observed to see if they follow this prediction: "but they do not.

Nobody could predict it, it makes no sense, but that's what they do. The rest is not as delightful. Whyte and I are on the same side of the walkable-city VS automobile-suburbia debate, so it's easy to cheer, but I've heard it all before. Really you can get everything good about this book in a fraction of the time and twice the fun by watching Whyte's The Social Life of Small Urban Spaces.

Considering this book was written in the mids, and almost everything is absolutely relevant to contemporary planning debate, the feeling is not 'hooray someone said it' as it might have been then, but rather, 'why have we gotten nowhere at all? The only thing that has changed is New York: there aren't any sleazy parts anymore. Whyte, to his credit, understood the sleaze to be an important part of the urban fabric, enlivening the space, even if the busybodies don't like it.

He probably assumed it was eternal, and the three-card monte dealers, porno handbill passers, and shifty dope dealers would remain on Lexington Avenue forever. But they do not. Sep 05, Kristie Helms rated it it was amazing. I adored this book And thanks to Whyte, every time I see a building with multiple doors Some people are natural door openers. But most are not; often they will queue up three and four deep behin I adored this book But most are not; often they will queue up three and four deep behind an open door rather than strike out on their own.

He's totally right. People WILL go through an open door Mar 19, Taylor Ellwood rated it it was amazing Shelves: business , psychology. In my opinion, part of being a successful business owner is learning about how your business is impacted by different influences. In City, Whyte discusses urban renewal and development and what is effective vs ineffective urban development as well as the impact it has on businesses.

I learned a lot from this book and was able to apply some of it to a recent class on leadership that dealt with economic development. Economic development is definitely tied into urban development. This book explains In my opinion, part of being a successful business owner is learning about how your business is impacted by different influences.

This book explains a lot of that and also provides insights into the social life on the streets of any city. Jan 22, Diana rated it really liked it Shelves: non-fiction.

Very interesting data and discussion about the uses of city streets and urban areas, encompassing the use of public squares, pedestrian flows, interactions on street corners, architecture and development and incentive zoning in cities for the years between and Why are public restrooms disappearing?

It is difficult to design an urban space so maladroitly that people will not use it, but there are many such spaces. The future is not in the suburbs, he believes, but in that center. Like a Greek agora, the city must reassert its most ancient function as a place where people come together face-to-face. William H. Whyte , author of the bestselling Organization Man , also available from the University of Pennsylvania Press, was born in Pennsylvania and educated at Princeton.

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