urban design -jacobs william whyte pps

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SOCIAL ASPECTS OF URBAN SPACE:

PUBLIC PLACE MAKING:

Place making is a multi-faceted approach to the planning, design and management of public spaces. Place making capitalizes on a local

communitys assets, inspiration, and potential, ultimately creating good public spaces that promote peoples health, happiness, and well-

being. Place making is both a process and a philosophy.

The concepts behind Place making originated in the 1960s, when writers like Jane Jacobs and William H. Whyte offered ground-breaking ideas

about designing cities that catered to people, not just to cars and shopping centers. Their work focused on the importance of livelyneighbourhoods and inviting public spaces. Jane Jacobs advocated citizen ownership of streets through the now-fam ous idea of eyes on the

street. William H. Whyte emphasized essential elements for creating social life in public spaces.

Place making is a term that began to be used in the 1970s by architects and planners to describe the process of creating squares, plazas, parks,

streets and waterfronts that will attract people because they are pleasurable or interesting. Landscape often plays an important role in the

design process.

Design for the Public Realm/domain. Places are about the design of places, the experiences they make possible and the consequences they

have in our lives.

Being in places involves social encounters, immersion in the sights, sounds, sun, wind and atmosphere of a locale, and curiosity about the

traces of thought, imagination and investment that have guided their construction and use over time.

WILLIAM WHYTE:

William Hollingsworth "Holly" Whyte (October 1, 1917 12 January 1999) was an American Urbanist, organizational analyst, journalist and

people-watcher. He wrote a book about corporate culture The Organization Man (1956). Whyte turned his attention to the study of human

behaviour in urban settings. Other books include The Social Life of Small Urban Spaces (1980).

While working with the New York City Planning Commission in 1969, Whyte began to use direct observation to describe behaviour in urban

settings. With research assistants handled effectively the still cameras, movie cameras, and notebooks, Whyte described the substance of

urban public life in an objective and measurable way.

These observations developed into the "Street Life Project", an on-going study of pedestrian behaviourand city dynamics, and eventually to

Whyte's book called City: Rediscovering the Center (1988).

"City" presents Whyte's conclusions about Jaywalking [(chiefly North America, law) To behave as a jaywalker; to violate pedestrian trafficregulations by crossing a street away from a designated crossing or to walk in the part of the street intended for cars rather than on the

sidewalk],'schmoozing patterns [Pattern of Talking idly or casually and in a friendly way],' the actual use of urban plazas, appropriate sidewalk

width, and other issues. This work remains valuable because it's based on careful observation, and because it contradicts other conventional

wisdom, for instance, the idea that pedestrian traffic and auto traffic should be separated.

Whyte along with Project for Public Spaces worked closely on the renovation of Bryant Park in New York City.

Whyte served as mentor [A wise and trusted guide and advisor]to many, including the urban-planning writer Jane Jacobs, Paco Underhill, who

has applied the same technique to measuring and improving retail environments, Dan Biederman of Bryant Park Corporation, who led the

renovation of Bryant Park and the Business Improvement District movement in New York City, and Fred Kent, who worked with Whyte for a

number of years before starting Project for Public Spaces.

His other books include: Is Anybody Listening? (1952), Securing Open Spaces for Urban America (1959), Cluster Development (1964), The LastLandscape (1968; "about the way metropolitan areas look and the way they might look"), The Social Life of Small Urban Spaces (1980; plus a

companion film of the same name), and City: Rediscovering the Center (1988).

JANE JACOBS:

Jane Jacobs (May 4, 1916 April 25, 2006) was an American-Canadian journalist, author, and activist best known for her influence on urban

studies. Her influential book The Death and Life of Great American Cities (1961) argued that urban renewal did not respect the needs of most

city-dwellers.

The book also introduced sociology concepts such as "eyes on the street" and "social capital".

Jacobs was well known for organizing grassroots efforts to protect existing neighbourhoods from "slum clearance.

As a female writer and mother who criticized experts in the male-dominated field of urban planning, Jacobs endured scorn from established

figures, who called her a "housewife" and a "crazy dame". She did not have a college degree in urban planning, and was also criticized for

being unscholarly and imprecise. She has been accused of inattention to racial inequality, and her concept of "unslumming" has been

compared with Gentrification [The restoration of run-down urban areas by the middle class].


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According to Jane Jacobs, Acity street equipped to handle strangers, and to make a safety asset, in itself, out of the presence of strangers, as

the streets of successful city neighbourhoods always do, must have three main qualities:

First, there must be a clear demarcation between what public space is and what private space is. Public and private spaces cannot ooze into

each other as they do typically in suburban settings or in projects.

Second, there must be Eyes upon the Street, eyes belonging to those we might call the natural proprietors/owners of the street. The buildings

on a street equipped to handle strangers and to insure the safety of both residents and strangers must be oriented to the street. They cannot

turn their backs or blank sides on it and leave it blind.

And third, the sidewalk must have users on it fairly continuously, both to add to the number of effective eyes on the street and to induce thepeople in buildings along the street to watch the sidewalks in sufficient numbers. Nobody enjoys sitting on a stoop or looking out a window at

an empty street. Almost nobody does such a thing. Large numbers of people entertain themselves, off and on, by watching street activity.

Jane Jacobs, The Death and Life of Great American Cities

URBAN PROBLEMS, ISSUES AND SOLUTIONS:

The developing world cities are suffering many very serious problems. These are a consequence of the rapid population growth, a lack of

capital to invest and a non-existent, very poor and/or outdated infrastructure.

Problems

1. Collapsing infrastructure:Many cities in the developing world do not have an infrastructure that is capable of dealing with the massiveincreases in population. In addition, the governments do not have sufficient funds available to maintain the facilities, let alone improve them.

Particular problems arise because of the inadequacy of the road and sewerage networks.

2. Increasing levels of pollution: Pollution of air, land and water is a major problem in most developing world cities. The drive to

industrialisation brings with it inevitable problems, especially as legislation to protect the environment is often non-existent or rarely enforced.

Furthermore, the hidden economy can add to the levels of pollution as small, unlicensed industries are set up in peoples homes or on

rooftops. These industries release their pollutants into the air, land and water.

3. Increased volume of traffic on poorly maintained roads:The water supply can also become polluted as inadequate sewerage facilities allow

the spread of harmful bacteria. Indeed, death from water-borne disease is one of the biggest causes of high infant mortality rates.

4. Inadequate housing and services:Shanty towns display most problems typical of developing world cities. On arrival at the city, it is most

likely that the migrant will find him having to create his own shelter, live on the streets or rent a single room. In Calcutta, "Hotbed Hotels" rent

rooms on an eight hour basis, whilst in Mexico City; over ten million live in shanty towns.

5. The shanty town is likely to be found on inappropriate land : It is prone to flooding or is very steeply sloping, increasing the chances of a

landslip. It could be on a piece of land that has been badly polluted by a neighbouring industry. The shelters made of wood and high

population densities increase the risk of fire.

6. The services will be non-existent or incapable of maintaining a basic standard of living: The lack of basic services like a clean water supply,

rubbish collection and sewerage disposal mean that the risks of disease are very high.

7. A lack of employment means that people have to look for other ways of earning money : In Manila, children scavenge on refuse sites

collecting cans for recycling. As well as being unpleasant, the risk of injury is high and any cuts will become infected. Hospital waste is also

dumped on the site with hypodermic needles adding to the dangers of serious infection.

Drugs have also taken a grip in many shanty towns. In Rio's favellas, there are often gun battles between rival gangs.

Solutions:

Solutions to any problem are made more difficult by the lack of available resources and the sheer scale of the problems faced. Below are some

examples of different policies attempted:

Attempts to solve housing problems:

1. Site and service schemes:Popular in India and Brazil. This is a scheme whereby the government will provide a site (a small concrete 'hut')

and basic amenities such as water and sewer facilities. The migrant is given rights of ownership and then expected to complete the work at his

or her expense. This is often done as a cooperative between groups of migrants. In other situations, the authorities just provide the plot and

building materials for the migrants to construct their own homes.

These schemes are relatively cheap and give the migrants a sense of control over their future. They also encourage community spirit.

2. Rehabilitation: An alternative to this scheme is to provide the residents of shanty towns with the materials to improve their existing

shelters. Residents are also encouraged to set up community schemes to improve education and medical services. Residents may also be given


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rights of ownership whilst local authorities come in and provide electricity, water and sewerage disposal. This has been tried in Bolivia and

Pakistan.

It is a cheaper option than the site and service schemes but simply hides the real problems. The germs may not have been removed, the land

still unsuitable and the water/sewer system still not adequate.

3. Housing developments:Some countries, such as Singapore, have embarked upon massive re-housing programmes, resultingin high-rise

estates. Large areas of shanty towns were cleared, tower blocks built and the shanty town residents re-housed.

Early apartment blocks were very similar to those found in the UK and faced many similar problems. One such problem was people using the

lifts as toilets - this was stopped when lifts were made sensitive to urine and locked on the offenders. They then had to wait to be released,facing much embarrassment and a very heavy fine! Today, blocks are designed by architects and have management teams that keep them

graffiti and litter free. This is helped by the strict rules enforced in Singapore, where dropping litter or selling chewing gum will result in a very

heavy fine.

Each housing development is designed to be self-sufficient, with shops and services and employment in light industry, such as clothing. They

are also located close to Singapore's highly efficient rail system - the MRT or Mass Rapid Transport. This helps reduce traffic congestion, which

is further reduced by strict quotas on the number of licensed cars and regular tolls on all major roads.

The housing and development board aims to provide every person with a home and has continued its building programme for the last 40

years.

4. Sewage rehabilitation:Several cities have taken on major projects to try and repair damaged water and sewerage pipes. This improves the

safety and quality of the water in the city and would reduce mortality rates. The rehabilitation also goes some way to reducing theunemployment problems.

urban design -jacobs william whyte pps

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