Life Between Buildings: Using Public Space
Can we tie together a web of these communal spaces to mimic exploring a city, where engaging feels like an everyday experience rather than a special isolated surprise?
Spencer Chang • tiny internets: sidewalks, geocaching, and more · tiny internets
If the only kinds of city neighborhoods that demonstrate useful functions in real-life self-government are the city as a whole, streets, and districts, then effective neighborhood physical planning for cities should aim at these purposes: First, to foster lively and interesting streets. Second, to make the fabric of these streets as continuous a ne
... See moreJane Jacobs • The Death and Life of Great American Cities
Wherever the old city is working successfully … it is a complex order. Its essence is intricacy of sidewalk use, bringing with it a constant succession of eyes. This order is all composed of movement and change, and although it is life, not art, we may fancifully call it the art form of the city and liken it to the dance—not to a simple-minded prec
... See moreRobin Chase • Peers Inc
people organize themselves over space so that they can visit each other or meet in public spaces by walking around.
Luis M. A. Bettencourt • Introduction to Urban Science: Evidence and Theory of Cities as Complex Systems
The preferred and ubiquitous mode of urban development is hostile to both walking and talking. In walking, people become part of their terrain; they meet others; they become custodians of their neighborhoods. In talking, people get to know one another; they find and create their common interests and realize the collective abilities essential to com
... See moreRay Oldenburg • The Great Good Place: Cafes, Coffee Shops, Bookstores, Bars, Hair Salons, and Other Hangouts at the Heart of a Community
Probably the most important element in intricacy is centering. Good small parks typically have a place somewhere within them commonly understood to be the center—at the very least a main crossroads and pausing point, a climax. Some small parks or squares are virtually all center, and get their intricacy from minor differences at their peripheries.
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