Tag Archives: public space

Lingering Effects

5 Mar
loitering is good

Photo by Flickr user nitrodog

Among the many and varied complaints about urban life in Atlanta, one rarely hears “There aren’t enough people just hanging around.” It’s much more common to hear the opposite (see any discussion of Atlantic Station or Five Points). But places where people of all ages and backgrounds can just spend time during almost any part of the day – without being expected to buy something or pay admission – have long been known by urban planners as vital to successful cities.

Emily Badger at The Atlantic Cities reflects on how being out on the street, especially at night, became something that people in most American cities just don’t do.

“We went to great lengths to discourage the wrong people from hanging around, but this of course discouraged everyone else as well.”

Increased suburbanization and car ownership in American cities during the last 50 years have also meant increased privatization of leisure activities. For people who can afford them, home theaters, gym memberships, backyard playground equipment, indoor malls and chain coffee shops now replace the city centers, public parks and plazas that used to serve as community living rooms. People with other choices for places to spend their time drifted away from the streets. People without those choices stayed. Soon almost the only people hanging around on the street were people with nowhere else to go, leaving the impression that the streets were no place for “regular” people. At that point, Badger says, what would have once been called “lingering,” became “loitering.”

Laws and design standards meant to combat loitering led to the creation of even more uninviting, and thus emptier, streets. People like places where there are other people. Therefore, nobody goes where nobody goes.

Some cities are successfully throwing that trend into reverse with projects like Chicago’s Millennium Park and New York’s High Line. Less wealthy cities will have to get more creative, Badger says, by carving out smaller, cheaper “oases” of public space for lingering. Until then, the streets will remain places where the police keep trying to chase the “wrong” people away, while everyone else stays home.

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The Social Life of Small Urban Spaces

13 Oct


“The Social Life of Small Urban Spaces” was produced in 1979 as a companion film to William H. Whyte’s book by the same name.

The book was undertaken as a guide to assist New York City’s Planning Commission in improving the city’s public spaces after changes in city zoning regulations managed to increase their quantity without having the same effect on quality.

In a little less than one hour, the film details the sometimes little-noticed attributes that make the difference between public spaces that people are drawn to and the ones they’re indifferent to.

“The most important thing about a place is its relationship to the street.”

In a successful urban space, Whyte said, “The number one activity is people watching other people.”

People-watching requires people to watch and a place to sit while watching them. But Whyte observed how often those rudimentary requirements go overlooked. Office building plazas are frequently sunk into the the ground, hidden behind something or propped several feet above the street. No matter how appealing those spaces might be to look at, their isolation will keep them underused, Whyte said, because “the most important thing about a place is its relationship to the street.”

But even an unobstructed view of the street won’t be enough to make people linger if they can’t sit down, Whyte said, as “people tend to sit where there are places to sit.” Not just any places, though. Whyte was an advocate of low steps, ledges and moveable chairs, but he had no use for most benches. Benches, he said, are often poorly placed and poorly proportioned. They also tell people “you sit here,” rather than letting them configure themselves however they’re most comfortable.

Other attributes Whyte found to be vital to successful urban public space are sunlight, food, water, trees and a feature he calls “triangulation,” or something that draws strangers together.

Whyte also observed the way that high-quality public spaces contribute to pedestrian propulsion. Pedestrians’ “visual enjoyment” of a space – as they walk by and watch people watching other people – is a type of passive, secondary use, he said.

After watching “The Social Life of Small Urban Places,” walking past spaces that you’ve seen dozens of times before can become interesting again as you mentally check their attributes (or shortcomings) against Whyte’s list. It might also explain why no one ever sits on those expensive-looking benches facing the ivy-covered wall at the back of your building.

Vimeo link, in case the embed doesn’t work.

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