In the readings/video for this assignment William Whyte and Jane Jacobs both comment on what makes a city street lively and safe. Jacobs intuitively writes about these characteristics based on her personal observations of city life while Whyte conducted a comprehensive scientific investigation in the Street Life Project on why these characteristics exist. In the end, the interesting thing is that Whyte confirmed and expanded upon much of what Jacobs observed about city life. For this assignment, I want you compare and contrast their ideas based on the questions below. But first a word about the four readings and videos.
The Whyte (Introduction… and Design of Spaces) readings come from two different books (
The Social Life of Small Urban Spaces
and
City: Rediscovering the Center
) but they touch on much of the same material. I assigned the
Design of Spaces
because there are a few items in that reading that aren’t in the first one. For instance, the graphs on page 592 in the
Design of Spaces
aren’t in the first reading and the graph image on page 201 in the
Introduction
isn’t in
Design
. I also want you to pay attention (in
Design
reading) to the material about walls, interior and exterior parks and integral seating which isn’t covered the same way in the
Introduction
reading. Take note on what Whyte says about male/female ratios.
In the Jane Jacobs readings there is also some overlap in the material on the uses of sidewalks but they do cover different topics so be sure to read both selections. The short YouTube video “Remembering Jane Jacobs” will give you a sense of how influential she has become over the years as well as illustrating some of her most important ideas.
I have also provided a link to William Whyte’s film that is mentioned near the end of the page in the Editors’ introduction to the
Introduction
reading. The video is about an hour long. You will see that it is somewhat dated (from the 1970s) but even so, the same principles that he found during this study still hold true and many, many urban designers and architects have been influenced by these ideas. The material in the video is almost verbatim with the readings so you can really see the reading come to life from what Whyte actually observed: the places he speaks about and the methods he used, trials and tribulations of the study in detail and you can see how people are really using the space.
A NOTE ABOUT THE LINK TO THE WHYTE FILM:
I have been having trouble maintaining a stable link over the last year or so to this film online (I think the copyright holders are enforcing their copyrights) so please let me know if this link stops working. I have been trying to get an electronic copy of this film through the library with limited success so far but I will let you know if that changes.
Discussion Assignment:
Jane Jacobs and William White both focus on the purpose of important urban public spaces: Sidewalks and plazas
Based on the readings and the videos please answer the following:
- Who has a better explanation of the purpose of sidewalks and why?
- Compare Jacob’s use of sidewalks and Whyte’s notion of plazas. How are they similar and different?
- Jacobs talks about an elaborate street ballet. First describe what she means by this term and then compare that notion to Whyte’s reading and tell me if Whyte describes something similar and what the similarities are.
- Does Whyte talk about a similar mechanism to Jacobs’ the “eyes on the street” for safety?
Be sure to cover the following ideas: privacy; public versus private space, what encourages and discourages (also what needs to be in place to make a good city street/sidewalk/plaza—for instance chairs and the mix of businesses) the use of sidewalks and plazas, the notion of safety and how it applies to sidewalks and plazas; the idea of trust in a public space and the role of informal gathering (the role of contact, male and female ratios; self-policing) in the social life of the street.
