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William H. Whyte
(1917-1999) is considered the mentor for
Project for Public Spaces because of his
seminal work in the study of human behavior
in urban settings. Initially, William
H. Whyte studied issues of urban planning
and design, until 1969, when he assisted
the New York City Planning Commission
in drafting a comprehensive plan. While
working with the Commission, he came to
wonder how these newly planned spaces
were actually working out. No one
had researched this before. He applied
for and received a grant to study the
street life in New York and other cities
in what became known as the Street Life
Project. With a group of young research
assistants, and camera and notebook in
hand, he conducted pioneering studies
on pedestrian behavior and breakthrough
research on city dynamics.
All told, Whyte walked
the city streets for more than 16 years.
As unobtrusively as possible, he watched
people and used time-lapse photography
to chart the meanderings of pedestrians.
What has emerged through his intuitive
analysis is an extremely human, often
amusing view of what is staggeringly obvious
about people's behavior in public
spaces, but seemingly invisible to the
unaware.
William
H. Whyte was born in West Chester, Pennsylvania
in 1917.
He joined the staff of Fortune
in 1946, after graduating from Princeton
University and serving in the Marine Corps.
His book The Organization Man
(1956), based on his articles about
corporate culture and the suburban middle
class, sold more than two million copies. Whyte then turned to the topics of sprawl and urban revitalization,
and began a distinguished career as a
sage of sane development and an advocate
of cities.
The core of Whyte's
work is predicated on the years he spent
directly observing human beings and he
has authored several texts about urban
planning and design and human behavior
in various urban spaces. Most notable
are: The Exploding Metropolis (1958),
The Last Landscape (1968), Plan
for the City of New York (1969), The
Social Life of Small Urban Spaces (1980),
and City: Rediscovering the Center
(1988). Whyte has served as an advisor
to Laurence S. Rockefeller on environmental
issues and as a major planning consultant
for major U.S. cities, traveling and lecturing
widely. He is also affiliated with the
American Conservation Association and
served as the assistant managing editor
of Fortune Magazine from 1952 until
1958.
PPS founder and president
Fred Kent
worked as one of Whyte's research
assistants on the Street Life Project,
conducting observations and film analyses
of corporate plazas, urban streets, parks
and other open spaces in New York City.
When Fred Kent founded PPS shortly thereafter,
he based the company largely on the methods
and findings of Whyte.
More than anything,
Whyte and the people of PPS believe in
the perseverance and sanctity of public
spaces. For him, small urban places are
"priceless," and the city street
is "the river of life...where we
come together, the pathway to the center.
It is the primary place."
"I
end then in praise of small spaces. 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." -- William
H. Whyte
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