Cities for people

Jan Gehl

o ISLANDPRESS

Washington I Covelo I London

III
 Copyright © 2010 Jan Gehl

AII rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Con-

ventions. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any
means without permission in writing from the publisher: Island Press, 1718
Connecticut Ave., NW, Suite 300, Washington, DC 20009.

ISLAND PRESSis a trademark ofThe Center for Resource Economics.

Gehl, Jan, 1936-

Cities for people / Jan Gehl. p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN-13: 978-1-59726-573-7 (cloth : alk. paper)
ISBN-10: 1-59726-573-X (cloth : alk. paper)
ISBN-13: 978-1-59726-574-4 (pbk. : alk. paper)
ISBN-10: 1-59726-574-8 (pbk. : alk. paper) 1. City planning.
2. City and town life. 3. City plannkrg--Environmental aspects. 1. Title.
HT166.G4382010
307.1'216--dc22
2010015763

Printed on recycled, acid-free paper .zi

Project team
Birgitte Bundesen Svarre, project manager
Isabel Duckett, design and layout
Camilla Richter-Friis van Deurs, illustrations and cover design
Louise Kielgast, project assistant
Rikke Sode, project assistant
Andrea Have, photo assistant
Karen Ann Steenhard, translation
PJ Schmidt, photo editing

Cover: Waterfront, Casablanca, Morocco, photo, Lars Gernzoe. 2009

This project was made possible with the tinancial

support of the Realdania Foundation, Copenhagen.

IV
 Contents

• X
IX
Foreword and preface

Foreword by Richard Rogers

Preface by the author

• 3
9
19
1. The

1.1

1.2
human dimension

The human dimension

First we shape the cities - then they shape us
1.3 The city as meeting place

•
..r"
2. Senses and scale

33 2.1 Sensesand scale

47 2.2 Sensesand communication
55 2.3 The shattered scale

•
63
91
105
3. The lively, safe, sustainable, and healthy city

3.1 The lively city

3.2 The safe city
3.3 The sustainable city
111 3-4 The healthy city

VI
•
118
119
134
4. The city at eye level

4.1 The battle for quality is on the small scale

4.2 Good cities for walking
4.3 Good cities for staying
148 4-4 Good cities for meeting
158 4.5 Self-expression, play, and exercise
162 4.6 Good places, fine scale
168 4.7 Good weather at eye level, please
176 4.8 Beautiful cities, good experiences
182 4.9 Good cit ies for bicycling

II s.Life, s~ace, buildings

- in t at order
,. .

195 5.1 The Brazilia Syndrome

198 5.2 Life, space, buildings - in that order

•
215
229
6. Developing cities

6.1 Developing cities

6.2 The human dimension - a universal starting point

• Toolbox

•
248
255
260
Appendix

Notes
Bibliography
Illustrations and photos
261 Index

VII
Cities are the places where people meet to exchange ideas, trade, or
simply relax and enjoy themselves. A city's public domain - its streets,
squares, and parks - is the stage and the catalyst for these activities.
Jan Gehl, the doyen of public-space design, has a deep understanding
of how we use the public domain and offers us the tools we need to
improve the design of public spaces and, as a consequence, the quality
of aur lives in cities.
The compact city - with development grouped around public
transport, walking, and cycling - is the only environmentally sustaina-
bie form of city. However, for population densities to increase and for
walking and cycling to be widespread, a city must increase the quantity
and quality of well-planned beautiful public spaces that are human in
scale, sustainable, healthy, safe, and lively.
Cities - like books - can be read, and Jan Gehl understands their
language. The street, the footpath, the square, and the park are the

,.
gram mar of the. city; they provide the structure that enables cities to
came to life, and to encourage and accommodate diverse activities,
from the quiet and contemplative to the noisy and busy. A humane city
- with carefully designed streets, squares, and parks - creates plea-
sure for visitors and passers-by, as well as for those who live, work, and
play there every day.
Everyone should have the right to easily accessible open spaces, just
as they have a right to clean water. Everyone should be able to see a tree
from their window, or to sit on a bench close ta their home with a play
space for children, or to walk ta a park within ten minutes. Well-desig-
ned neighborhoods inspire the people who live in them, whilst poorly
designed cities brutalize their citizens. As Jan says: "We shape cities, and
they shape us."
No one has examined the morphology and use of public space to the
extent that Jan Gehl has. Anyone who reads this book will get a valuable
insight into his astonishingly perceptive understanding of the relations-
hip between public spaces and civic society, and how the two are inex-
tricably intertwined.

London, February 2010

Richard Rogers
Baron Rogers of Riverside
CH, Kt, FRIBA, FCSD

IX
I graduated as an architect in 1960, which means that I have now been
following urban development for 50 years. While there is no doubt that it
has been a privilege, the journey has been unsettling as well.
The way cities are planned and developed has dramatically changed
character over this span of half a century. Until about 1960 cities through-
out the world were primarily developed on the basis of centuries of expe-
rience. Life in city space was a vital part of this wealth of experience, and
it was taken for granted that cities are built for people.
In step with burgeoning urban growth, city development was turned
over to professional planners. Theories and ideolog ies began replacing
tradition as the basis for development. Modernism with its vision of the
city as a machine, with its parts separated by function became highly in-
fluential, Aiso a new group, traffic planners, came gradually on the scene
with their ideas and theories on how to ensure the best conditions - for
car traffic.
Neither the city planners nor the traffic planners put city space and city
life high on their agenda, and for years there was hardly any knowledge
about how physical structures influence human behavior. The drastic
consequences of this type of planning on people's use of the city were
not recognized untillater.
On the whole city planning over the past 50 years has been problem-
atic. It has not been generally recognized that city life moved from fol-
lowing tradition to becoming a vital city function requiring consideration
and careful planning by the professionals.
Now, after many years, a great deal of knowledge has been amassed
on the connection between physical form and human behavior. We have
extensive information about what can and should be done. At the same
time cities and their residents have become very active in crying out for
people-oriented city planning. In recent years many cities in aii parts of
the world have made a serious effort to realize the dream of better cities
for people. Many inspiring projects and visionary city strateg ies point in
new directions after years of neglect.
It is now generally accepted that city life and regard for people in city
space must have a key role in the planning of cities and built-up areas.
Not only has this sector been mismanaged for years, it is also by now real-
ized how caring for people in the city is an important key for achieving

x
 more lively, safe, sustainable and healthy cities, aii goals of crucial impor-
tance in the zist century.
It is my hope that this book can make a modest contribution to this
important new orientation.
This book was made possible by the close caoperation of a capable
and highly motivated team with whom it has been a delight and inspira-
tion to work. I want to extend my heartfelt thanks to Andrea Have and
Isabel Duckett for their help with picture editing and graphic layout, to
Camilla Richter Friis van Deurs for graphics and illustrations, to Karen
Steenhard for the translation of the book from Danish to English, and
last but certainly not least to Birgitte Bundesen Svarre, project manager,
who steered the author, the team and the project with a steadfast but
gentle hand.
My thanks also go to Gehl Architects for providing space and assis-
tance, particularly in the form of many of the illustrations. Thanks to the
many friends, reşearch calleagues and photographers from aII over the
world who generously placed their photographs at our disposal.
I wish to thank Solvejg Reigsted, Jon Pape and Klaus Bech Danielsen
for their constructive criticism of content and editing. A very great thanks
also goes to Tom Nielsen, Aarhus School of Architecture, for his careful
and constructive advice in every phase of the project.
To Lord Richard Rogers, London, my warm thanks for his foreword and
valuable introduction to the book.
A profound thanks is further directed to the Realdania Foundation,
which provided inspiration for carrying out this project and the financial
. support to make it possible.
In conclusion a most sincere thanks to my wife, psychologist Ingrid
Gehl, who already in the early 1960s pointed my interest to the interac-
tion between form and life as a crucial precandition for good architec-
ture, and who discretely pointed out that this particular area needed
much compassion and many studies in the years to came. In aII the in-
tervening years Ingrid has provided endless amounts of compassion and
insights for both the general cause and for me. Thank you profoundly.

Jan Gehl
Copenhagen, February 2010

XI