For more than forty years, Jan Gehl has worked to transform urban environments around the world based on his research into how people actually use – or could use – the places where they live and work. In Cities for People, Gehl presents his latest work on creating (or recreating) urban landscapes on a human scale.
With an eye on changing demographics and lifestyles, Gehl highlights four key human aspects that he considers essential for successful urban planning. He shows how to develop cities that are vibrant, safe, sustainable and healthy. By focusing on these elements, Gehl himself thinks of the largest cities from a very small perspective. For Gehl, urban landscapes should be viewed through the five human senses and experienced at walking pace rather than by car, bus or train. He argues that this human perspective is all too often overlooked in modern urban projects.
Author: Jan Grehl
Page count: 285
Publisher: Island Press
Language: English