14 Quotes by Jan Gehl

For decades the human dimension has been an overlooked and haphazardly addressed urban planning topic, while many other issues, such as accomodating the rocketing rise in car traffic, have come more strongly into focus. In addition, dominant planning ideologies – modernism in particular – have specifically put a low priority on public space, pedestrianism and the role of city space as a meeting place for urban dwellers.

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 until later.

It has been almost 50 years since American journalist and author Jane Jacobs published her seminal book The Death and Life of Great American Cities in 1961.1 She pointed out how the dramatic increase in car traffic and the urban planning ideology of modernism that separates the uses of the city and emphasizes free-standing individual buildings would put an end to urban space and city life and result in lifeless cities devoid of people.

The diagram shows three streets with heavy, moderate and light.

An extensive expansion of the opportunities to bicycle in New York began in 2007. Photos show 9th Avenue in Manhattan in April and November 2008 with the new “Copenhagen-style” bicycle path designed so that parked cars protect bicycle traffic.