Cities for People

Gehl is best known for his work revitalizing urban areas by making them pedestrian and bike friendly, and creating vibrant public spaces (something her refers to as 'urban realm enhancement'. He has worked with policymakers in Melbourne, London, Zurich, Stockholm, Riga, and is currently working in New York City (in the implementation of the biking/pedestrian portion of Bloomberg’s green plan), Seattle, Rotterdam, Amman and Sydney.

"If Cities for People is widely read and widely applied, the world's urban life will be immeasurably better."-- "New Urban News"
"In his well-illustrated and accessible new book, Cities for People, Jan Gehl fills in the missing link in modern planning: how human beings actually function and respond to the built environment."-- "Planning"
"Jan Gehl's most recent book--Cities for People--brought with it a lot of excitement and expectations. With a track record like his, however, it comes as no surprise that Gehl's strong perspective, clear prose and rigorous research is not a disappointment. Continuing his quest to secure the importance of the human experience as a top priority when planning and designing cities, Cities for People is a succinct collection of his experience and lessons to-date. Ultimately, Cities for People is one of those books that everybody--no matter what level you are in the industry--is bound to learn from. Clear and accessible, it's a must-read for students and early practitioners of planning, architecture, and landscape design, as well as anybody interested creating humane pedestrian cities. If one hasn't read any of Gehl's previous books, this is also a great place to start."-- "Re: place Magazine"
"Jan Gehl is our greatest observer of urban quality and an indispensable philosopher of cities as solutions to the environmental and health crises that we face. With over half the world's population now in urban areas, the entire planet needs to learn the lessons he offers in Cities for People."--Janette Sadik-Khan, Commissioner of the New York City Department of Transportation

Jan Gehl is a founding partner of Gehl Architects - Urban Quality Consultants. He is the author of Life Between Buildings and Public Spaces, Public Life. He has received numerous awards for his work and is widely credited with creating and renewing urban spaces in cities around the world, including Copenhagen, Melbourne, New York City, London, and many others. He lives in Copenhagen, Denmark.

For more than forty years Jan Gehl has helped to transform urban environments around the world based on his research into the ways people actually use'or could use'the spaces where they live and work. In this revolutionary book, Gehl presents his latest work creating (or recreating) cityscapes on a human scale. He clearly explains the methods and tools he uses to reconfigure unworkable cityscapes into the landscapes he believes they should be: cities for people.Taking into account changing demographics and changing lifestyles, Gehl emphasizes four human issues that he sees as essential to successful city planning. He explains how to develop cities that are Lively, Safe, Sustainable, and Healthy. Focusing on these issues leads Gehl to think of even the largest city on a very small scale. For Gehl, the urban landscape must be considered through the five human senses and experienced at the speed of walking rather than at the speed of riding in a car or bus or train. This small-scale view, he argues, is too frequently neglected in contemporary projects.In a final chapter, Gehl makes a plea for city planning on a human scale in the fast- growing cities of developing countries. A "Toolbox,a presenting key principles, overviews of methods, and keyword lists, concludes the book.The book is extensively illustrated with over 700 photos and drawings of examples from Gehl's work around the globe.

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