by William H. Whyte -- Doubleday, New York, NY. 1988.

Author
William H. Whyte was born in Pennsylvania and educated at Princeton. In 1969, he wrote the Plan for the City of New York and received grants to study the street life of New York and other cities. From that sixteen-year period of research came City. Mr. Whyte served as an urban planning consultant for major U.S. cities, traveling and lecturing widely. His other books include The Exploding Metropolis, Is Anybody Listening?, The Last Landscape, and the bestselling The Organization Man. His legacy lives on in the work of his students, including Fred Kent (Project for Public Spaces) and Paco Underhill (Envirosell).

Blurb
From Library Journal: “Whyte's Street Life Project studied the use of urban spaces for 16 years. This follow-up to The Social Life of Small Urban Spaces is an engaging look at the variety of human interactions which make "downtown" vibrant. Whyte looks at such diverse topics as pedestrian movement, concourses and skyways, sunlight and its effects--all from the perspective of a confirmed city-lover. His observations and recommendations can be read with profit and pleasure by professional planners and readers interested in what makes a city tick.” -- Diane K. Harvey, SAIS-Johns Hopkins Univ. Lib., Washington, D.C. Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Why Read It
This is the book that first gave me the idea that it might be possible to develop a “pedestrian science.” In it Whyte puts forward the notion that cities can be great places with great streets full of great people. When published in the late 80s this seemed whimsical and nostalgic, but for the past 20 years City and Whyte’s other works have served as an important part of the intellectual foundation underlying the resurgence of America’s city centers and the urbanist discipline of “placemaking.”