Social Life of Small Urban Spaces

One of the most well-regarded films about urban planning, this film explores the successes and failures of public spaces in New York City. Through the film and an accompanying book, Whyte and his team chose a variety of public spaces like plazas, streetscapes, playgrounds, even entire neighbourhoods like Harlem, and set about observing and recording how and why people use them. We learn about human nature by looking closely at how people interact with and respond to the built environment.