The Death and Life of Great American Cities
New Haven’s efforts to replace old neighborhoods with brutally modern architecture received national attention, and won many design awards, but by the late 1960s they had largely failed because they concentrated poverty, isolated residents
Jonathan F. P. Rose • The Well-Tempered City: What Modern Science, Ancient Civilizations, and Human Nature Teach Us About the Future of Urban Life
Bernard Rudofsky’s Streets for People;
Ray Oldenburg • The Great Good Place: Cafes, Coffee Shops, Bookstores, Bars, Hair Salons, and Other Hangouts at the Heart of a Community
The Philadelphia studies suggest that place-based interventions are far more likely to succeed than people-based projects. “Tens of millions of vacant and abandoned properties exist in the United States,” write Branas and his team. Remediation programs “make structural improvements to the very context within which city residents are exposed on a da
... See moreEric Klinenberg • Palaces for the People: How Social Infrastructure Can Help Fight Inequality, Polarization, and the Decline of Civic Life
On the other hand, plazas only need to be started once and then they remain a hive of activity for new users to participate in from the first day.