Abstract
Jan Gehl was instrumental in developing the idea of planning for cities and urban areas from a person perspective, putting people at the heart of architecture, urban design, and planning. His work involved studying the city from walking around it, addressing perspectives from a human-centered perspective and on a human scale. In sustainable planning, he was one of many planners, architects, and designers from the 1960s onward to worry about the huge impact of the increasing number of motor vehicles on human life in urban areas and addressed methods to try and reduce their impact. Much of his work looks at designing a city at a scale for walking between buildings, so he favored mixed use cities, with people coming together from different backgrounds, cultures, and for different reasons to create a bustling, thriving city. He said for a city to work it must entice people to it, people need to want to go out and spend time there, and it should be made as easily as possible to do so. These propositions are more important than ever, a climate emergency has made reducing the domination of vehicles in city centers even more of an issue, increasing inequalities and socially excluded groups means better planning for integration is needed, and increasingly high-quality technologies means cities are competing with an online world when encouraging people into them.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Appleyard D (1981) Liveable streets. University of California Press, Berkeley
Appleyard D, Lintell M (1972) The environmental quality of city streets: the residents’ viewpoint. J Am Inst Plann 38(2):84–10
Gehl J (1987) Life between buildings: using public space. Van Nostrand Reinhold, New York
Gehl J (2010) Cities for people. Island Press
Gehl J, Gemzøe L (2000) New City spaces. The Danish Architectural Press, Copenhagen
Gehl J, Gemzøe L (2004) Public spaces. Public Life, Danish Architectural Press
Gehl J, Svarre B (2013) How to study public life. Island Press
Gehl, J., Gemzøe, L., Kirknæs, S., & Søndergaard, B. S. (2006). New city life. Arkitektens Forlag
Hamilton-Baillie B (2008) Towards shared space. Urban Des Int 13:130–138. https://doi.org/10.1057/udi.2008.13
Hammond V, Musselwhite CBA (2013) The attitudes, perceptions and concerns of pedestrians and vulnerable road users to shared space: a case study from the UK. J Urban Des 18(1):78–97
Jacobs J (1961) The death and life of great American cities. Random House, New York
Musselwhite CBA (2018) The importance of a room with a view for older people with limited mobility. Qual Ageing Older Adult 19(4):273–285
Musselwhite C (2021) Designing Public Space for an Ageing Population: Improving Pedestrian Mobility for Older People. Emerald, Bingley
Newman O (1973) Defensible space: people and design in the violent city. Architectural Press, London
Takano T, Nakamura K, Watanabe M (2002) Urban residential environments and senior citizens’ longevity in megacity areas: the importance of walkable green spaces. J Epidemiol Community Health 56:913–918
Wells NM, Evans GW, Yang Y (2010) Environments and health: planning decisions as public-health decisions. J Archit Plann Res 27(2):124–143
Whyte WH (1980) The social life of small urban spaces. The Conservation Foundation, Washington
Yarker S (2018) Tangential attachments: towards a more nuanced understanding of the impacts of cultural urban regeneration on local identities. Urban Stud 55(15):3421–3436
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2022 The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Switzerland AG
About this entry
Cite this entry
Musselwhite, C. (2022). Jan Gehl. In: The Palgrave Handbook of Global Sustainability. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-38948-2_184-1
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-38948-2_184-1
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-030-38948-2
Online ISBN: 978-3-030-38948-2
eBook Packages: Springer Reference Earth and Environm. ScienceReference Module Physical and Materials ScienceReference Module Earth and Environmental Sciences