May 15, 2023

Quote for today

"What attracts people most in a city are other people.  It is amazing how many pedestrian malls are designed on the assumption that what people want to do is get away from other people.  We see this in the design of sitting areas where the backs of people are turned to the main flow of people.  A brief study will convince you of the deep desire of people to be in the center and at the crossroads.  We became aware of this in our early research on street corner behavior.  When people meet on a street corner, do they move  out of the pedestrian stream or do they stay in the middle of it? My hypothesis was that people would gravitate to the little-used strip along the side of the stream.  Quite the contrary, they moved into it, and the longer the conversation, the more likely that it would take place smack in the very middle of the traffic stream.

Learn to look at steps.  If people are sitting on steps and actually blocking passage, it is  a good thing.  It means they are very comfortable there.

Probably the greatest public space in the city - the most unifying of all - is the street corner. Street corners are the place where so much of the congress of the city goes on, and it has a vey functional reason.  Take 'smoozing in the garment district of New York.  If you go along Seventh Avenue, any time from 10 o'clock in the morning until dark, you will see these knots of men standing on the sidewalks talking, sometimes not talking. Smoozing is a Yiddish term which means 'nothing talk.'  Of course there is a lot of business talk, a lot of gossip, but then you begin to notice they resemble men standing around a country courthouse.  It is a very ancient city position that fulfills some deep human impulse.  Smoozing is not necessary talking. Right after lunch, usually three or four men will line up - three abreast.  They are not necessarily saying anything but seem to be engaged in a contented amiable silence. Watch their feet.  The feet reflect a communication. If a girl goes by, the feet reveal what they are thinking. Or some crazy person goes by and one guy stops his foot pattern and then another will take it up. Larger groups reveal similar foot motions, and you will also notice the tendency to reciprocal gestures.

I have never broken the code about the meaning of these foot motions, but I feel that there is in these non-verbal patterns a human  congress that is terribly important, and that if we do not see them in a city there is something very wrong with the city. There are a number of places where you do not see this kind of activity: something about the collection of buildings and streets which prohibits this kind of thing.  Now, I would give you other ways to buttress this point, but instead will repeat my former statement:  what attracts people most to the city are other people.

William H. Whyte, "The City as Dwelling"