1. LIVEABLE CITIES –for the 21st Century
PEOPLE ORIENTED CITY PLANNING AS STRATEGY
JAN GEHL, PROFESSOR, DR. LITT.
FOUNDING PARTNER: GEHL ARCHITECTS
URBAN QUALITY CONSULTANTS, COPENHAGEN

2. ”Life Between
4 Buildings”
1st edition 1971
Published in man
versions
decades 21 languages
of
research ”New City
Spaces” - 2001
”Public Spaces
Public Life
- 1996
”New City Life” -
2006

3. Bangladesh, 2008 Vietnam, 2008 Iran, 2010

6. Public Space as Meeting Place

7. Public Space as Market Place

8. Public Space as Connection Space

9. The traditional city......forever

10. The invaded city....from 1950s

12. All Cities have Traffic
Departments and perfect
statistics concerning traffic
and parking
*
The cars are very visible and
everpresent in the planning
proces

13. Do you know of any Citydepartment for
pedestrians and public life?
Hardly any City have statistics and data
concerning the people who use the city
*
The people in the City tends to be very
invisible and poorly represented in the
planning proces

15. The Carinvasion gets worser every day,
until someone puts their foot down and
decides to do something about it.
Bogota, Colombia - 6 mio. Inh.

16. The reconquered city...from 1980s

17. Reconquered
Cities:
A change of
Paradigme
WANTED:
- Lively City
- Attractive City
- Safe City
- Sustainable City
- Healthy City

18. Lively City

19. Attractive City
People Scale, Less Stress, Less Noise, Less Polution
+ a City dominated by Attraction Nr. 1: PEOPLE

20. Safe city

21. Sustainable City

22. Healthy City
”Houston -the City with the
fattest people of the World”

23. Reconqured Cities
Keywords
Willingnes to place
constraints to the vehicular
traffic
London – Congestion Charge 2003

24. Reconqured Cities Careful planning for
Keywords: Walking and Public Life

25. Copenhagen
From traffic place to people place

26. Strøget (main street)
pedestrianized 1962

27. Public Space-Public Life Surveys: Copenhagen 1968, 1985, 1995, 2005

28. Many more People are walking in the city

29. 4 times more people
spend time in the city

30. In only 40 years the good season has been
extended from 2 to 10 months

31. Copenhagen Street: 2
Sidewalks, 2 proper bicycle
lanes, street trees, 2 lanes
for 2 way traffic, and a
substan- tial median to
facilitate crossing the
street
”We do not have to think
and act as 1960s traffic
engineers for ever -times
are changing and traffic
engineers are by now much
smarter”

32. Copenhagen: New Public Life Policy 2009:
”WORLDS FINEST CITY FOR PEOPLE”
Among the goals:”Everyone to walk 20% more by 2015!!!”

33. Bicycling in Copenhagen
-on a citywide network of bicycle lanes

34. Bicycles are taken
straight through the
street crossings and the
lanes are marked with
blue
Bicycle signals turns green
six seconds before the car
signals

35. A bicycle culture have step by step
been developed
Everybody bike

36. Cello- and bass players
cycle

37. Oct 2011: New Danish Red - Gren Government arriving on
bicycles at the Palace to be commissioned by the Queen.
No Limousines no more?

38. Going to work in the City of Copenhagen
37% use bicycle
27% drive car
33% use public transit
5% walk

39. 70% continue to bike in the winter

40. Official City Poster
September 2007
Copenhagen
The No 1 Bicycle
City in the World
Goals for 2015:
* 50% of all comuting
on bicycles
* Bicycle Accidents to
be halved”

41. Melbourne, - 3 mio. Inh.

42. The Age c.
1980

43. Places for People
1994
Places for People
2004
www.gehlarchitects.dk

45. MELBOURNE City Center 1994-2004
Pedestrian traffic weekdays daytime: +40%
Pedestrian traffic evening: +100 %
Stationary activities +200-300%

46. Retail
Residential
Office Vacancies
Employment
Bars and Pubs

48. Copenhagen Melbourne oct 07

49. A CITY GOOD AT PARTIES, OLYMPICS and SUMMITS….

50. ….. BUT NOT SO GLORIOUS FOR THE EVERYDAY LIFE

51. Main Street in Sydney to be transformed
to Pedestrians, Bicycles and Light Rail
Present situation George St. After conversion

55. Vancouver , B.C. ,
Order of priority: Walking, Bicycling, Transit
and Deliveries. The Auto is last.

56. Washington DC. 2010: Cycling
down (in the middle of)
Pensylvania Ave

58. A GREENER, GREATER NEW YORK

62. 9th Ave. Apr.08
9th Ave. Sep.08

65. Phot:DOT/NYC

66. Phot:DOT/NYC

67. Broadway Boulevard 23
May 2009
“When you can make it
there you can make it
anywhere,
New York, New York !!”

68. WELCOME TO THE 21st CENTURY

70. LIFE & ACTIVITY IS THE FINEST
ATTRACTION OF ALL

71. In the home the
Children play were
the activity is

72. Outdoors children
also prefer to play
where other
activities go on
100
80
Minutes spent outdoors pr. Day
60
Park
Pedestrian routes
40 Access roads
(average)
20
weekday sunday weekday sunday
Children 0-6 Children 7-14

74. Life:
an everlasting source of learning

77. “Man is man’s greatest joy”
(Old Icelandic saying)

78. Always a two-way contact:
To watch and be watched

83. Life between
buildings is so
important, it is never
forgotten in
architectual
drawings

85. We are talking about
life itself!
-everything worth
talking about happens
when you are on your
feet -that`s what we
were made for!

86. There is much more to walking -than walking!
A mode of transport - but with a potential for much more
-and the ”much more” is by far the more interesting part!

87. You can walk -and walk - and walk....

88. -but you could just as well ”walk`n-talk”
Slide 63

89. - or ”walk`n-watch” (and be watched!)

90. - or ”walk`n-wink”
Slide 63

91. -or you can ”stop`n watch”
If you can find a vacant bollard ! (Campo in Siena, Italy)

92. -or you can ”stop`n-talk”

93. -or you can ”walk`n-waltz`”

94. -or you can ”stop`n - watch`n - learn”

95. -and whenever you feel like
you can adress your fellow
citiziens

96. Transport dimension
Getting from A to B - simple, cheap, low noise

97. Social dimension
The City as meetingplace

98. People watching
- the number one attraction in any city

99. People watching - the number 1,2,3...10
attraction in any city

100. Sustainability dimension
A good Public Realm is a crucial factor
for good Public Transportation

101. Health dimension

102. Democratic dimension
”Open Society” dimension
Danse his sort her

104. A heartfelt
welcome to a local
shopping center
(Australia)

105. Friendly, safe city dimension

106. The Economic dimension
AABOULEVARDEN - BEFORE THE
REOPENING OF THE RIVER
AABOULEVARDEN - AFTER THE
REOPENING OF THE RIVER

107. Sheer fun dimension
”a general human dimension”
.....Oh, what a wonderfull World!