Jan Gehl
The great motor divide: How our obsession with cars has driven us apart
Transportation by private car fails the city socially, while transit’s built-in opportunities for contact and cooperation are tools we desperately need to leverage in order to learn how to live together again.
March 22, 2022
Talking Headways Podcast With Special Guest Jan Gehl
Danish architect and urban planner Jan Gehl, who led Copenhagen's turn away from car-domination toward streets and public spaces for people, is on a U.S. tour. I got to sit down with him this week in Washington.
February 7, 2014
The Crossroads of the World Goes Car-Free
I've lived in New York City for just about twenty years now but yesterday was my first trip to Times Square.
May 26, 2009
Gehl-O-Rama: City Agencies Take Lessons From Copenhagen
Before hitting the "World Class Streets" launch Thursday night, Jan Gehl addressed about 70 staffers from DOT, City Planning, and NYCEDC, part of a day-long exercise that introduced participants to the Danish planner's site evaluation methods. Commissioners Amanda Burden and Janette Sadik-Khan gave a hero's welcome to Gehl, whom they called "instrumental" to revamping New York's approach to planning.
November 17, 2008
Jan Gehl: New York Could Have World’s Best Streets
When DOT Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan, together with consultant and Danish urban planner Jan Gehl, introduced the new "World Class Streets" doc [PDF] to a crowd of over 300 last Thursday evening at the Center for Architecture, the event seemed equal parts town hall meeting and celebrity book launch.
November 17, 2008
Tonight: See the Blueprint for a New Upper West Side
Streets designed for safe, accessible, and equitable use. That is the vision of the "Blueprint for the Upper West Side: A Roadmap for Truly Livable Streets," to be unveiled tonight by the Upper West Side Streets Renaissance Campaign. The product of one year of community-driven planning, in consultation with urbanist legends Jan Gehl and Donald Shoup, the 51-page Blueprint [PDF] is an expansive neighborhood-wide plan that would employ many livable streets concepts already in use by NYC DOT.
November 13, 2008
Jan Gehl Reflects on San Francisco’s Fisherman’s Wharf
"When I was a visiting professor at Berkeley in the 1980s, I used to come to Fisherman's Wharf and walk around," Danish urban designer Jan Gehl said Wednesday night, to more than 100 San Franciscans at the Pier 39 Theater near Fisherman's Wharf. "Now it's like deja vu; it's exactly like I remember it 25 years ago."
October 9, 2008
Jan Gehl Says San Francisco Must be Sweet to Pedestrians and Cyclists
It's a good day in a city's urbanist evolution when Jan Gehl comes to town, and now San Francisco can add itself to the growing list of cities around the world that have embraced his people-first approach to urban design and planning.
October 8, 2008