Brady Public Humanities Archive

Welcome to the Handbook

Reading List

The Great Neighborhood Book: A Do-It-Yourself Guide to Placemaking

Description:This book offers practical insights into creating vibrant community-oriented neighborhoods through placemaking initiatives and engagement.

Author:Jay Walljasper

Publication Year:2007

Soft City: Building Density for Everyday Life

Description:Imagine waking up to the gentle noises of the city, and moving through your day with complete confidence that you will get where you need to go quickly and efficiently. Soft City is about ease and comfort, where density has a human dimension, adapting to our ever-changing needs, nurturing relationships, and accommodating the pleasures of everyday life. How do we move from the current reality in most cites—separated uses and lengthy commutes in single-occupancy vehicles that drain human, environmental, and community resources—to support a soft city approach? In Soft City David Sim, partner and creative director at Gehl, shows how this is possible, presenting ideas and graphic examples from around the globe. He draws from his vast design experience to make a case for a dense and diverse built environment at a human scale, which he presents through a series of observations of older and newer places, and a range of simple built phenomena, some traditional and some totally new inventions.

The Social Life of Small Urban Spaces

Description:This classic work examines the impact of design on urban public spaces exploring how these spaces shape social interactions and community life.

Author: William H. Whyte

Publication Year:1980

Key People

Henry Lefebvre

Description:Henri Lefebvre was a French Marxist philosopher and sociologist, best known for pioneering the critique of everyday life, for introducing the concepts of the right to the city and the production of social space, and for his work on dialectical materialism, alienation.

Pierre Nora

Description:Pierre Nora is a French historian elected to the Académie française on 7 June 2001. He is known for his work on French identity and memory.

Erica Friend

Description:Councilwoman Monica Rodriguez spearheads a new mural on San Fernando Road with artist Erica Friend. The project was produced by 11:11 Projects and features local landmarks and wildlife.

Key Concepts

Placemaking is a Group Effort

Description:Partners for political, financial, and intellectual backing are crucial to getting a public space improvement project off the ground. These partners can range from individuals, to private or municipal institutions, to museums, to schools.

Places, Not Designs

Description:Placemaking is not just about designing a park or plaza with efficient pedestrian circulation. It involves taking into account the interrelations between surrounding retailers, vendors, amenities provided, and activities taking place in the space, then fine-tuning the space with landscape changes, additions of seating, etc., to make all of those elements mesh. The end result should be a cohesive unit that creates greater value for the community than just the sum of its parts.

Tactical Placemaking

Description:Tactical Placemaking is the process of creating Quality Places that uses a deliberate, often phased approach to change that begins with a short term commitment and realistic expectations that can start quickly (and often at low cost).

Jennifer Brady 2023