The Best Quotes by Jan Gehl — city planner and urban visionary
Jan Gehl is somewhat of a legend in the city planning. He has spent about 50 years of his life researching the role of streets and public spaces in cities and how to make them better for people.
He started work in Copenhagen, his home town, but has been employed by cities around the world to research, consult and advise. Those cities have included London, New York, Sydney, Melbourne and Moscow.
If you take the time to listen to him you’ll hear some wonderful insights. Indeed one of his key achievements has been to get people to see and think differently about how their city is designed.
I’ve pulled together here the best Jan Gehl quotes I could find. (These came after my research for writing a profile on him.) If you’re keen you’ll find even more quotes in this post on our website - ‘Jan Gehl Quotes’.
Cities and public spaces
“First we shape the cities — then they shape us.”
“The city throughout the history of mankind has been the meeting place for people. Much of the culture of mankind has happened in the public space. Public space is a very important aspect of a good and well functioning city.”
“It’s interesting to see which cities of the world are on the list of liveable cities. They’re always the cities that are sweet to their people.”
‘Human scale’ v Modernist approach
“Modernist planners and architects lost the sense of building to the human scale. No profession was asked to look after this. Everything was done too big as if it was not for people anymore.”
“The most important scale is the people scale. The city at eye level and at 5km/hour. This knowledge (about human scale) has been lost by planners and architects.”
Think small
“Think big but always remember to make the places where people are to be, small.”
The impact of cars on cities
“Following the car invasion of the 1960s every city had a traffic department that counted cars but no city had a department for people and public spaces. No city had any knowledge of how their cities were being used by people — but they did know how traffic used the city.”
“40 years ago getting as many cars as possible into the centre of the city was seen as the thing to do. That is certainly not the thing to do today.”
Shifting thinking from cars to people
“If you invite more cars, you get more cars. If you make more streets better for cars you get more traffic. If you make more bicycle infrastructure you get more bicycles. If you invite people to walk more and use public spaces more, you get more life in the city. You get what you invite.”
“I have never worked in any city anywhere where I was not told at the start ‘you must realise that we have a special relationship to our cars in this particular region so it will never happen here. Then when things have happened 10 years later no-one can remember anyone saying that.”
“When I first worked in Melbourne I was told ‘we are Australian — we are born with a wheel in our hands when we come out of our mother’s womb’.”
The benefits of walking and cycling
“By being sweet to the pedestrian and the cyclist you hit five birds with one stone — you get a lively city, you get an attractive city, you get a safe city, you get a sustainable city, and you get a city that’s good for your health. These are all things we are very concerned about at this time in history.”
“We have the serious problem now of the ‘sitting syndrome’. For 50 years we had planning that invited people to sit from early morning to late night — behind computers and in cars. Now doctors are telling us to plan cities that encourage people to walk and cycle as much as possible. This is in the World Health Organisation’s strategy for cities — to make cities for walking and cycling. This will give people better quality of life and be much cheaper for health systems.”
Smart transport
“We can easily make cities where you don’t need individual cars for each individual’s transportation.”
“In Copenhagen, it’s considered to be much smarter to use the Metro (public transport) or bicycle than to try to drill your car into congestion in the city.”
Urban planning
“The main focus of urban planning has been to keep the cars happy.”
Density
“We should make cities six to seven storeys high — like they did in Paris in the good old days.”
Human behaviour
“It is a fact of life that the greatest interest of people is other people.”
“A good city is like a good party — people stay longer than really necessary because they are enjoying themselves.”
“If you see a city with many children and many old people using the city’s public spaces it’s a sign that it’s a good quality place for people.”
Architecture and architects
“First life, then spaces, then buildings — the other way around never works.”
“Architects know very little about people.”
“An endless number of green buildings don’t make a sustainable city.”
“It’s very easy to study form. But architecture is actually the interplay between life and form. This is much more complicated to study.”
“Why do architectural professors go out and photograph buildings at 4 in the morning? Is it so there’ll be no disturbing people in the foreground of the photo for their lectures?”
“In the 90s we had ‘starkitecture’. Architects competed with each other on who could make the funniest shapes for buildings. What’s really important is not what it looks like but how it adds to the quality of the city.”
“Architecture and city planning has an enormous impact on patterns of life in the city. Yes we form the cities but then the cities form us.”
“Every time we build anything we affect the quality of life of people.”
How liveable cities are good for democracy and safety
“It’s very important there’s public life in public spaces. That means people from all walks of life will naturally meet in the streets, squares and parks of the city. So you can see what society you belong to. You can see your fellow citizens eye to eye going about daily life.”
“The presence of other people is always important for your feeling of safety.”
How liveable cities are good for business
“In the 21st Century if you treat people badly it is bad for your city’s economy. If you treat people gently it is good for your city’s economy.”
“It’s interesting to see the investment of companies in relocating. They will go to the cities which are the most liveable cities in the world and not the ones that have the most cars in their downtown streets.”
The cost of making cities liveable
“Some people say it will be very expensive. The vast majority of our recommendations are peanuts. What is really costly is the infrastructure we’ve made for cars. That costs a lot of money.”
City changes around the world
“After being invaded by cars and traffic for 50 years we’re now seeing many examples of cities being reconquered for people.”
Similarities across cities
“I’ve come to realise it is the same creature that lives in all corners of the world. It’s homo sapiens. We all have the same biological history. Our senses are made for this walking animal. The way we move around in the city is the same.”
“We have found in the research a number of things that are standard in all corners of the world. When all those criteria have been met in a place you have this feeling you belong there. You feel like you’ve arrived. That is the same whether you’re in Greenland, New Zealand, or Japan.”
The future of cities
“All the cities of the world are going to expand. We need to have a better understanding of what makes good urban habitat for home sapiens. We have an obligation to make the new places more livable, more sustainable, more healthy. We have the tools.”
Sources
Jan Gehl interview for The Environment Show
‘In Search of the Human Scale’ Jan Gehl TED Talk
‘Is Jan Gehl winning his battle to make our cities liveable?’ Ellie Violet Bramley, The Guardian, 8 December 2014
‘Designing Cities for People, Not Cars’ Climate One
‘How to Build a Good City’ Jan Gehl Interview on The Lousiana Channel
‘Intelligent Cities: Community’ Jan Gehl Interview for the National Building Museum
‘Intelligent Cities: Neighbourhood’ Jan Gehl Interview for the National Building Museum
‘Urban Design with Jan Gehl’ Crane TV
Related posts
This ‘Best of Jan Gehl Quotes’ post was one of a series of best quotes on the environment and sustainability by the world’s environmental leaders.
If you’ve seen any other good Jan Gehl quotes let us know in the Comments.
