Fieldwork in Public space assessment: William Holly Whyte and the Street Life project, 1971-75

This chapter outlines the twin roles of analysis and intuition in the assessment of public space through an example of urban fieldwork. The territory for this 'creative legwork' is the public spaces of Modernist Midtown Manhattan, much of which was built as a result of 1961 zoning regulations. This fieldwork creatively adopted methods usually used by other fields, and through 'legwork', changed legislation and encouraged better designs, 'When architects and planners designed by intuition, Holly gave them facts (Whyte 1969, Goldberger 1999:55)'.