Learned something new via Twitter today. I’m finding that the channel can lead to some interesting places on the web…if the quantity of these suggestions comes at a completely overwhelming pace.

I digress…This is a movie clip studying the question of what makes a successful well-used urban plaza. It is a pretty fascinating take on both urban design and urban sociology. And the fact that it is quite old, really doesn’t detract from this interest, nor does it make the findings irrelevant today.

William Whyte worked for the New York City Planning Commission and began filming, recording, and making observations about people in the urban landscape. Wikepedia says, “these observations developed into the “Street Life Project”, an ongoing study of pedestrian behavior and city dynamics,” which led him to pen many books on these subjects.

Enjoy this segment from the companion film to his book The Social Life of Small Urban Spaces (1980).