William H. Whyte Quotes

It is difficult to design a space that will not attract people. What is remarkable is how often this has been accomplished.

What attracts people most, it would appear, is other people.

The street is the river of life of the city, the place where we come together, the pathway to the center.

People tend to sit where there are places to sit

If you want to seed a place with activity, the first thing to do is to put out food.

So-called 'undesirables' are not the problem. It is the measures taken to combat them that is the problem.

It’s not right to put water before people and then keep them away from it.

Trees are contagious; as soon as one neighborhood or street is planted, citizen pressure builds up for action from the next street.

The human backside is a dimension architects seem to have forgotten.

People very rarely think in groups; they talk together, they exchange information, they adjudicate, they make compromises. But they do not think; they do not create.

Nonconformity is an empty goal, and rebellion against prevailing opinion merely because it is prevailing should no more be praised than acquiescence to it. Indeed, it is often a mask for cowardice, and few are more pathetic than those who flaunt outer differences to expiate their inner surrender.

People do not always argue because they misunderstand one another, they argue because they hold different goals.

We have been the most prodigal of people with land, and for years we wasted it with impunity. There was so much of it, and no matter how we fouled it, there was always more over the next hill, or so it seemed.

The onlooker had better wipe the sympathy off his face. What he has seen is a revolution, not the home of little cogs and drones. What he has seen is the dormitory of the next managerial class.