“The social life of small urban spaces”: le riprese cinematografiche come strumenti di analisi nella ricerca di William H. Whyte

‘The Social Life of Small Urban Spaces’: film shooting as a tool for analysis in William H. Whyte’s research Together with a volume of the same title, published in 1980, the film The Social Life of Small Urban Spaces, commented by the voiceover of its author, William H. Whyte, presented some results of the research carried out, starting from the 1970, by the group called ‘The Street Life Project’, led by him, on the use of New York public spaces and the reasons of their success or failure. The evaluation of these spaces was started during the administration of John Lindsay, Mayor of New York from 1966 to 1973, following the collaboration of Whyte with the City Planning Commission. The analysis of some of the privately owned public spaces, realized on the base of the incentives introduced by the 1961 New York City zoning resolution, was conducted thanks to time-lapse shooting of the plazas from above, the film shooting at street level of the movements and the behaviors of the people who used those spaces, as well as interviews, questionnaires and direct observations. The article focuses on Whyte’s work, analyzing the documentary based on the montage of a selection of the great amount of film footage produced by the group over the years. The film was created in order to illustrate the research methods and to synthesize in a clear and convincing way the outcomes of a study with eminently practical purposes. Whyte’s effective communication strategy resulted in the dissemination of his strong confidence in the power of well-designed public spaces. His proposals had a significant impact on the transformation and creation of small plazas and parks in New York, thanks, above all, to the amendments to the Zoning Code adopted in 1975. Whyte ideas contributed also to projects of ‘placemaking’ in other cities of the United States and in other countries