William H. Whyte
Encyclopedia
William Hollingsworth "Holly" Whyte (1917 - 12 January 1999) was an American urbanist, organizational analyst, journalist
Journalism
Journalism is the practice of investigation and reporting of events, issues and trends to a broad audience in a timely fashion. Though there are many variations of journalism, the ideal is to inform the intended audience. Along with covering organizations and institutions such as government and...

 and people-watcher.

Whyte was born in West Chester, Pennsylvania
West Chester, Pennsylvania
The Borough of West Chester is the county seat of Chester County, Pennsylvania, United States. The population was 18,461 at the 2010 census.Valley Forge, the Brandywine Battlefield, Longwood Gardens, Marsh Creek State Park, and other historical attractions are near West Chester...

 in 1917 and died in New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...

 in 1999. An early graduate of St. Andrew's School in Middletown, Delaware
Middletown, Delaware
Middletown is a town in New Castle County, Delaware, United States. According to the 2010 Census, the population of the town is 18,871.-Geography:Middletown is located at with an elevation of ....

, he graduated from Princeton University
Princeton University
Princeton University is a private research university located in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. The school is one of the eight universities of the Ivy League, and is one of the nine Colonial Colleges founded before the American Revolution....

 and then served in Marine Corps
Marine corps
A marine is a member of a force that specializes in expeditionary operations such as amphibious assault and occupation. The marines traditionally have strong links with the country's navy...

. In 1946 he joined Fortune magazine
Fortune (magazine)
Fortune is a global business magazine published by Time Inc. Founded by Henry Luce in 1930, the publishing business, consisting of Time, Life, Fortune, and Sports Illustrated, grew to become Time Warner. In turn, AOL grew as it acquired Time Warner in 2000 when Time Warner was the world's largest...

.

Whyte wrote a 1956 bestseller
Bestseller
A bestseller is a book that is identified as extremely popular by its inclusion on lists of currently top selling titles that are based on publishing industry and book trade figures and published by newspapers, magazines, or bookstore chains. Some lists are broken down into classifications and...

 titled The Organization Man
The Organization Man
The Organization Man is a 1956 bestselling book by William H. Whyte, originally published by Simon & Schuster. It is considered one of the most influential books on management ever written.-Background and influence:...

after Fortune Magazine sponsored him to do extensive interviews on the CEO
Chief executive officer
A chief executive officer , managing director , Executive Director for non-profit organizations, or chief executive is the highest-ranking corporate officer or administrator in charge of total management of an organization...

s of corporations such as General Electric
General Electric
General Electric Company , or GE, is an American multinational conglomerate corporation incorporated in Schenectady, New York and headquartered in Fairfield, Connecticut, United States...

 and Ford
Ford Motor Company
Ford Motor Company is an American multinational automaker based in Dearborn, Michigan, a suburb of Detroit. The automaker was founded by Henry Ford and incorporated on June 16, 1903. In addition to the Ford and Lincoln brands, Ford also owns a small stake in Mazda in Japan and Aston Martin in the UK...

.

While working with the New York City Planning Commission in 1969, Whyte began to use direct observation to describe behavior in urban settings. With research assistants wielding still cameras, movie cameras, and notebooks, Whyte described the substance of urban public life in an objective and measurable way.

These observations developed into the "Street Life Project", an ongoing study of pedestrian behavior and city dynamics, and eventually to Whyte's book called City: Rediscovering the Center (1988). "City" presents Whyte's conclusions about jaywalking, 'schmoozing patterns,' the actual use of urban plazas, appropriate sidewalk width, and other issues. This work remains valuable because it's based on careful observation, and because it contradicts other conventional wisdom, for instance, the idea that pedestrian traffic and auto traffic should be separated.

Whyte also worked closely with the renovation of Bryant Park
Bryant Park
Bryant Park is a 9.603 acre privately managed public park located in the New York City borough of Manhattan. It is located between Fifth and Sixth Avenues and between 40th and 42nd Streets in Midtown Manhattan...

 in New York City.

Whyte served as mentor to many, including the urban-planning writer Jane Jacobs
Jane Jacobs
Jane Jacobs, was an American-Canadian writer and activist with primary interest in communities and urban planning and decay. She is best known for The Death and Life of Great American Cities , a powerful critique of the urban renewal policies of the 1950s in the United States...

, Paco Underhill
Paco Underhill
Paco Underhill is an environmental psychologist, the author of the books Why We Buy: The Science of Shopping, Call of the Mall: The Geography of Shopping and What Women Want: The Global Marketplace Turns Female Friendly, and the founder of a market research and consulting company called Envirosell...

, who has applied the same technique to measuring and improving retail environments, Dan Biederman of Bryant Park
Bryant Park
Bryant Park is a 9.603 acre privately managed public park located in the New York City borough of Manhattan. It is located between Fifth and Sixth Avenues and between 40th and 42nd Streets in Midtown Manhattan...

 Corporation, who led the renovation of Bryant Park and the Business Improvement District
Business improvement district
A business improvement district is a defined area within which businesses pay an additional tax or fee in order to fund improvements within the district's boundaries. Grant funds acquired by the city for special programs and/or incentives such as tax abatements can be made available to assist...

 movement in New York City, and Fred Kent
Fred Kent
Fred Kent is the founder and president of the non profit organization Project for Public Spaces. The organization is dedicated to creating public places that foster communities.He studied with Margaret Mead and worked with William H...

, head of the Project for Public Spaces
Project for Public Spaces
Project for Public Spaces is a nonprofit organization based in New York dedicated to creating and sustaining public places that build communities. Planning and design rooted in the community form the cornerstone of PPS’s work. Building on the techniques of William H...

.

His other books include: Is Anybody Listening? (1952), Securing Open Spaces for Urban America (1959), Cluster Development
Cluster development
Cluster development is the economic development of business clusters. The cluster concept has rapidly attracted attention from governments, consultants, and academics since it was first proposed in 1990 by Michael Porter...

(1964), The Last Landscape (1968; "about the way metropolitan areas look and the way they might look"), The Social Life of Small Urban Spaces (1980; plus a companion film of the same name in 1988), and City: Rediscovering the Center (1988).

External links

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