STREET LIFE PROJECT

The Nashville Street Life Project began as a response to the ground breaking documentary film by urban sociologist William Whyte “The Social Life of Small Urban Spaces.”

In the film, Whyte studied why some public spaces in New York City thrived with life and why some did not. Whyte’s method involved observing how people use public spaces through techniques such as time lapse photography, behavioral mapping, and on site surveys. He discovered that the most successful and best used spaces were those that were social, that is they had “a higher proportion of couples, more people in groups, more people meeting people, and exchanging good byes.”

His findings not only served as the basis of a 1975 over haul of the New York City Zoning Code, but also helped shape some of the most successful public spaces in the world. The work of William Whyte reminds us that the creation of successful public spaces hinges on our ability to understand how they are used.

The Nashville Street Life Project is a grass roots movement whose sole purpose is to raise the quality of life of those who live, work, and visit downtown Nashville by creating a network of successful public spaces. These public spaces included parks, plazas, streets, sidewalks, alleys, and any other space that fosters the social relationships that build communities.

In the words of William Whyte, “The Street is the river of life of the city, the place where we come together, the pathway to the center.” Public spaces are the stage in which the social life of the city unfolds. It is where our sense of place evolves and where the lasting bonds of communities are formed.

The long term success of downtown Nashville as an urban neighborhood depends on its ability to provide public spaces that function as social gathering places. By adopting a “placemaking” approach, public spaces can be evaluated and their relative success, or failure, can be measured in quantitate terms. As a pilot project, and a means to begin a dialogue about the importance of public space, The Nashville Street Life Project conducted a study of Church Street Park. (download initial preliminary findings 6.6mb pdf)

Please monitor this site as the work continues.