The Life-Sized City Blog

Copenhagen's famous pedestrian street "Strøget" turns 50 on September 2, 2012. There will be festivities up and down the street in celebration. Here's a post that shows the origins of the idea can be found in 1913. Originally published on 11 August 2009. I dipped into the archives the other day and found an interesting article from 1913 about traffic on the main thoroughfare in Copenhagen - ' Strøget '. In the early 1960's Strøget, the main street running east-west through the city centre, became quite famous. It was closed off to cars and transformed into a pedestrian zone. Strøget 1951 and in 1964. Strøget now. (on a very quiet morning, believe me) There were protests back then. Cries of "we're not Italians! We don't want to walk !" were heard in the city. Shopkeepers feared for their businesses. Fortunately, the idea was implemented by the City of Copenhagen. They had seen some of the great ideas by urban planner Jan Geh...

Much is written about the Danish urban planner and architect Jan Gehl with regards to creating segregated bike infrastructure in cities in order to keep cyclists safe and to increase the number of cyclists in the urban landscape. It's worth mentioning that it's not all about the bike lanes. They are a fantastic symbol of intelligent urban planning, but Gehl's thoughts and experiences with urban planning in general are far-reaching. His consultancy company Gehl Architects continue his important work. I like this excerpt from an interview with Metropolis Magazine : "One of the interesting things about Copenhagen is the gradual approach. "Public Spaces, Public Life" is the first ever recording of the life of a city. Every city counts its traffic one or two times a year, but hardly any city knows about what people do in a city and how the city is being used . "In Copenhagen we've pioneered this as a working method: study what's going on, look at the...