writers american landscape organization

books:

The Organization Man
William H. Whyte Jr.

Doubleday Anchor Books, 1957

The Organization Man is the first complete study of a way of life that many Americans are now leading, and that many more are likely to lead. It is life under the protection of the big organization--the corporation, the government, perhaps the university, charitable organization, or labor union. Here modern Americans find the jobs that promise security and a high standard of living, and, Mr. Whyte believes, give up the hopes and ambitions that ...

The Social Life of Small Urban Spaces

3 reviews
William H. Whyte

Project for Public Spaces Inc, 2001

How urban areas work
Years ago I watched an episode of NOVA on PBS on William H. Whyte that explained the background and purpose and accomplishments of his project to study what makes urban spaces in cities work. I sat there riveted, as he methodically and carefully unveiled a vast range of urban phenomena of which I had hitherto been unaware. The background to his study was this: following the enormous success of ...

The WPA Guide to New York City: The Federal Writers' Project Guide to 1930s New York (American Guide)

7 reviews
William H. Whyte

New Press, 1995

fascinating read
Not for reading straight through, the guide is an amazing resource. Anybody living in or visiting New York regularly will be fascinated to look up their favourite (or least favourite) neighbourhoods to see what they were like in 1939. The maps are beautiful (the photos less interesting) and the text is elegantly and lyrically written. It's a bit of an archeological game at times, as you find ...

The Organization Man

6 reviews
William H. Whyte

University of Pennsylvania Press, 2002

The 1950's Corporation: Friend or foe?
William Whyte, who was an editor at Fortune magazine, argues in this 1956 bestseller that some people not only worked for an organization, but sold their psyches to them as well. These "organization men" willingly subordinated their personal goals and desires to conform to the demands of corporations and other organizations. This is different than modern-day workaholism -- the "organization ...

City: Rediscovering the Center

2 reviews
William H. Whyte

Anchor, 1990

Essential reading for any urban planner.
This book is terrific because William Whyte doesn't relie on any theory. Instead, he logged countless hours watching street corners, public parks and plazas to see how people actually use them, and draws conclusions on how to make them better, safer, and useable. His ideas of planning public areas were first used to a great extent in redeveloping Bryant Park in NYC. Formally a haven for drug ...

The Last Landscape
William H. Whyte

University of Pennsylvania Press, 2002

The remaining corner of an old farm, unclaimed by developers. The brook squeezed between housing plans. Abandoned railroad lines. The stand of woods along an expanded highway. These are the outposts of what was once a larger pattern of forests and farms, the "last landscape." According to William H. Whyte, the place to work out the problems of our metropolitan areas is within those areas, not outside them. The age of unchecked expansion without ...