to 64 - Palmerston North City Council

ContextBethesda Lane in Bethesda, USAThree factors underlie the approach to developing the city centre.These are working with the human dimension, treating the city centreas a destination, and focusing on emotional attachment to a place.The SensoryExperienceThe human dimension is the universal starting point to buildcities for people. Building a city that caters to people is themost efficient and low cost investment a city can make tomeet four goals – a lively, safe, healthy and sustainable city. Theelements that are consistent starting point for design are thatpeople “have walking, a sensory apparatus, movementoperations, and behavior patterns in common.” 2 These factorshave often been neglected at the expense of good conditionsfor people to engage in city life. With the overwhelmingpressure to develop cities to accommodate traffic the humandimension has often been of secondary importance. In future,understanding and working with these human elements atthe earliest stages of design will be a pre-requisite for citycentre development.Colourful planting and a dynamic sculpture, Main Street West7DRAFT CCF FOR PALMERSTON NORTH [ Context ]2Jan Gehl – Cities for People p229