“American Urbanist: How William H. Whyte’s Unconventional Wisdom Reshaped Public Life” by Richard K. Rein

 From Amazon… 

“On an otherwise normal weekday in the 1980s, commuters on busy Route 1 in central New Jersey noticed an alarming sight: a man in a suit and tie dashing across four lanes of traffic, then scurrying through a narrow underpass as cars whizzed by within inches. The man was William “Holly” Whyte, a pioneer of people-centered urban design. Decades before this perilous trek to a meeting in the suburbs, he had urged planners to look beyond their desks and drawings: ‘You have to get out and walk.’