By 2050, around 75% of the world’s population will be living in urban environments.

Jan Gehl is a Danish architect and urban design consultant based in Copenhagen whose career has focused on improving the quality of urban life and creating ‘cities for people’.

His research spanning the last half a century, has examined every detail of the relationship between the physical form in cities and the effects on people.

His humanistic and sustainable design ideology has also been used to transform the economy and fortunes of many people all over the world.

Jan now travels the world ‘spreading the gospel’, that well planned design is vital to provide sustainable, healthy, safe and lively cities.

As he says: ‘We shape cities, and they shape us.”

This film was funded and produced by Placemaking Video in 2016 to celebrate 50 years of research by Jan Gehl as well as 15 years since he started his consultancy Gehl Architects and his 80th birthday.

Placemaking Video produces engaging films to support urbanists, architects, city planners and developers in their mission to create great places in cities for people to live, work, visit and play.