The book and film describe Whyte's analytical process and approach to evaluating and understanding a series of public spaces, mostly small parks, squares and office tower plazas in Manhattan, New York City.

The book summarised research undertaken as part of the Street Life Project for the New York City Planning Commission that Whyte had collated since 1969.

[1] The book is set out with the following eleven thematic chapters: A total of 18 small urban spaces in Manhattan were comparatively analysed.

The following list shows the original collection name of each site in the first column as used in graphs and charts in the book.

[4][5] In 1981 a lightly re-edited version was made by Nova for broadcast on PBS, titled "City Spaces, Human Places".