Research has shown that successful public spaces are ones that are responsive to the needs of their users, are democratic in their accessibility, and are meaningful for the larger community and society. While considerable research has been done on needs and conflicts in open space, no one document integrates all this knowledge and makes it available to professionals, students, and researchers.

Based on archival research; published case studies; site visits; and interviews with researchers, open space designers, managers, and users, Urban Open Space looks across several seminal studies to glean significant findings and design implications related to user needs and conflicts. It reviews and identifies those critical user needs that must be considered in the planning, design, and management of outdoor spaces, and synthesizes that knowledge into an accessible and useful document.

The Village Homes neighborhood in Davis, California is one of the few long-standing examples of sustainable community design. Mark Francis has been studying Village Homes for more than two decades and brings together existing research and writing on the community, studies about the children of Village Homes he conducted throughout the 1980s, and interviews with many parties involved with the project including designers, residents, gardeners, and maintenance people. Mark Francis takes a critical look at Village Homes, addressing its failures as well as its successes, and examines the question of why, despite its success, this development has not been replicated.