A group of children playing on a playground near a modern apartment complex with trees and a fence, promoting housing as if people mattered.

Housing As If People Mattered: Site Planning Guidelines for Medium-Density Family Housing

By Clare Cooper Marcus and Wendy Sarkissian

Housing as if People Mattered is a practical, research-based guide to designing medium-density family housing so that everyday life for residents is safe, sociable, and supportive, rather than anonymous or stressful. This "evergreen" book is still in print after 40 years.

Includes: illustrated site-design guidelines, the two authors photographed together in 1986 and again in 2014, and a note that Clare Cooper Marcus died in January 2026.

Buy Now link through to the University of California Press.

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A sketch of a house exterior showing windows, a porch, and a person hanging clothes on a line.

Illustration from Housing as if People Mattered: “Windows and Overlooking”

Two women smiling at each other outdoors, with trees in the background.

The Two Authors, 1986

Two older women smiling outdoors in front of pink flowering trees.

2014

Note: Clare Marcus died in January 2026.