Christopher Alexander wrote extensively about humanistic cities in "A Timeless Way of Building", "A Pattern Language: Towns, Buildings, Construction" and many other books. His focus was in studying how people have built villages and cities over centuries, how patterns have emerged and how these patterns affect the daily life of the inhabitants.
Came here to recommend "A Pattern Language" -- truly a transformative book. The article touches on a few of the patterns it lists, but I think this nascent project would benefit greatly from the author reading it through.
For instance, just building narrow streets is not "all we need to do" as the author states.
