A good city has great sidewalks.
Went to an Ayala Foundation-Rockefeller Foundation dinner with a former mayor of Bogota, Colombia. According to the invitation “Former Mayor Penalosa is an accomplished public official, economist and administrator. As a mayor of Bogota, he was responsible for numerous radical improvements as he developed a city model giving priority to children and public spaces, restricting private car use, building hundreds of kilometers of sidewalks, bicycle paths, pedestrian streets, greenways and parks.”
I thought, “Great, now the Colombians are giving us advice on how to create sane, humane cities. Two minutes ago they were the subject of every movie and TV series (e.g. Miami Vice) ever produced about drug wars and carnage.” Misha Glenny’s excellent book McMafia, which tackles global organized crime, devotes a chapter to Colombia’s problems. He described the country as one of the most violent places on earth.
Apparently they’ve turned the corner. “They have plenty of natural resources and great exports,” my friend Fabia pointed out. “Besides that.”
“Next the Somalians will be advising us on economic security,” I said. “Their pirates are making the big bucks.”
“I don’t think they even have a government,” Big Bird said. “Somalians are the most beautiful people in the world. They all look like models.”
“Maybe because their governments screwed them and the world forgot them, and they’ve had to evolve out of the need for a regular digestive system.”
Mr. Penalosa, currently senior international advisor to the Institute for Transportation and Development Policy of New York, gave a riveting talk on urban planning, mobility, and traffic jams. An excerpt:
“In a good city, you must be able to walk to buy milk or bread. If you have to get into a car to buy milk or bread it means the city is not well-designed.
“What makes the difference between an advanced city and a backward city is not that it has flyovers or elevated highways or subways. What makes the difference is that upper-income people use public transport, use the sidewalks and parks. A good city is one with great sidewalks.”
More details in my column on Friday.
Answers to questions you might be asking, unless you wandered onto this site purely by accident >>>
May 14th, 2009 at 07:45
“I don’t think they even have a government,â€
Which is the reason for their economic recovery. But efforts by the US and UN to make them recognize a faction as the lawful central government is threatening to ruin all that.
May 14th, 2009 at 22:12
Aye, Mr. Penalosa couldn’t have said it better. Sustainable urban planning (for the best possible living environments) calls for “transit- oriented, walkable, bike- friendly” cities. Great post, Ms. Zafra. :)
May 14th, 2009 at 22:43
@Jeg – I do see some reasoning in that. The collaboration of US and UN can be seen as a threat and hence start up a faction.
savings
May 15th, 2009 at 21:57
There are existing photos of good ol’ Manila (the Manila described and beloved by Nick Joaquin and the Manila known by our grandparents.) It had sidewalks,wide lanes,gardens,fountains,proud and majestic shade trees and nicely painted bungalows and buildings in the art deco style. I saw this huge coffee table book of these antique photos and I almost cried because I saw how beautiful Manila was between the 1900’s up to the 1960’s. But because of the stupidity of WWII, and the rapid population growth and/or the influx of homeless promdis (read:professional squatters) to the city, and because of the organized crime called politics,every good thing disappeared. What’s left are the ruins we call “progress”: flyovers,metal fences,useless interchanges,overhead rails, and malls. (However, I salute the Ayalas for the green and wonderful Greenbelt park and mall.) As W.B.Yeats said,things fall apart…the center cannot hold….
May 16th, 2009 at 18:21
If more decent buses were to ply the city streets, I don’t think that would be enough to entice the upper middle income families to use them, and to abandon their comfortable cars. First, you have to give them “maximum security,” as in assuring them their kids wouldn’t be kidnapped for ransom and they would not be mugged at the bus stations. Penalosa mentioned that the “uppers’ only want roads, and “some security.” I think a lot of security comes side by side with a new, vibrant mass transit system for Metro Manila to become a saner city.
Next, dust and open sewers near the bus stops, should be banned.
May 18th, 2009 at 21:33
@gene -“First, you have to give them “maximum security,†as in assuring them their kids wouldn’t be kidnapped for ransom ”
If you take the total number of upper class kids targeted for kidnapping, (or victimized by kidnappers) vs. the total population of upper middle class homes, it would be a small percentage. Granted, it’s a game of perception. You do point to a key aspect of the good city: that is, it is a safe city. Question is: do we promote global safety with a commitment to road space or just individual, excluded safety? Are we after a city of barricades (and gated communities) or a city of inclusion?
@Franzi – I admire your nostalgia for bygone Manila but rather than pining for the Manila of the past, we need to imagine the Manila of the future.
As to “the influx of homeless promdis (read:professional squatters) to the city” -sounds a tad bit elitist and leads me to think that you have not really considered the dynamics of urban growth. that informal dwellings, urban slums, are a dominant feature of all rapidly growing cities in the global south (see: Lagos, Nairobi, Mumbai, Sao Paolo, Mexico, etc.) is indicative of the pull of urban economies squatting and the failure of the housing market. (see this post on: Why there are squatters: http://hundredyearshence.blogspot.com/2007/07/why-are-there-squatters.html)
May 19th, 2009 at 02:12
@urbanodelacruz – No, we don’t want gated communities, it’s anti-thesis of a good -city concept, from my perspective.
What we do want is better security (more police prescence in public spaces (e. g. – marshalls) and more engagement/personal inter-action with the communities it would protect ( e.g – regular foot patrols in barangays – not just by the tanods, and personal chit chats, so neighbourhoods would know who their police force is).
I think Penalosa was batting for a city in which mass transit would be THE major means of commute for all walks of life; because road expansion is costly and space is limited, and should be devoted to developing green areas such as parks and open spaces such as sidewalk.
And as I said before, to entice the car-owning classes (middle and upper middle), which are major users of roads, to board the buses, security and as you later said, safety is a key factor.
I used the “kidnap scenario” to dramatize the would-be fear of the upper classes, but also mentioned mugging, because to me, these two hazards could be real deterrents for getting into a public transit.
I don’t know about the percentage of upper mid kids vs. its total population; but think about the no. of cars now plying Metro Manila and the no. of its occupants, and you’d realize that there’s really a BIG NO. of potential individulas who could be targetted for kidnap, ( I read that even kids who are not even “rich” have been held for ransom at malls?)
and mugging/hold-up, and other types of criminal activities, e.g rape. (under the stairs at stations).
Long answer, eh? You get the point, though, right?