Quote:
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Originally Posted by Chirimoya
If I'd been there, I'd have stood up and cheered!
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Chiri,
I was there and clapped for all of us.
Here are other of my notes on what Peñalosa said. Enjoy!
Notes from the Enrique Peñalosa talk as part of the Congress of Santo Domingo 2015. Thursday, 17 March.
Enrique Peñalosa is candidate for President of Colombia, former mayor, and president of the Fundacion por el Pais que Queremos in Colombia.
In his opening words, he said that cities and its residents have to first decide what kind of city they want.
He pointed out, citizens had to decide if they wanted to become a Houston or Amsterdam.
He pointed out the disadvantage in Latin America of using Miami as a benchmark because it was so near, and the disadvantage of being far away from European cities which were going the other way around.
He stated: a city is a way for a way of living.
He asked, in an ideal city – how wide is the sidewalk?
We have to have a clear idea of the city.
He said that programs like Animal Planet and Discovery have given us an idea of the environment for animals, but we have to decide what kind of environment we want for humans.
Public spaces are our spaces.
Miami is a model of what a city should not be.
Copenhagen and Amstersdam are more human, more wealthy cities.
One does not need cars nor highways for a wealthy city.
40% of the population there moves in bicycles or on foot.
A city of quality is friendly to its children, senior citizens and handicapped, gives them freedom to move about.
A sick city is one where its citizens have to go to malls. When malls replace public spaces, then the city is sick.
Cities with quality of life are those where the stores are not in malls, they are on the public space.
He explained that people give the excuse that it is too hot, and that air conditioning is needed, therefore, we should build malls like in Miami.
But he said that Rome and New York are hotter cities and the shopping centers are on public spaces.
He was very critical of shopping centers that did not have windows, comparing them to Las Vegas where people inside were served breakfast at 10 pm (to keep them gambling) and they would not have a way of knowing what time it was because there were no windows.
He called this cultural auto-imposed imperialism. And urged the DR not to copy from the errors of advanced nations.
He said that malls were anti-democratic because they sought to keep the poor outside their walls.
He said that on the contrary, trees and being able to see the skies foster social integration and bring enhanced security.
He said that cars have become the wolf that scared children yesterday. He said that cars have killed 600,000 children worldwide, despite it being toted as the maximum achievement of civilization. Children grow up fearing cars – the car is the wolf. The child can be eaten up by the car.
Democracy is much more than going to vote.
Democracy means that the general interest needs to prevail before the particular interest. But is this but poetry?
He spoke of cities like Zurich and New York where 90% of the people do not have a car. But here in America, the more cars we have, supposedly the better off we are. Or are we?
He spoke of the system of private property, and explained that while when planting tomatoes the more demand there are the more tomatoes will be planted, this does not apply to real estate in cities. He says that the scarcity of property just makes those who have property rich without having to work.
But he says that quality of life with dignity is contingent on cities having kept public spaces like parks.
Peñalosa was very critical of the metro.
With what one kilometer of metro costs, we could make many parks for all the barrios of Santo Domingo, he sentenced.
He commented on the importance of community involvement in the urban renewal of their community so that there be a feeling of belonging. He spoke of multiple community programs whereby US$30,000 was invested to turn the communities into livable spaces for the children.
He also stressed that the idea is not only to fix what there is, but also to avoid future errors.
He said that urban reform, the state should implement, and that it is more important than agrarian reform. He urged that the state acquire large blocks of city land for parks, either by purchasing these or expropriating these (a la buena o a la mala).
He spoke of the case of Sweden, where since 1904 the government has been purchasing land around the city.
People need more than to eat and have a roof, he said. He spoke of greater needs, such as being able to walk freely to be happy.
He said that while it is true that people can live enclosed in an apartment, but people are happier with 10-meter wide sidewalks, not two meter sidewalks, such as those in Santo Domingo.
A lot that leads to quality of a city is not measurable, he explained. It is felt in the heart. Such things as buildings with three or four floors max. People need to be with people, he stressed over and over.
He said that as evidence the benches in parks that are most used are those that are transited by a lot of people, where people pass buy, not the ones that are isolated.
He urged Dominicans to read Danish urban architect Jan Gehl, who has written amply about using outdoor public space in cities. He explained that people will use public space when there is quality in that public space. When they can ride a bicycle, when there is infrastructure for walking.
He said that success of a park is in how many people use it and spend time there.
He said that Danish people would go nuts with the natural resources that Santo Domingo has. There everyone would be on the streets.
He recommended that street signs be imbedded into the buildings. That the city needs to set norms and have them fulfilled.
He spoke up for public libraries, that these be the cathedrals of the new times for spending time.
He said that only since the past 80 years have cities stopped being walking cities to give preference to automobiles.
“What today appears to be normal to give preference to cars in the future we will see as a savage stage of civilization,” he told his audience.
Peñalosa was emphatic that cities need to be walking cities.
He spoke of respect for humans can be seen in cities in China, Copenhagen, Rome, Santiago de Chile. He said that cities in Europe are becoming walking cities, while we are too close to Miami and learning from that city.
He praised walking cities and bicycle routes, with cables for services underground.
He called pedestrian ways are monuments to the human being, that change the way people live and raise the self-esteem of residents. Socially, he says the importance is that what one does in one’s free time is what sets the difference between a poor and a rich person. He says at work all share the same space. But in his time off a rich man returns to a large house, goes to restaurants, clubs, has space. The poor lives in reduced space house, and their children are limited to watching TV.
Public spaces are not a luxury, they are minimum that a democracy can offer to citizens.
Having access to green areas will be the grand separator of social classes or challenge is to make it the great social integrator.
He said this will be the most critical issue of social equality in the long term.
He mentioned that public spaces need to be so wonderful that the wealthy and the poor come together, such as happens in Central Park in New York.
He spoke with envy about the Caribbean Sea Dominicans can enjoy, but do not value.
He said that having a park is not a luxury, it is a necessity.
And said that no child should have to grow up farther than two blocks from a park.
What makes a city memorable to tourists is its public spaces.
He addressed public vendors, and said that supporting them in name of creating jobs does not solve unemployment, that is a great populist lie.
He says that it only deteriorates the situation, but the vendors when disrupted go to TV to complain, while citizens when they lose their public spaces do not.
Let us not fool ourselves and not tolerate these vendors.
Every lot that is saved, is saved, while every lot that is built is gone forever.
Streets are not a medium, parks are a medium in themselves.
He said that no one will be remembered for a street because eventually it will be congestioned and full of traffic jams, and people will regard it with indifference. Contrary to parks that are a continuous source of pleasure, and are magic
He said that maintenance money has to be factored in and said that in Bogota they did so adding a charge to the garbage collection fees.
He commented that when Central Park was made, that city was poorer than Santo Domingo. He said that city has a responsibility with those that are not born.
He said parks can reduce crime and commented how works in Bogota to create public spaces reduced crime from 87/100,000 to 24/100,000 people, without adding new jails and police. Because the potential delinquents are in the parks with their children, not in bars drinking.
He addressed waterfront calling it magic places. He urged that never these be privatized for luxury hotels.
He mentioned that during his administration as mayor, Bogota built 35 kms of lineal parks. He said that he sees the Malecon as gold in powder form, when Dominicans are see it as a puddle.
He commented that the World Bank orders environmental impact studies, but forgets to order human impact studies. He said when building a drainage canal, a pedestrian way should be built beside it with a wide sidewalk.
He said that continuously cities around the world are discovering how wrong they were to build ways for cars alongside waterfront, and are closing these, as happening in Paris where they are placing sand on the sidewalks to create beaches. He said that Boston has invested US$23 billion to tumble down overpasses, contrary to cities like Portland, Oregon where preference has been given to walkways in front of waterfront.
He urged the turning of the Malecon into a 7 km pedestrian way. Everyone is fascinated by water.
“I think it is dangerous to be discussing that island, when it would deteriorate quality of life and the quality of the view,” he said. He highlighted there is even the risk that it would dry up the waters. He said a better solution is to turn the Malecon into a walkway and improve the front.
He was very critical of the highways that have been built in front of the sea showing slides of the Las Americas Expressway as a major mistake, especially since the world around people have become aware of this.
He called the Americas expressway an invaluable asset that should be made into a walkway and that investors could be found to build an avenue in the space in the back. He called for creation of walkways.
He said that reading any 20 travel magazines, one will not find photos of cars as attractions. Tourism is walking. Cars bring stress and tension.
If we want tourists to come to Santo Domingo, Santo Domingo needs to have sidewalks that are three times what they are today.
He asked if we want a New York or a Houston?
He commented on Disney World, where he said only 3% of people’s time is spent in the attractions. Disney is a pedestrian world.
He highlighted that there is a conflict for a city that has to decide to give preference to people or cars.
Called cars destroyers of cities. Said that right to parking is not in any Constitution in any country. And said that city governments cannot fear turning areas into pedestrian areas. That at first business will scream, but later they will appreciate the business.
Sidewalks need to be cousins to parks, not to highways.
He said that overpasses demote the value of streets, and will become congestioned anyway after five or ten years.
Now that's more like it!
