BOGOTÁ
[Colombia]
Mayor ENRIQUE PEÑALOSA on making better cities [07oct2016]
Source: CITISCOPE; October, 7, 2016
http://citiscope.org/story/2016/bogota-mayor-enrique-penalosa-making-better-cities?utm_source=Citiscope&utm_campaign=3562a79138-Mailchimp_2016_10_07&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_ce992dbfef-3562a79138-69532177
[The UCLG Congress 2016]
Next week, hundreds of mayors around the world will
head to Bogotá, Colombia, for what is billed as the largest gathering of the
world’s local leaders: the Congress of United Cities and Local Governments. Their host is Mayor Enrique
Peñalosa.
Peñalosa, 62, has had two parallel public careers, one
as a politician, and the other as a global exponent of cities and the idea that
streets and public spaces should be designed primarily for people rather than
cars.
In an earlier term as mayor from 1998
to 2001, Peñalosa led in creation of the city’s TransMilenio bus rapid
transit system, featuring bus-only lanes. Private automobiles, which had been
crowding onto public sidewalks, were moved off by higher curbs and bollards.
Restrictions were placed on use of private vehicles at rush hour. An extensive
network of bike paths was inaugurated and several major avenues underwent major
renovation to be more pedestrian friendly.
Following his mayoral term, Peñalosa became board
chair of the Institute for Transportation and Development Policy, a New York-based nonprofit. For
several years, he toured the world as an advocate of BRT systems that were being debated and then
installed in such cities as Ahmedabad, Buenos Aires, Guangzhou and Mexico City.
(He also served briefly on the board of Citiscope.) After an unsuccessful run
at the presidency of Colombia in 2014, he won a second term as Bogota’s mayor
in 2015.
We caught up with Peñalosa back in May during a visit
to the United Nations in New York. As usual, he had lots to say about what’s
right and wrong with cities, especially those in the developing world, and what
can be done to make them better. His remarks, edited and
condensed for clarity, are below.
[MAIN TOPICS]
“ This [80-kilometer path very
high up in to the mountains] is going to
be like our Central Park …. These will be places where rich and poor, old and
young, everybody will meet as equals. ”
[1] On cars and pedestrian safety…
Clearly, we have made cities which we cannot be proud
of. It cannot be normal that we, as human beings, grow in fear of getting
killed. If we tell a three-year old child today anywhere in the world, “Watch
out, a car!” the child will jump in fright, when he or she doesn’t yet know how
to speak. They are already afraid of cars, and with good reason.
Tens of thousands of children are killed by cars every
year throughout the world. During the Middle Ages, a few children were eaten by
wolves in Europe. I am certain that in our time, on any given month, there are
more children killed by cars than were killed by wolves all through the Middle
Ages. What is shocking is that we think this is normal. For 5,000 years, we
designed cities for people without cars. When cars appeared, we should have
begun to design totally different cities. We did not. We just made bigger
roads.
[2] On building people-friendly
streets…
In Colombia, we are conscious of what should be done,
but we are far from doing it. I would still say that on 90 percent of the
streets in Bogotá, you cannot go from one corner to the other in a wheelchair,
because the sidewalks are not right. I like to believe that what makes a
difference between an advanced and a backwards city is not that we have
highways — as the upper income people tend to think — or even subways. The fact
that you have good sidewalks, quality, great sidewalks. This is really the most
basic thing of democratic cities.
“ The fact that you have good sidewalks, quality,
great sidewalks. This is really the most basic thing of democratic cities. ”
In general, especially in developing countries, people
who walk are lower income citizens. They are more vulnerable citizens. There
are children and the elderly. A civilized city should, before anything else,
protect its most vulnerable citizens.
When I was mayor 18 years ago, we created a network of
more than 250 kilometers of bikeways. Then, there were no bikeways in New York
or in Paris or in Madrid. At that time, I was almost impeached. Now, there are
dozens of young people’s organizations for cyclists. It’s a new consciousness.
It’s like new citizenship as they call it.
[3] On the use of data in city
planning…
We know much better now than we did 200 or 100 years
ago how much cities will grow. We know much more about demographics. We know
much more about how households become smaller. We know much more about the
share of institutional buildings in cities. We can make projections. The first
thing that Habitat III can do is
to promote serious growth projections for cities. If we at least have that,
later we can discuss where and how cities should grow.
4] On the importance of parks…
We could do totally different cities that would be amazing
with large parks. New York created Central Park in 1860 when New York was much
smaller and much poorer than most developing countries today. Yet, nothing even
like Central Park is being done. It’s very difficult to demolish a city to
create parks after the city has been built without parks. Moreover, why are
homes near Central Park so much more expensive than others? Because there are
not enough parks. If a city had enough parks, being near a park should not
increase the value.
These kinds of things we could have in the cities of
developing countries cities, hundreds of parks. However, not only are we not
doing better cities than were done before, but our cities are worse. For
example, Bogotá is a little larger than London in population. Every boy in Bogotá
plays soccer and more and more girls do, too. London has more than 1,500 public
soccer fields. Bogotá has 45. We are not even able to plan such basic things.
[5] On shopping malls…
Developing-country cities, we have some interesting
characteristics. For example, we do not have severe winters, so we should be
much more outdoor-oriented. We should spend more time in public space and less
in shopping marts. A shopping mart may be justified in Toronto or Moscow, but
not in the tropics. Not in Bogotá. Not in most developing-country cities.
Bogotá’s temperature is perfect. Yet we have shopping
malls springing about like mushrooms. Shopping malls which are clearly without
character. They are the same everywhere in the world. The local shops go broke,
because they cannot afford to be in the mall.
Malls don’t integrate well with the city. They do not
have windows. They are geared to a special social class. You go on Madison
Avenue in New York, rich and poor meet as equals. This
does not happen in shopping malls.
[6] On fighting inequality in cities…
Cities can be extremely powerful means to create
inclusion and all kinds of equality. If we create cities where rich and poor
meet as equals in parks and public transport, in public spaces and sidewalks
and cultural activities. If rich and poor have great schools and swimming pools
and sport facilities. Cities can create quality-of-life equality. At least for
children. A great city is not going to have income inequality. But we are
making horrible cities, unfortunately, in the developing world.
I am obsessed with the idea of happiness. It’s
difficult to define and impossible to measure. Yet it’s the only thing that
really matters. One of the biggest obstacles to happiness is feeling inferior
or excluded. A good city can be very powerful means for this not to happen.
After I finished college, I was an extremely poor student in Paris. I lived in
a room where I had to share the toilet with 20 other rooms. We did not have a
shower. But I never felt poor. I felt extremely happy and thankful, because I
had Paris. I had a fantastic city that gave me cultural activities, gave me
public transport, gave me beauty, gave me possibilities to walk, gave me joy,
gave me an education. A good city can make life better for everybody, for the
rich, for the poor, for everybody.
We are not going to have income equality. But, I would
say, we can have what I would call democratic equality. Which is that public
good will prevail over private interests.
This means, for example, that somebody on a bicycle
has the right to the same amount of road space as somebody in a luxury car. Why
do we allow street parking? Whoever decided that to have a car gives you the
right to park? If all cities were truly equal, we should have much larger
sidewalks. We should have protective bicycle lanes in every single street, not
as a cute architectural feature, but as a right.
[7] On decentralization and national
urban policies…
In some countries, national government is very
powerful and cities don’t have much autonomy. For example, Santiago, Chile, is
not one municipality, but 39. The one that really runs the city is the national
government.
In Colombia, it’s different. The city has a lot of
autonomy. Maybe sometimes too much autonomy. Municipalities have total autonomy
in land use, for example. This is very wrong. We should have some regional
policies, or even national policies, for where a city should grow.
The fact that the municipalities are so strong in
Colombia, creates horrible inequalities between municipalities. In one single
metropolitan area, poor municipalities attract poor people because the land
prices are low. The richer the municipalities are, the more rich people they
attract. It’s a vicious circle. This happens everywhere, of course, to some
degree. When municipalities are so autonomous, there is no way to compensate
for this.
In so many cases, I think you need even more
centralization. You need more national policies and regional policies. You
cannot let each municipality do whatever they want. You need to do some
regional planning for the road network and for the parks and for everything.
You need to be able to charge taxes in the rich areas and to invest in the poor
areas.
The same thing goes for planning. I think before we
decide that we need more autonomy or not, we first should decide what kind of
cities we want. Then, we decide whether we need more or less autonomy or some
regional policies or some national policies or some local policies.
[8] On returning to the mayor’s office…[and “a
path very high up in the mountains”…]
At first it was very difficult. I had to dedicate 99
percent of my time just to solving the huge problems I found. That was not so
much fun. Now, it’s beginning to be a little more fun because it’s not just
about solving messes all the time, but about creating a few new things.
For example, Bogotá has a horrible river, which was
completely polluted with sewage. Everybody wanted to be as far as possible from
the river because it was horrible and smelled. Now we want to turn this river
into the heart of the future city with a 60-kilometer green park and walkway
along the river. Of course, we are only going to be able to do one or two kilometers
of the 60, but we can create the financial and tax instruments and land-policy
instruments to get this thing going.
We also want to do a path very high up in the
mountains. Not a path for explorers or athletes, but a path for wheelchairs and
bicycles. An 80-kilometer path. So
that people will be able to see the city below like an ocean. We believe this
is going to help people learn more about the beautiful native vegetation that
we have in the mountains. We have orchids and ferns. All kinds of native trees
and birds and butterflies. I think this will make people fall in love with
nature. It will also be very useful for us to be able to put out forest fires,
because at this time, when we have a forest fire, we have no way to reach it. This
is going to be like our Central Park. This river park and this mountain,
because this is something that will give character to the city. These will be
places where rich and poor, old and young, everybody will meet as equals.
Get
urban innovation in your inbox! Sign up for Citiscope’s weekly
email newsletter, or follow us on Twitter, Facebook or LinkedIn.
Nenhum comentário:
Postar um comentário