What kind of city do we want to create?

Gil Penalosa could have been talking directly to the politicians in Waterloo Region this morning at the Velo-city Global 2010 conference here in Copenhagen.

What kid of city do we want to create, he asked the delegates. I have posted before on Penalosa, founder of 8-80 Cities, the GTA-based urban consultancy group formerly known as Walk and Bike for Life.

He is a highly energized man, which I guess you have to be to bounce around the country and the world as much as he does, spreading the word about walking and cycling as transformative tools for the urban environment.

He was slated to address the closing day on Friday, but a change brought him to the stage this morning. He was talking to all 1,000 delegates from 50 countries, but he was also talking to the people and politicians of Waterloo Region.

What kind of city do we want to create?

With a series of before and after photos, he demonstrated how a car-centred urban landscape can become a vibrant, person-centred landscape. One photo of the traditional downtown showed cars angle-parked in front of businesses (calling it "streets for car storage"), and he noted that local retailers said losing the parking spaces would put them out of business. And then he showed the "after" photo, with throngs of people walking, shopping, stopping and eating on the same stretch. Looked good for business.

His 8-80 Cities group is based on this idea: "What if everything we did in our cities had to be great for people eight to 80?"

Penalosa said that many politicians tell him that transformation is too costly, especially in a downturned economy. His reply: "The best people can work anywhere they want. We have to ask ourselves, why would they want to live in our city?"

Quality of life is not just an ideal, he said, it is a cost of economic competitiveness. Cities that will be successful have to consider landscapes that people are willing to live in, not car storage.

And, speaking directly to politicians and voters, he noted that "The road space available to cars is not a technical issue (to be determined by municipal staff); it's a political issue" and there has to be political will for change.

At the media briefing after, he suggested that Canada is not changing fast enough to meet its future. "Canada will grow by 11 Vancouvers in 20 years, and we don't have much time to think, We have to do."

Comments

[RandB]

"What if everything we did in our cities had to be great for people eight to 80?" is an inspiring idea.

For several years I drove taxi and as I carried seniors on thirty and forty dollar trips it used to bother me how dependent seniors on modest incomes were on relatively high-priced transportation to get around. Basically the public transportation system was inadequate for their needs, and the automotive traffic traveling at speeds optimized for young people with good reflexes was too fast to allow them to drive safely. Later, when I began commuting by bicycle I recognized that reducing the speed of city traffic would allow both cyclists and seniors to get around more safely. Can younger drivers with their cat-like reflexes accept the argument that driving a slower speed limit would have the future payback for them of having several more years of independence when they get older. Or the argument that by driving more slowly the accidents will be fewer and more importantly mostly far less severe. Or the idea that it will be better for them for their parents to have a few extra years of independence. Kind of like "We are all in this together."