Urban planner and expert Gil Peñalosa, in Toronto.Steve Russell (Toronto Star via Getty Images)
Many cities seem to exclude a large proportion of their residents: traffic lights that only take a few seconds to cross, tiny sidewalks with cart guards, large stairs that are difficult for the elderly. Before them are emerging the 8-80 cities, which propose to adapt the entire urban space to children aged 8 and over 80. The creator of the concept is Guillermo Peñalosa (Bogotá, 66 years old), who worked in the 1990s. As the person responsible for parks in the Colombian capital – where he promoted innovative public spaces such as the Simón Bolívar Park – he now advises 350 cities around the world in city planning to make them more sustainable.
Questions. Who are cities designed for?
Answer. Over the last 70 years, we have thought more about cars when building cities [coches] than on people's happiness: they are not good for mental and physical health, for climate change, for justice and sustainability. That's why we have to make cities radically different. Now 15-minute cities are trendy: 100 years ago, before cars, all cities were 15 minutes away. Until people went to the suburbs [barrios residenciales]. Urban expansion was an environmental, economic and health catastrophe…
Q What do we do then?
R. All urban growth should be concentrated in the current urban area, the already built-up area, because if we continue to expand cities, the problem will only get bigger. In 30 years, the population of Mexico's major cities has multiplied two and a half times, while the urban area has grown 11 to 20 times. It is impossible to expand public transport, water supply and sanitation at this rate. There is an urgent need to limit the growth of cities in order to densify them so that more people live in the same area. Melbourne (Australia) has a metropolitan area of five million people that is set to double; Its head of architecture has conducted a study showing that densifying just the major arteries with buildings five to eight stories high could double the population without increasing the size of the city's current area and without affecting parks or new buildings. There are no cafes, restaurants, meeting places in the residential areas, which is why people don't walk and there is no good public transport. As density increases in these corridors, all homes in the middle could walk to these corridors.
Q But the growth of residential areas does not stop.
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R. It is terrible to think that the North American model of dispersed residential areas will be adopted [suburbs], which has already proven to be a disaster. In Canada, 80% of urban areas are single-family homes; The federal government wants to change the laws to allow people to subdivide their homes into multiple apartments and rent them out: this would allow more people to live in areas where services already exist. This can also happen with infrastructures that can have multiple purposes: the school can be for students every day, but at night and on weekends it can become a market or a common place for activities (dancing, cards, games, etc.). ). In the last five years there has been a trend towards the creation of school streets (or school streets), closed streets through which private cars do not pass: Paris has created more than 230 and in London there are already 500.
Q What can Cities 8-80 contribute?
R. We need to stop building cities as if everyone is 30 years old and an athlete and create cities for everyone. Our lives as older adults already make up a third of our lives, but most cities don't care about this group. We have to do things so that people live less alone. Older people can volunteer for spectacular things. In Arizona, I went to a desert botanical garden where there are 450 volunteers over 55 years old, and it changed their lives: There they make friends, socialize, and make plans together. When people have a purpose, socialize, and are physically active, they live better lives. On the other hand, subsidies for seniors should be abolished: they should not pay less for public transport or the cinema, which opened 50 years ago when they were still very poor. Today we should allocate subsidies based on need, not age.
Q And as for the children?
R. In neighborhoods where public transportation is poor and there are no bike paths, children rely on their parents to take them to see friends, to the movies, or to play soccer. A 10- or 12-year-old child should be able to walk, bike, or take public transportation to anywhere in the city without relying on an adult. In the United States there are soccer moms who end up being taxi drivers and there is a lot of conflict there; They are the symptom of a bad community. It's even worse for young children under the age of four, who typically don't have play areas in parks, as almost all games are designed for older children.
Q How has the pandemic changed our cities?
R. There were changes that seemed very expensive and were implemented quickly: London and Paris built kilometers of cycle paths in ten days, showing that this was not a technical or financial problem, but a political one. In Oakland, California, within 24 hours, the mayor created slow streets accessible only to residents, and children began playing on these streets; In San Francisco, they turned two golf courses into public parks. Furthermore, pollution disappeared in four days without a car, as if God had sent us a sign. Do you want clean air? That is the solution. One of the serious problems is that many cities are returning to 2019: instead of coming to 2024 with new ideas, they are returning to the past because they feel more comfortable in that past.
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Q Why do changes in mobility generate so much resistance?
R. Change is difficult anywhere, but the public interest must come first. Why is there a general interest in having parked cars and not increasing sidewalks? The price of doing nothing is very, very high. I suggest that mayors focus change on the benefits: if they want to promote cycling, don't talk about bikes, talk about mental health, physical health, air quality… The bike is the means, it is not the end. Another idea is to create a pilot plan very quickly to show how it will turn out: one weekend you put up a few bollards and a few benches and say if it doesn't work in a year you will remove it ; After four or five weeks people have forgotten that cars exist, and next year you can invest the money in a big job.
Hundreds of people cycle on a bike path in Bogotá in 2020, a street closed to car traffic on Sundays and public holidays.Sebastian Barros (NurPhoto via Getty Images)
Q Does the same thing happen with cycle paths?
R. It's more complicated because for them to work you have to build a network. If you only travel two kilometers that are not connected to anything, they will not be used: it's like building a soccer field and only scoring one goal. In Seville, where almost no one used bicycles (0.6% of trips), 150 kilometers of lanes were built in one legislative session and many people got on their bikes. In Paris, Mayor Anne Hidalgo has built hundreds of kilometers of cycle paths, while in Spain I have seen several cities abolish them.
Q They promoted Sunday bike paths in Bogotá. What is it made of?
R. There was a small program – only in rich neighborhoods – in which 15 kilometers of streets were closed to traffic on Sundays and public holidays. I wanted to bring it to the poor neighborhoods and ensure that rich and poor have equal rights: in four years we turned them into the largest temporary park in the world, with 121 kilometers of streets closed to traffic and in which 1.3 Millions of people are out and about Every Sunday they go for a walk, take their bikes, run, talk, shop… It is important that cities are fun, but it is also a program of social integration in which all children, young people, adults , old people and people with disabilities can take part, rich and poor meet. , and they meet as equals. Bicycles don't discriminate and neither do shoes. I apply the idea to other cities: in Toronto they call them summer streets and in Guadalajara (Mexico) they call them recreational streets. When I started trying it in India it didn't exist and today it is produced in more than 50 countries and also in many capitals of Latin America.
Q What do you think of Barcelona's super blocks?
R. They are spectacular, they change the city. In addition, Barcelona has set up a study center so that other cities around the world can look at what is being done and adapt it. Cities need to be generous and show others what works so they can learn from it and copy it. For example, a brother of mine [Enrique Peñalosa] He served as mayor of Bogotá from 2016 to 2019 and created a plan to light 1,160 neighborhood parks. Police and a university conducted a study and showed that safety improved and drug use and gang numbers decreased in these areas. It is important to assess the impact of these types of measures.
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