‘What happens when you give the streets back to the people? “You get more public order”, says Enrique Penalosa, visionary politician, urban strategist, and former mayor of Bogota, Colombia.
Enrique Penalosa is hailed as a visionary politician and urban strategist. An economist by training, the former mayor of Bogota, Colombia wasn’t the most likeable person on the block when he turned mayor in1998. The reason? He wanted to transform Bogota from a messy car-filled city into a walkable safe one and declare ‘no-car’ days and fewer roads with one very strong statement; that public pavements are the only places on this planet that are free for all to share and hence, they are a strong symbol of equality and public ownership.
The middle-aged economist with a youthful gait and easy demeanor is passionate about the subject of making urban centers safe for all. Confused by the audience to be an architect, he puts the notion to rest by stating that he’s an economist and more important, part of the human race. The former mayor gave a talk late in 2009 at the University of Nairobi, well attended by students, a sprinkling of concerned citizens but barely a soul from the government including any mayors, town clerks or urban planners despite the talk having been advertised in the national dailies.
“Bogota in 1954 was a mess with seven municipalities and it was a pain to get anywhere,” Penalosa described his city. Bogota was also known for its ‘rich’ and ‘poor’ class with a wide divide between the ‘haves’ and the ‘have-nots’, the former living in exclusive zones and driving on the roads and the ‘have-nots’ living in slums with barely a paved pavement to walk on. Bogota also had 82 murders per 100,000 per year in the 1980s compared to 16 per 100,000 today. The inequality of classes was glaring – akin to what Nairobi is today.
“The first thing to do was to amalgamate the municipalities and get greater autonomy from the national government,” says Penalosa, an important step towards more people participation in making decisions and working towards them.
“Public pedestrian places in cities are the only paces on earth to walk freely on,” states Penalosa. This statement has been his cue towards turning a polluted traffic jammed city into a beautiful safe city for all to walk in equality. Now, every Sunday and on Christmas day, 120 kilometres of highways are closed to car traffic in Bogota in full support of the citizens.
Visionary Planning
According to Penalosa, a transport system can only be designed if we know what kind of a city we want. “That calls for a clear vision and an understanding of equality in today’s market economy.”
“Public good prevails over private interest,” states Penalosa. This statement reinforces the philosophy of equality of life, which in most constitutions including the Kenyan constitution means that all citizens are equal before the law. “Parking,” as Penalosa puts it, “is not a constitutional right.” This then leads to the next fundamental right of the citizen that public space prevails over private space. That is the basis for the argument that a bus that carries 50 passengers should technically have more space on the road than a private car with a single occupant.
To understand the logic of the statement one has to go into the human psyche which is about the basic human need to be happy which includes; the need for space and safety.
“A market cannot work in cities where each one is being selfish. It’s not a rational principal in cities,” asserts Penalosa. “In backward cities,” continues Penalosa, “the rich live in isolated spaces where they jump into their cars and drive from mall to mall and can go for months without walking a block.”
A good city on the other hand, according to Penalosa, is one which is good for the poor, the rich, the children, and the handicapped. If it’s good for the vulnerable in the society, then it’s good for everyone. “Unfortunately, cities are designed by middle class urbanites, states Penalosa, “who couldn’t care less for the under-privileged.”
Cars versus Citizens
“Quality sidewalks are the most important elements of a democratic city’s infrastructure,” continues Penalosa. Yet, unfortunately despite this, developing countries place more importance on building more roads and flyovers than providing water to the slums or investing in schools. Investment in infrastructure can be regressive, according to the urban strategist, if funds which should be directed towards health care and education are instead used for building roads.
Penalosa then gave a startling statement that makes his Kenyan audience surprised. “Advanced cities like Paris with its Champs Elysee, Tokyo, New York, London, Copenhagen and others decided a long time ago that they would not build any more roads regardless of traffic. These cities are far richer and technically more advanced than Nairobi. Pedestrians and cyclists have roads built with them in mind and it’s not uncommon to see beautiful student cities like Cambridge and Oxford in England filled with cyclists. “A US$ 30 bicycle is just as important as a car on the road that costs US$ 300,” says Penalosa. In Germany, fifty percent of Germans go to work or school everyday using public transport, walking or riding a bicycle on roads that can accommodate this variable traffic, leaving many of the inner city roads decongested of cars.
“Bicycles are extremely important everywhere”, affirms Penalosa to battle the problem of the vehicle traffic jams.
‘The great cities of the world like New York and Madrid do not have the big shopping malls that are currently replacing public parks. They have shopping areas for people to walk under the sky and enjoy the open spaces. When New York created its Central Park, it was poorer than Nairobi today. It’s only sick cities that replace public spaces with malls,” says Penalosa. I wonder what a former president of Kenya and others of his ilk would have to say when wanting to grab public land for dubious projects like car parks and housing estates in places like the Nairobi National Park, which is the world’s only natural wildlife park bordering a city.
Bogota and Nairobi have a few things in common. They are both south of the Equator at almost the same altitude of 5,500 feet above sea level. In the 1990s, Bogota’s streets were nothing to talk of with slums full of potholed dirt roads. Bogota also had a reputation for thieves, murderers, kidnappers and other less desirable people in society. Today, it’s full of clean, beautifully paved streets lined with flowers and trees where the rich and poor walk side by side because people sharing public pavements bring a sense of equality and also of ownership.
“Building more roads to solve traffic jams is like trying to put out fire with gas,” says Penalosa. “What creates traffic is not the number of cars but the number of trips and the length of trips these cars make. There is not one city in the world that has solved its traffic problems with building more roads,” asserts Penalosa.
A good public transport is a clear indication of democracy at work,” asserts Penalosa. “And buses are the best mode of transport for that and examples from Switzerland, Melbourne and the Netherlands prove that to be the case.”
Transforming Cities into Healthy Urban Centres
Forward planning amongst many smart planners today, including Penalosa, is not about solving a problem because to solve a problem means that a problem has been created. Planning is all about avoiding problems by not creating problems in the first place.
In Bogota, when Penalosa came on to the scene a few years ago, one of the first priorities was to transform the slums into healthy, working environments for every segment of the society from the elderly to the children. It meant making the streets safe for the kids to play on and for the old to walk on. The communities were given the reign of how they wanted their living environments to be. “It was the communities and not the government which decided things in terms of priority,” explained Penalosa. More than roads, the neighbourhoods wanted education, clean water and sewage facilities. Today even the poorest kids have the best education and more than 96 percent of the population in Bogota has access to clean water and sewage system. Libraries and public parks for recreation and playing are not a luxury for the public but a basic requirement and children come before cars.
“Public spaces, which include public parks, bring a sense of equality because we are sharing the same space regardless of being rich or poor. Crime goes down. We need to invest in parks now because if we don’t there will be no green land left in the future,” states Penalosa. This calls for transparency in the government system, education and choosing good leaders and this comes from a mayor who was rated the worst when he started his mayorship only to emerge the best after three years in office.
The trans-millennium cities of today need to be planned where people do not need to travel more than five kilometers to work and if they need to drive, a public bus service is the preferred choice, because it is easily available, affordable and comfortable, even if people are not too concerned about the environment.
By the end of Penalosa’s three year term in 2001, he was the best rated mayor in Colombia and was a runner-up for a second term on October 2007. He currently works as a consultant on urban vision and strategy and gives conferences around the world on how to make better and more livable cities.
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