‘ENDLESS’ 21ST CENTURY CITIES

ENDLESS 21ST CENTURY CITIES: HOW CAN WE MAKE THEM LIVABLE?

By Neal Peirce

© 2008 Washington Post Writers Group
















The world is urbanizing at a breathtaking pace. Ten percent of mankind lived in cities a century ago; this year we pass the 50 percent mark; by 2050, the United Nations now projects, it will be 70 percent.

But beyond global warming and poverty afflicting urban masses of the developing world, there’s a threat we Americans actually modeled. It’s how we grew in the age of the automobile -- separating where people live, work and buy, dividing classes economically, then investing first and foremost in highways and disinvesting in cities where humans can mix and relate. The threat now: that new and growing cities across Africa, Asia and Latin America are too easily drawn to thoughtless mimicry of our “motors first” model.

That’s the dire warning of “The Endless City,” a 500-page tour de force of six major world cities’ development issues, published this month by Phaidon Press. Edited by London-based architect-planners Ricky Burdett and Deyan Sudjic, the book’s based on an “Urban Age” project of city experts comparing the metropolises of New York, London, Berlin, Shanghai, Mexico City and Johannesburg.

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Their bottom line: more compact development -- mixed-use, transit-connected, democratic cities -- is the only sustainable answer to global urban growth. And not just because less sprawl translates to less energy use and pollution (cities already contribute 75 percent of the world’s carbon emissions). Investment in public transportation, the authors write, is also “a form of social justice, providing millions of people with access to jobs and amenities.”

Mexico City is said to epitomize the wrong way to go. It’s mushroomed for years in low-rise spread development. Sixty percent of its 20 million residents live in illegal and informal housing (i.e., shanty towns). Mexico City’s poor, the authors assert, are effectively “pushed out to the far fringes of this seemingly limitless city” even while “the rich seek protection” in vertical high-rises or “golf-course residential areas within armed and gated communities.”

The tragedy: Mexico City, its government split between the historic core and the fast-expanding suburbs, imposes no growth boundaries and caters to private car ownership. Public funds flow into massive freeways, exacerbating some of the world’s most grievous air pollution and ignoring the dramatic public transit successes of major busway systems in such growing cities as Curitiba (Brazil) and Bogota (Colombia), each serving broad masses of people.

The situation’s even grimmer in post-apartheid Johannesburg, where the gritty central district of Hillbrow, formerly home to the city’s major banks and corporations, is now a dangerous “no-go area to black and white residents alike.” Symbolically, the Johannesburg stock exchange moved to a new suburban enclave, Sandton, in a setting the authors describe as “a fast-expanding sea of walled shopping centers” and guard-protected residential areas “inhabited by white families and the emerging class of economically empowered blacks.”

And what of the townships of Soweto and Alexandra? They remain physically segregated. There’s little or no public transit except an unreliable and expensive communal taxi service which is many residents’ only lifeline to jobs.

Transit is getting major attention in Shanghai, where there’s been heroic and rapid investment in a Maglev train servicing the airport and a subway system planned to service virtually all the citistate’s expanding edges. In city center, an astounding 8,000 towers more than eight stories high have risen in 25 years.

Still, the new book’s authors find lots to criticize including Shanghai’s “decision to accommodate growth by building high, with isolated point blocks surrounded by car ramps and empty open space, damaging the subtle urban grain of a city of immense character and dynamic street life.” Also faulted: forced relocation of inner-city residents to remote housing projects, and the banning (gasp!) of bicycles on certain streets, supposedly to relieve congestion.

London and New York have both prospered as global “command and control” cities in recent years and get credit for expansive transit systems. Each has big problems helping their millions of low-income people survive high-price economies. London’s smart new response: requiring 50 percent of any new housing be affordable for lesser-income residents and such key workers as fire fighters, police officers and nurses.

New York is praised for linear parks and open spaces along its recycled industrial waterfronts, London for focusing building around transit stops and Mayor Ken Livingstone’s congestion pricing scheme for central London and his “Green Belt” policy to accommodate all growth within the city’s existing boundary.

Berlin’s rated “poor but sexy” -- in the words of Mayor Klaus Wowereit. Why? The city’s failed to expand economically or get appropriate national government aid after being recoronated as Germany’s capital city. But Berlin’s legendary spirit of freedom and open culture is attracting creative types, and the cafe culture flourishes.

Each city profile is open to challenge. But The Endless City should help trigger incisive global debate on what makes cities tick, what to avoid, what to treasure and emulate in a century packed with promise-- and some really scary perils.