New Urban Strategies: Changes for the Future

As I have a lightly touched upon in previous blog entries, the urban growth of global cities is a contemporary issue that is affecting the lives of every world citizen. The dense metropolitan city of Delhi is similar to a quiet suburb in Iowa in regards to its urban landscape impacting the lives of its inhabitants on a daily basis. Whether it is a subway route dictating a residents’ daily commute time, or city officials regulating residential building heights, the inhabitant of a city is the powerless victim of municipal circumstances. Here in Los Angeles, we know all too well the pitfalls of living in a city with such lack of consideration given to successful urban strategy. In 1967, Le Corbusier (arguably the most famous of all modern architects and urban strategists) mocked American cities when saying, “I shall live 30 miles from my office in one direction, under a pine tree; my secretary will live 30 miles away from it too, in the other direction, under another pine tree. We shall both have our own car. We shall use up tires, wear out road surfaces and gears, consume oil and gasoline. All of which will necessitate a great deal of work ... enough for all”. While Le Corbusier was able to diagnose the problem with American cities back in 1967, it took the rest of us a slightly longer time to question the illogical nature our cities. Due to the fragility of the world economic state coupled with increased environmental awareness, emphasis is finally beginning to be placed on efficient and responsible urban development. With that in mind, I decided to focus this week on current issues regarding three of the most important areas to consider when aspiring for successful urban growth: management of impoverished communities, public transportation, and green living.

Currently in Rio De Janeiro, Brazil, scrutiny is finally beginning to arise regarding the country’s decade long strategy towards impoverished communities. Compared to the likes of infamously indigent cities such as Johannesburg, Buenos Aires, and Mexico City, Rio’s stance towards management of poor communities is comparable to an urban-apartheid. Lacking an agenda revolving around social enrichment, the government’s hyper-disintegrated strategy towards urban rehabilitation has consisted of mass segregation and quarantining of poor communities. Existing within Rio is the slum of Dona Marta. Regarded as the most poverty stricken, and crime ridden neighborhoods in all of Brazil, the government has taken an even more drastic policy towards containment of this 7,500 person community. The project (which is already undergoing construction) involves the erection of a 650-meter long by 1-meter tall concrete wall encircling the entire neighborhood. This impoverished island prison will then be under constant supervision of the Brazilian military. State officials say that there are two main goals that will be reached through the implementation of this plan. One being that construction of the wall will prevent squatters from occupying an eco-preserve on the outskirts of the neighborhood. The second purpose is that a constant military watch will supposedly deter drug trafficking in and around the neighborhood. If people are squatting on hillsides because they have no place to live, why not implement a public work project to help construct affordable housing? If there is too much allure to pursue a career in drug trafficking, why not create a legitimate program that could create realistic job opportunities? In constructing a massive barrier around an insolvent community, the Brazilian government is simply digging itself into a deeper socio-economic hole. Their action is not ensuring Dona Marta (or any neighboring community) any long-term good and it is merely another act of abandonment that will lead to no civic revival.

Another example of a fatally flawed strategy for urban strategy can be found in Beijing, China. Avoiding Beijing’s obvious industrial waste and community housing issues, the biggest problem that Beijing faces today is its lack of sufficient public transportation. The urban layout of the city was originally established in a manner that is not suitable for the size of city that Beijing has become. The center of the problem can be linked back to Beijing’s execution of a ring road street system. The ring road system for urban planning involves the implementation of main street systems traveling in a circle around the center of the city. Smaller sub-streets branch off from the main circular roads in a traditional grid form. The idea behind the system is that as the city expands, more and more ring roads will be constructed outwards. There are currently six ring roads existing in China with plans for at least two more being constructed within the next ten years. The problem with the ring road system is that as a city expands, a true center of a city begins to disappear and natural fragmentation occurs. So while the street system was originally aligned with the notion that there is a true centralized point of the city, the reality of the matter is that there is no center anymore. The very existence of the ring roads themselves contradicts the very idea of efficient public transportation. While most forms of public transportation are operating around the inefficient ring road routes, most people opt for private vehicles or taxi cabs that are able to operate on minor streets. This causes a ridiculous amount of traffic, as well as an overwhelming amount of excess air, noise, and visual pollution. So far in 2009, there have been a recorded 1466 new private car registrations every day in Beijing. While the Chinese government is already in the process of constructing an expansive underground subway line to counter the ring roads, more action needs to be taken to implement multiple strategies. Projects that are effective at multiple scales and that can impact the nearly 17-million people that inhabit the city are essential to urban success. There needs to be projects that complement Beijing’s massive subway plan. Plans like rerouting already inefficient bus lines to necessary areas. Or public policy changes such as city expansion restrictions. Without integrating multiple public transportation projects to Beijing, the city will never be able to effectively support it’s ever increasing population.

In regards to the pursuit for efficient green dwelling, I will take a more creative approach through the analysis of a recent art sculpture created by Dutch artist Pim Palsgraaf. In his recent sculpture entitled “multiscape”, Palsgraaf proposes the theoretical idea of a sustainable city that is resting upon the back of a chicken. The artist’s idea of a transportable, famine avoiding city that has constant access to food (eggs) is a playful look at the idea of a self-sustaining city. When contemplating a city resting on a chicken what immediately crosses my mind is not the absurdity of practical application of this idea, but rather the debate that would arise if the chicken-city were to be real. The question that I pose that links the multiscape to our urban discussion is how long is it going to take for the inhabitants of the city to become tired of eating eggs and kill their home to eat its meat? Only when pondering this question does the realization that the city on the chicken already exists, and we have been slowly eating away at its breasts and thighs for years.