What we learned from watching Urbanized
Earlier this week, we watched a very interesting documentary called Urbanized. Produced by Gary Hustwit, this film is a feature-length documentary about the design of cities, which looks at the issues and strategies behind urban design and how the city design impacts the city dwellers. Featured in the film were some very inspirational architects, planners, policymakers, builders, and thinkers.
One of the most interesting segments of the film to me was about Bogotá Colombia. Bogotá is a city of over 8 million residents. Bogotá is also an old city, founded in the mid-1500′s, long before cars were a consideration. The segment featured Enrique Peñalosa talking about the work done in his city. Señor Peñalosa was a key proponent of the Ciclorrutas (Or Bike Paths) project. This project was designed to make it easier for citizens to commute by bicycle to the city. Since the construction of the ciclorutas, bicycle use has quintupled in the city, and it is estimated that there are between 300,000 and 400,000 trips made daily in Bogotá by bicycle. A large portion of this use is in southern, poorer areas. The bike path network in Bogotá is one of the most extensive in the world.
During the interview, Señor Peñalosa made a few very interesting comments. I’ll attempt to paraphrase.
- A bikeway is a symbol that shows that a citizen on a $30 bicycle is equally important as a citizen on a $30,000 car.
- All this (Bogotá’s) pedestrian infrastructure shows respect for human dignity. We’re telling people, “You are important”
- All constitutions have many rights, pages and pages of rights. With so many rights, I’ve never found that any constitution includes the right to park, he said. Governments have the obligation to provide health, to provide education, to provide housing, but not necessarily to provide parking. This is a private problem.
- People tend to think sidewalks are relatives of streets, because they live next to each other he said. But in fact, sidewalks are not for getting from one place to another. Sidewalks are for talking, for doing business, for playing, for kissing. Sidewalks really are relatives of parks.
I happened to have traveled to Bogotá in the late 1990s and saw first hand the tremendous traffic in the area so this piece was especially interesting to me. I’m also very interested in the healthy living aspect of these changes in Bogotá as having safe, convenient bike routes encourage individuals to choose more manual sources of transportation.
After watching Urbanized, I am find I am more aware of how urban design influences the choices of citizens. Are we investing in the right areas to help ourselves make and sustain healthy lifestyles? What are some of the small changes we could bring about to influence our health and the health of our neighbors?
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If you would like to see the film, you can watch the trailer of Urbanized or view Worldwide screenings of Urbanized.