Captain Quackenbush's
Amazing Talk by Bogotá's Former Mayor
RECEIVED Fri., Jan. 30, 2009
Dear Editor,
Enrique Peñalosa gave a talk Downtown last Wednesday, and it was amazing. Peñalosa is the former mayor of Bogotá, Colombia, who transformed the city in one three-year term.
He began by saying that happiness is the goal of life, and so cities should be designed to maximize happiness. As for what makes people happy, Peñalosa mentioned three things: walking around and seeing people, being in touch with nature and the outdoors, and not being excluded.
Great public space makes people happy. The pedestrian space is our public space. Sidewalks, said Peñalosa, are more like parks than like streets. Sidewalks are where people can meet and talk. You can tell how advanced a city is, he said, by comparing sidewalk width and street width. Highways do not indicate an advanced city – developing countries are full of cities with big highways where most people lack running water.
Then Peñalosa made a very interesting point: How much space we allocate to pedestrians and how much to cars are not technical questions to be solved by traffic engineers doing studies. They are questions about values, about what sort of city we want to live in. When someone says that there is room for on-street parking but not for 10-foot sidewalks, that's a statement about values.
Elected officials were invited free of charge, but none showed up. Chris Riley was there. In general, it was bicyclists who attended. However, the talk was not about bicycles but rather about how to design cities for happiness.
Peñalosa is probably the most interesting city planner in the world. It's too bad that only bicyclists seem to have heard of him.
I wish Peñalosa were running for mayor of Austin.
Enrique Peñalosa gave a talk Downtown last Wednesday, and it was amazing. Peñalosa is the former mayor of Bogotá, Colombia, who transformed the city in one three-year term.
He began by saying that happiness is the goal of life, and so cities should be designed to maximize happiness. As for what makes people happy, Peñalosa mentioned three things: walking around and seeing people, being in touch with nature and the outdoors, and not being excluded.
Great public space makes people happy. The pedestrian space is our public space. Sidewalks, said Peñalosa, are more like parks than like streets. Sidewalks are where people can meet and talk. You can tell how advanced a city is, he said, by comparing sidewalk width and street width. Highways do not indicate an advanced city – developing countries are full of cities with big highways where most people lack running water.
Then Peñalosa made a very interesting point: How much space we allocate to pedestrians and how much to cars are not technical questions to be solved by traffic engineers doing studies. They are questions about values, about what sort of city we want to live in. When someone says that there is room for on-street parking but not for 10-foot sidewalks, that's a statement about values.
Elected officials were invited free of charge, but none showed up. Chris Riley was there. In general, it was bicyclists who attended. However, the talk was not about bicycles but rather about how to design cities for happiness.
Peñalosa is probably the most interesting city planner in the world. It's too bad that only bicyclists seem to have heard of him.
I wish Peñalosa were running for mayor of Austin.
Yours truly,
Amy Babich
Amy Babich
