2 Texans Down Under

Cities should be a habitats for people, first and foremost, Enrique Penalosa believes. Not for animals. Not for cars. For people.

And this former mayor of Bogotá, Columbia, would create his ideal city for people with the following beliefs in mind, each of which I have taken from my notes on his remarks at Griffith University last Thursday night.

1. People want to be with people. When parks are constructed with benches facing lakes or rivers or other scenes of natural beauty and with benches facing places where people walk or congregate, it is the people-oriented benches that get the most use.

2. People need to walk as surely as birds need to fly. And riding a bike, Penalosa said, “is just a more efficient means of walking.”

3. People want to be outside. If a neighbourhood is dangerous or uninviting, people huddle around their television sets indoors, but that does not make them healthy or happy. They want to be outside, and walking around in a mall is not being outside. “A shopping mall,” he said, “is an indication of illness in a city.”

4. People need to not feel inferior, not to feel excluded. They don’t want to be always segregated into class-based enclaves shut off from people who can afford luxuries they cannot, such as country clubs, big-lot suburban homes, vacations, and the goods offered in shopping malls. Poor people, too, need contact with nature and culture, so Penalosa created new parks and new libraries in his city.

5. People want cities that are safe for their children, for the elderly, for the handicapped. “Cities that are good for the most vulnerable people in society,” he said, “are good for everyone.” That almost always means restrictions on automobile traffic.

Every Sunday for seven hours in Bogotá, 120 kilometres of roads are closed to motor vehicles and, he has said, “A million and a half people of all ages and incomes come out to ride bicycles, jog, and simply gather with others in community.” (Wikipedia)

Penalosa is also proud that he was able to create a car-free street 23 kilometres long (more than 14 miles) in Bogotá. He showed us pictures of it from the air and also shots of people using it, walking, pushing strollers, and riding bikes. They looked proud and they appeared to be safe. Certainly, they were outside, mingling with other people, and getting exercise.

Bogotá, with eight million people and all the problems associated with being in Columbia today, may not show up on any lists of the best places to live, but it is, most likely, a better place to be than it was before Penalosa’s term as mayor.

He found ways to offer ordinary people a sense that they matter, that they are important even if they are poor, very young, or elderly and frail. He improved Bogotá as a habitat for people.