Guillermo Peñalosa: “In the last 70 years we have built cities thinking more about cars than about people's happiness”

Urban planner and expert Gil Peñalosa, in Toronto.Steve Russell (Toronto Star via Getty Images)

Many cities seem to exclude a good part of their inhabitants: traffic lights that take just a few seconds to cross, tiny anti-cart sidewalks, large steps that are difficult for the elderly.

In front of them, the 8-80 cities emerge, which propose that the entire urban space be adapted to children aged 8 and over 80. The creator of the concept is Guillermo Peñalosa (Bogotá, 66 years old), who in the nineties worked as a person responsible of parks in the capital of Colombia —where he promoted innovative public spaces, such as the Simón Bolívar park— and now advises on urban planning to 350 cities around the world to make them more sustainable.

Ask.

Who are cities designed for?

Answer.

In the last 70 years we have built cities thinking more about cars than about people's happiness: they are not good for mental and physical health, for climate change, equity and sustainability.

That is why we must make cities radically different.

Now 15-minute cities are fashionable: 100 years ago, before cars arrived, all cities were 15 minutes away.

Until people went to the suburbs [residential neighborhoods].

Expanding cities was an environmental, economic, health disaster...

Q.

So what do we do?

A.

All urban growth should be in the current urban area, the already built area, because if we continue expanding the cities the problem will get bigger and bigger.

In 30 years, the population of Mexico's large cities has multiplied by 2.5, while the urban area has grown 11 to 20 times.

It is impossible to expand public transportation, water, sewage at that rate... It is urgent to put a limit on where cities are growing to densify them, so that more people live in the same area.

Melbourne (Australia) has a metropolitan area with five million inhabitants that it plans to double;

Its chief of architecture has done a study that shows that by densifying only the large arteries with buildings of five to eight floors they could double the population without increasing the current urban area, and without touching parks or recent buildings.

In the residential neighborhoods there are no cafes, restaurants, meeting places, and that is why people do not walk and there is no good public transportation.

If the density increases in those corridors, all the houses that are in the middle could walk to those corridors.

Q.

But residential areas do not stop growing.

A.

It is terrible to think that we are following the North American model of dispersed residential areas [

suburbs

], which has already been shown to be a disaster.

In Canada, 80% of urban areas are individual houses;

The federal government wants to change the laws so that people can subdivide their homes into several and rent them out: that would allow more people to live in areas that already have services.

It can also be done with infrastructures, which can have multiple uses: the school can be for students every day, but at night and on weekends it can become a market, or a collective place for activities (dancing, cards, games...) .

In the last five years there has been a trend to create school streets (or school streets), closed roads through which no private cars pass: Paris has created more than 230 and in London there are already 500.

Q.

What can cities 8-80 contribute?

A.

We have to stop building cities as if everyone was 30 years old and an athlete and create cities for everyone.

Our life as older adults is already a third of our lives, but most cities do not take care of this group.

We have to do things so that people live less alone.

Older people can volunteer in spectacular things, in Arizona I went to a botanical garden in the desert, where they have 450 volunteers over 55 years old, and that transformed their lives: there they make friends, socialize and make plans together.

If people have a purpose, socialize and are physically active, they live better.

On the other hand, subsidies for seniors should be eliminated: they should not pay less for public transportation or the cinema, that was created 50 years ago when they were very poor.

Today we should give subsidies based on need, not by age.

Q.

And as for the children?

A.

In residential neighborhoods, where public transportation is bad and there are no bike lanes, children depend on their parents to take them to see their friends, to the movies, to play soccer.

A 10 or 12 year old child should be able to go anywhere in the city on foot, by bike or on public transport without depending on an adult.

In the United States there are

soccer moms

, who in the end are taxi drivers, and many conflicts arise there;

They are the symptom of a bad community.

It is even worse for small children under four years old, who do not usually have play areas in parks, since almost all the games are for older children.

Q.

How has the pandemic changed our cities?

A.

There were transformations that seemed very expensive and were done quickly: London or Paris created kilometers and kilometers of bike lanes in 10 days, demonstrating that it was not a technical or financial problem, but rather a political one.

In Oakland (California), the mayor created slow streets in 24 hours, which only residents can access, and children began to play on those streets;

in San Francisco, they turned two golf courses into public parks.

Furthermore, in four days without cars the pollution disappeared, as if God had sent us a sign.

Do you want clean air?

This is the solution.

One of the serious problems is that many cities are returning to 2019: instead of coming to 2024 with new ideas, they are returning to the past because they feel more comfortable in that past.

More information

The battle for the sidewalks: pedestrians versus scooters, parked motorcycles, terraces, 'riders' and Amazon vans that stop “for a little minute”

Q.

Why do changes in mobility generate so much resistance?

A.

Change is difficult everywhere, but the general interest has to prevail.

Why is the general interest to have parked cars and not increase sidewalks?

The cost of doing nothing is very very high.

I suggest that mayors focus the change on the benefits: if they want to promote cycling, do not talk about bicycles, but about mental health, physical health, air quality... The bicycle is the means, it is not the end.

Another idea is to make a pilot plan very quickly to show how it will turn out: in one weekend you put up some bollards and some benches and say that if it doesn't work in a year you will remove it;

After four or five weeks people have forgotten that there were cars, and the following year you can put in the money to do a big job.

Hundreds of people pedal in 2020 along a cycle path in Bogotá, a street that is closed to car traffic on Sundays and holidays.Sebastian Barros (NurPhoto via Getty Images)

Q.

Is the same thing happening with bike lanes?

A.

It is more complicated, because for them to work you have to create a network.

If you only do two kilometers that don't connect to anything, they won't be used: it's like building a soccer field and only making one goal.

In Seville, where almost no one used a bicycle (0.6% of trips), 150 kilometers of lanes were made in one legislature and many people got on their bikes.

In Paris, Mayor Anne Hidalgo has built hundreds of kilometers of bike lanes, while in Spain I have seen several cities eliminating them.

Q.

You promoted Sunday bike lanes in Bogotá.

What does it consist on?

A.

There was a small program—and only in rich neighborhoods—whereby 15 kilometers of streets were closed to traffic on Sundays and holidays.

I wanted to take it to the poor neighborhoods and for the rich and the poor to be among equals: in four years we turned them into the largest temporary park in the world, with 121 kilometers of streets closed to traffic where 1.3 million people go out every Sunday, they walk, use the bicycle, run, talk, shop... It is important that cities are fun but it is also a program of social integration, where all children, young people, adults, old people, people with disabilities, rich, poor meet. , and they meet as equals.

Bicycles don't differentiate and neither do shoes.

I'm taking the idea to other cities: in Toronto they call them summer streets, and in Guadalajara (Mexico), they call them recreational streets.

When I started trying it in India it did not exist and today it is made in more than 50, and it is also in many capitals of Latin America.

Q.

What do you think of Barcelona's superblocks?

A.

They are spectacular, they are transforming the city.

In addition, Barcelona created a study center so that other cities around the world can look at what is being done and adapt it.

Cities have to be generous, show what works to others so that they can learn and copy it.

For example, a brother of mine [Enrique Peñalosa] was mayor of Bogotá from 2016 to 2019 and created a plan to illuminate 1,160 neighborhood parks.

The police and a university did a study and showed that in those areas security improved and drug consumption and gangs decreased.

It is important to count the impact of this type of measures.

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