The development of the city and urban planning
At present, the generic model of cities is based on an immense mass of concrete, where citizens are taken as the youngest of concerns;thus giving an immense priority to companies and vehicles. However, nobody has thought about the main user of the cities? Of course, the human being;since neither of the two priority factors when it comes to the planning of the cities could exist without it, although it is not given the importance that should be. While, according to Borja J. (2015), urbanism is linking to the ordination of the existing city and its development;It needs to have an approach to the citizen who lives in it;So you have to reflect on the activities carried out in it and the link between the individual who lives it. Likewise, the human being together with his activities, is always in counting change and these are dependent on the context or site where he is;Urbanism is not and cannot be static either, but must also be adapting to the different situations facing each city. Such as: technological advances, political changes, environmental problems, among others. Urbanism is a practice that intervenes in the territories, it is not a technique, but much more. As urbanism is a profession that impacts citizens, Borja (2015) mentions that it has certain foundations that start from the following two principles: the first, the city must guarantee all individuals equally access to common goods and services. And as a second, contribute to all transformations (whether social, economic, cultural or political) so that the previous one is effective.
On the contrary, it seems that these principles were only taken to be thrown away. Since none of them is put into practice and are justified with excuses such as "the client wants it", and what usually a client wants? Having an urban landscape to first world cities, such as the United States or China, without realizing that not every urban design is equal to another;Although technological, cultural and economic processes can be of global reach, urban planning is local, since each city has specific and social characteristics.
In short, there are many history about the existing problems, in addition to theoretical arguments that have previously proposed from urban planners, architects and engineers with great experience in the field. However, is there any movement already applied? Are there new techniques or proposals to improve cities? The answer is yes, if there are and is the main point of this work: the new urban planning movements to create a city made and right for the citizen. In this case there will be an approach to two, called "new urbanism" or "urbanism for humans", and "tactical urbanism", which although they are similar;They can be considered as complementary that reach a common goal, which is to prioritize the user for the use of their cities and not economic or industrial.
According to Ciudad (2019), the so -called "new urbanism" proposes a balanced city where social, natural and economic factors are taken at the same level of importance, in addition to taking the physiological and psychological needs of the human being as the point ofDeparture for urban design, so it is also called "Urbanism for Humans". Within it, ten lines of action are established, totally opposing the traditional models of seeing urban space as a business. They were created to be used in projects of any scale, from a building to an entire city.
The first of these is "walkable urbanism", or in English, "Walkable Urbanism" that if it is not the main one, is one of the most important, which talks about the development of infrastructure aimed at prioritizing pedestrian mobility. Since we are all pedestrians and although there are public transport or their respective car, all or at least most, we have the ability to walk and it is an inherent action of us.
As a second principle, there is “diverse city”, which is that the design of a city is not focused on a single part of the population either from a racial group or economic level;since the entire city is not a population that lives in the same situation or that has the same opportunities, because each citizen is different. In "mixed use" you can summarize behind the use of the zoning technique as a distribution of a city, but is mixing everything that is offered from stores, offices, apartments and houses as a single area and not dividing each areaFor specific use. In the case of "sustainability", as the same name says, that he is able to develop by herself with its resources. The fifth principle, "accessibility", which as its name says, tries to make the entire city facilitate access to all infrastructure for all people.
As for the sixth and seventh, "design quality" and "public structure" respectively, they consider that the infrastructure is well planned and designed, that it is not only made to solve a problem, but that they are considered symbols and that they have aMeaning and identity. The 2 penultants are: "Compact city", which raises growth up and not to the extension of the territory;"Friendly mobility", encourages the use of zero emission transport, such as bikes, skates, scooters, and especially walking as an essential means of transport. And finally, the most important is the number 10: "participatory design" that, in a nut, economic and environmental so that the city manages to integrate into a whole.
On the other hand we have the famous "tactical urbanism", a model that has made popularity today and has already had several interventions in different cities such as: New York, which focused on a change in Time Square, turning an area of muchvehicular traffic in a pedestrian area;And in Mexico City, focused on Madero Street, also turned into a pedestrian corridor. In most, but in all cases, try to meet the same objective, which is to improve the experience of people when they are in public spaces.
Reason d. (2019), explains that this tactical urbanism provides three advantages for cities, which explains with examples in which this technique has already been implemented;Two were already mentioned above and add the San Francisco Parklets. These advantages are as follows:
The low cost in its execution (experimental phase) in its projects. In all cases, the cost of the facilities was minimal;In the case of New York were adding folding furniture that people were using spontaneously;In Madero Street, only signaling and traffic agents were used to guide vehicles to alternate guides;And finally, in San Francisco were only structures with minimal finishes. Any proposed proposal acts with cheap and fast solutions created by creative people in the city.
Execution speed. Since these changes are on a small scale and in order to analyze the behavior of people in the face of the implementation of pedestrian areas in brief periods of time;In order to confirm if they will have favorable results and improve them. Thus they are adaptable to the life that people have in those cities and cause more attention to them.
Horizontal and community logic. Because the proposed models have the primary objective is citizen participation;so that the community manages to appropriate all facilities. Therefore, most of these movements are initiated by the same inhabitants of the community and not by government institutions.
Clearly, not all people will agree on the modifications of spaces generally used for other activities or that generated benefit otherwise for them. However, the logic of this type of urban planning is that if the proposed project is beneficial for the community;The option to face these rejections to achieve integration is more viable and make it more likely to be implemented on a larger scale.
By having a more developed idea about the existence of these urban movements, it can be seen that despite being in an experimental or initial phase, the fact that they have been accepted by the communities where they have been implemented can be highlighted. It should be noted that the largest on the part of the proposed solutions begin by a citizen, inhabitant of the city, and not by professional or important people in political or governmental fields.
I will take as an example a project carried out in a Santo Domingo Este public space, which consisted of rehabilitating a park, where young people are dedicated to sports. However, instead that interventions are normally carried out by builders, architects, etc., The purpose was that the changes were made by users, thus giving a greater feeling that the park is really made for them.
This project is entitled as “Pocket Plazas”, and its director, Pablo Fuentes, explains it as follows: “They are a rapid execution and low cost, but high impact intervention, which seeksIt has a project in the short term, to occupy it and deliver it to the communities for a given period, with the characteristic of being transitory or temporary.”The inhabitants of that area, explain that they consider that important park for them because there is a lot of crime, crime that influence young people as a way of getting ahead;However, what certain people do is promote the practice of sport, so that they have a healthy activity in which to be distracted. Also, for this you need an area where they can practice them and have good conditions.
Pablo Fuentes was the one who took this case and began to launch his project, starting to integrate the government with the community, holding events where they were directly asked what they wanted in space. Since government authorities are not constantly contact with the areas, the citizen is the one who knows the problems they face and the opportunities that exist to improve.
All these ideas were taken and the way to project them in the area was sought;However, community participation did not stop at that point, but they were also those who applied and contributed in that application process. An example of this participation is the court and the fence, in both cases, the inhabitants were those who painted it and decorated to their liking, in addition to helping planting trees and plants, since one of the ladies explains that he always made the attempt toput their plants on those lands and being able to turn them into a "lung" of the environment. The furniture they added were certain structures and games made with wood, which are economical, easy to use and relevant to young people and children.
Paul concludes with the following: “We believe that these types of interventions allow people living in the same place to meet, recognize and allow to create that consciousness, first among people and then with the people of institutions;so that public and private institutions make an effort to multiply these actions."This project seemed extremely interesting because it is not very similar to the examples mentioned above, because unlike them, they really integrate and encourage community participation, to which it was directed, in the" construction "of that areaAnd the search for recognition with major institutions that could carry out this type of projects on a larger scale.
As we have seen, there are various methods that seek the change in the priority given to infrastructure to vehicles in cities, so conventional urban planning models in cities have become totally obsolete. Models that seek a territorial expansion and business development, thus leaving a landscape of countless buildings and public spaces that are little used by their inhabitants, which generates a cost of maintenance to areas that are not occupied. Therefore, these new alternatives are able to offer better conditions for cities both in environmental and coexistence of people, in addition to being models adaptable to each context in which they want to develop.
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