WEBVTT

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Imagine a science-fiction
film. We\'re in a cold,
distant urban
landscape.

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Imagine that we live in that
future right now.

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The megacity is a reality.

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And it looks a lot like the visions
of science-fiction films -

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- through the 20th century.

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Gigacities are soon to be.

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In the midst of this cold,
bleak vision of the future
-

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- we have the human being. It
doesn\'t fit the cliché of
modernity.

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It is personal, warm,
intimate...

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social.

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In our search for
opportunities, money and a
better life - - we move to the
cities.

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But does the way we build
cities invite for human
interaction -

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- inclusion and intimacy?

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What is the scale for
measuring happiness in a city?

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Sometimes I\'d say that even
today we know much more -

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- about a good habitat for
mountain gorillas or Siberian
tigers -

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- than we know about a good
urban habitat for homo
sapiens.

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Understanding the nature and the
attitude and aspiration of the
people -

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- is the missing link. And
definitely, there lies the
solution.

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So when is the question coming?

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What is the definition of
modernity, of being modern?

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If you think about how we
lived, historically -

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- we lived in tribes and clans.

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Extended households, big
villages, big family groups.

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I guess our natural state is to
be together with other people.

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It\'s a very, very modern
phenomenon that we suddenly live
-

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- either in very tiny
households, like two-three
people -

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- or live completely on our own.

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The time around 1960 was
quite an interesting period
-

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- where the economic boom
-

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- and the industrial age in the
Western countries really took
off.

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A lot of people moved from the
countryside to the cities -

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- and there was a big
housing shortage.

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The modernists expressed
-

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- that this was a big cut
with everything of the
past.

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The apartments\' doors must
always be 200 meters from each
other.

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Here there will be motorways to
allow access to speeding cars.

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Total separation.

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And housing was
conceived as a machine
for living.

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And the city was
conceived as a machine
for living.

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Actually, the city was out.

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If anybody at any time
wanted to pay professionals
-

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- to make a city planning
idea which would kill city
life -

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- it couldn\'t have been done
better than what the modernists
did.

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When I was a kid, China was
totally different.

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At that time the economic
situation was not that great.

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People were poor, so a lot of
people worried about their food.

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This country was
more about
agriculture.

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But over the past 30 years the
door has been opened to the
world -

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- and the Chinese people
are moving to the
cities.

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So urbanization is
the real
challenge.

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And also the speed is very fast.

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The good thing is the
economic perspective.

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On the other hand, this poses
great challenges for the
environment -

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- energy and people\'s
livability.

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All the people moving into the
city have to be customized to
city life -

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- and the changed living style.

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This also means the city is
becoming bigger and bigger.

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Today we see the process of
urbanization most strongly in
China -

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- where people are undergoing
the same modernization as the
West.

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But in less than a generation.

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New housing developments are
built on the fringes of the
cities -

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- and people commute
to work in the
center.

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The high-rise business
districts drive the economy -

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- and have become the
signature image of a modern
Chinese city.

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We were so excited to
compete with foreign
countries.

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If you have a taller building,
we have an even taller
building.

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However, after all these
years, thinking back -

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- I think we made a
lot of the same
mistakes -

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- that were made by the
Western countries.

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This change also lost a lot of
the older city characteristics.

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Such as the hutong life.

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Such as the small
neighborhood. The neighborhood
tightness.

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Even down the major streets
-

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- the shops are along the
streets. You don\'t travel very
long.

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Traditional Chinese
houses, the hutong -

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- were arranged around the
courtyards and alleyways.

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How does it affect us as people
when a physical landscape
changes?

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When a social
corridor, a
neighborhood corner -

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- or occasional meeting
place disappears?

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When our generation becomes
richer -

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- we tend to
appreciate the
opportunity -

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- to own and drive a car, yes.

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The consumption of cars
and real estate -

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- is the main
generator of growth
worldwide.

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It\'s a national Chinese
policy to build roads and
highways -

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- to maintain the high growth.

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In the coming decade the
number of vehicles is expected
-

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- to double fivefold.

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We learned a lot from America.

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We learned to live with
highways and live in the
superblocks.

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I think it\'s really important to
think beyond this modern stuff -

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- and really look at how
those things support people
-

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- and if this is the right
thing to support Chinese
people.

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Despite the disappearance
of traditional lifestyles
-

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- big modern cities are
successful growth engines -

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- which have moved 300 million
Chinese out of poverty -

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- and into a living standard
equal to Western countries in
only twenty years.

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Most of these people live in
cities.

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It is estimated that
another 300 million
-

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- will reach this level of
wealth in just a couple of
decades.

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When the city becomes bigger,
your biking becomes too long a
trip.

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It doesn\'t fit anymore.

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You have much greater
pressure on your commuting -

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- because you\'re
commuting such a long
distance -

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- and take much more
time out of your day.

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When they get
home, it\'s already
dark.

00:13:20.918 --> 00:13:23.125
After dinner you feel so tired
-

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- and nobody knows
each other very
well.

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I don\'t know my neighbor at all.

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You could do more
human-oriented planning.

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You think from the people\'s end.

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You as a person, what kind of
life would you like to have?

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In the 1960s, Copenhagen went
through the same modernization
-

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- as China is today.

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Going to and from the
residences was very boring -

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- through maybe green lawns.

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There was no
activity, no shops,
no nothing.

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Just you and the grass and the
sky.

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And that was the main critique
of housing in the 60s and the
big estates.

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It was made for perfect
isolation.

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You go out and water your plants
and look up and down the street
-

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- and there\'s nobody
coming, and you go in
again.

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Nobody knew that the way we
built cities had any influence -

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- on lifestyles and people\'s
lives.

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There could be some theories
about it, but there was no
knowledge.

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And then I realized that a
lot of basic knowledge was
needed.

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Since the 1940s, city planning
had been structured around the
motorcar.

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The traffic flow was
documented systematically
-

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- to improve the speed
and efficiency of
cars.

00:15:43.626 --> 00:15:47.082
Jan Gehl decided to
develop a different set of
data -

00:15:47.083 --> 00:15:50.542
- that could challenge the
single-minded focus on traffic
flow.

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As a teacher at the school of
architecture -

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- he included his students and
colleagues in the research.

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It was super refreshing just to
be at one space the whole day -

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- and actually see what
people are doing there.

00:16:07.751 --> 00:16:10.041
For how long are they there?
Where are they standing and
walking?

00:16:10.042 --> 00:16:14.083
And you map it. But at the same
time you see how things evolve.

00:16:15.751 --> 00:16:18.151
People\'s behavior patterns in
public spaces became obvious -

00:16:19.792 --> 00:16:23.792
- when cars were pushed out of
the main street of Copenhagen.

00:16:23.834 --> 00:16:28.041
As more and more streets were
pedestrianized over the years
-

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- Jan Gehl studied how these
changes influenced people\'s
behavior.

00:16:42.417 --> 00:16:46.416
When more streets
were pedestrianized
-

00:16:46.417 --> 00:16:48.876
- he documented
systematically how public
life multiplied.

00:16:52.083 --> 00:16:56.208
The main shopping
street became a walking
street.

00:16:56.209 --> 00:17:00.083
Parking was pushed away from a
major inner city harbor.

00:17:01.209 --> 00:17:05.083
Later, the main
square became a
square.

00:17:06.959 --> 00:17:09.839
So we found this predictability,
which we have known about the
motorcars -

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- that if you make more
roads, you will have more
traffic.

00:17:16.584 --> 00:17:20.042
But now we also knew it
about city life, public
life.

00:17:20.043 --> 00:17:23.834
If you have more space for
people, you will have more
public life.

00:17:30.250 --> 00:17:34.334
If we can have spaces where
most of us feel invited -

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- so you\'re not in their space,
or they\'re coming into your
space -

00:17:40.792 --> 00:17:44.333
- but you\'re in our space
-

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- then it\'s possible for us to
meet across different layers of
society -

00:17:49.250 --> 00:17:53.167
- different user
groups, different
lifestyles.

00:17:54.250 --> 00:17:56.751
Being urban has something to
do with being able to cope -

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- with the meeting of perfect
strangers, somebody you don\'t
know.

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It\'s obvious that in these
cities where they have lost the
public space -

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- they are by now very
interested -

00:18:38.375 --> 00:18:41.751
- in refinding and
rekindling the idea of
public space.

00:18:43.250 --> 00:18:46.583
What do we do
-

00:18:46.584 --> 00:18:48.709
- when people aren\'t coming
out of their private homes
anymore?

00:18:49.042 --> 00:18:53.042
In these cities, life has been
totally privatized.

00:19:15.417 --> 00:19:18.666
In 2007
-

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- the methods of studying people
and public life were taken to
New York.

00:19:21.250 --> 00:19:25.124
Like many other North
American cities -

00:19:25.125 --> 00:19:27.667
- New York had focused
entirely on traffic efficiency
-

00:19:27.751 --> 00:19:30.917
- and built a gigantic
system of highways -

00:19:30.918 --> 00:19:33.250
- that connected with suburban
homes hours away.

00:19:32.250 --> 00:19:36.125
Robert Moses, in the 1950s,
brought an extraordinary amount
of change -

00:19:37.501 --> 00:19:40.875
- to New York City.

00:19:40.876 --> 00:19:42.876
He built a lot of
expressways, roadways.

00:19:43.125 --> 00:19:47.751
So moving quickly is certainly
still a strong part of Robert
Moses\' legacy.

00:19:49.834 --> 00:19:53.834
And thinking big is
also a big part of
that.

00:19:56.876 --> 00:19:59.236
And if you\'re a Moses-type
planner, you want to control
that.

00:20:02.792 --> 00:20:07.042
And by controlling it, you
extinguish that possibility for
life to pop up.

00:20:08.292 --> 00:20:12.500
Because you streamline
things, you separate
functions -

00:20:12.501 --> 00:20:16.291
- you separate work from
play from leisure -

00:20:16.292 --> 00:20:20.042
- and you think about it in a
very concrete system, an
equilibrium.

00:20:20.584 --> 00:20:24.458
But that\'s not what makes
places fantastic.

00:20:24.459 --> 00:20:27.083
That\'s not what made the city
great then or now.

00:20:29.459 --> 00:20:30.899
100 or 60 years ago, the car was
new.

00:20:33.125 --> 00:20:36.876
It held the promise for the
future. Now we\'ve grown up.

00:20:37.125 --> 00:20:41.374
We\'ve seen what a fully
built-out automobile world is
like.

00:20:41.375 --> 00:20:44.833
We see a lot of the negative
side effects -

00:20:44.834 --> 00:20:48.666
- that people might have
appreciated were going to happen
-

00:20:48.667 --> 00:20:51.416
- but we\'re living in a
world that\'s choked with
traffic.

00:20:51.417 --> 00:20:54.959
We\'ve made our own human living
environment deadly for people.

00:20:55.000 --> 00:20:59.166
We\'ve destroyed the human living
environment with all of this
traffic.

00:20:59.167 --> 00:21:02.959
People see that and realize you
can\'t build your way out of
traffic.

00:21:04.000 --> 00:21:08.166
We\'ve tried to plow
highways through
neighborhoods -

00:21:08.167 --> 00:21:12.042
- to double-deck highways, to do
everything that we could think
of -

00:21:12.250 --> 00:21:15.751
- and we\'ve failed.

00:21:29.334 --> 00:21:33.708
This isn\'t good enough. We\'ve
been resting on our laurels for
so long.

00:21:33.709 --> 00:21:36.709
So there was this desire to
move beyond that paradigm of
Moses.

00:21:38.292 --> 00:21:42.375
If you\'re in New York, you
know that the city needs to
change.

00:21:42.417 --> 00:21:45.958
Our city is outdated, and our
systems are outdated -

00:21:45.959 --> 00:21:49.833
- so this took a big-picture
view in saying:

00:21:49.834 --> 00:21:52.249
Okay, we\'re going to leverage
this growth to our advantage
-

00:21:52.250 --> 00:21:55.833
- by investing in our key
infrastructure systems -

00:21:55.834 --> 00:21:59.042
- and looking at that as a way
to bringing the city -

00:21:59.751 --> 00:22:03.751
- into a state of
repair and
competitiveness -

00:22:04.501 --> 00:22:08.667
- that would make us the
greatest, greenest city in the
world.

00:22:11.042 --> 00:22:12.762
If you see pictures of
Times Square before -

00:22:14.918 --> 00:22:18.584
- the image of New York was
always fast-moving taxis through
the square.

00:22:19.584 --> 00:22:23.042
Or people hailing a cab.

00:22:23.542 --> 00:22:26.501
There was a very dominant kind
of car culture of New York
City.

00:22:28.834 --> 00:22:33.292
The traffic planners had become
the most powerful people in the
city.

00:22:38.250 --> 00:22:42.249
The DOT had never
measured pedestrian
traffic.

00:22:42.250 --> 00:22:45.666
They\'d only been counting cars.

00:22:45.667 --> 00:22:48.428
They had no quantitative tools
for measuring the pedestrian
experience.

00:22:50.042 --> 00:22:54.166
There\'s an adage that is so
true in the business world -

00:22:54.167 --> 00:22:57.918
- which is that you
care about what you
measure.

00:22:58.167 --> 00:23:02.041
They were simply
maximizing the wrong
thing.

00:23:02.042 --> 00:23:04.959
So to refocus all of those
planners, you needed a new
quantitative tool.

00:23:05.292 --> 00:23:09.583
And you needed to give them new
benchmarks and new goal posts -

00:23:09.584 --> 00:23:13.041
- and that\'s what Jan helped us
do.

00:23:13.042 --> 00:23:16.002
Get the base line data, set
targets, now let\'s plan our
street to meet them.

00:23:19.375 --> 00:23:21.255
Our first task was to survey
streets and spaces.

00:23:23.417 --> 00:23:27.666
Monitor how people are walking,
how they\'re spending time in the
streets -

00:23:27.667 --> 00:23:31.209
- what type of activities
they\'re engaging in, their usage
patterns.

00:23:32.375 --> 00:23:36.374
All sorts of data that basically
didn\'t exist before.

00:23:36.375 --> 00:23:40.459
The city had a lot of data about
private vehicles, but not about
people.

00:23:50.542 --> 00:23:54.542
90% of the roadway in Times
Square was allocated to cars -

00:23:55.584 --> 00:23:59.333
- and only 10% to people.

00:23:59.334 --> 00:24:02.174
Yet 90% of those who used the
square were pedestrians, and
only 10% cars.

00:24:02.626 --> 00:24:06.459
We needed to change the maths.

00:24:09.918 --> 00:24:13.459
What? Times Square has no
square. 89% of it isn\'t even a
square.

00:24:14.417 --> 00:24:18.082
That\'s very simple to
understand.

00:24:18.083 --> 00:24:21.666
People can react to
it and demand more.

00:24:21.667 --> 00:24:24.959
No place to sit along Broadway?
Everyone understands that\'s a
shame.

00:24:25.959 --> 00:24:30.083
So we made some very
simple, even banal
observations -

00:24:30.751 --> 00:24:34.834
- framed in a political
context that allowed everyone
to say:

00:24:36.501 --> 00:24:40.792
This street is under-performing.
This isn\'t worthy of a
world-class city.

00:24:49.501 --> 00:24:53.583
The plan was to define a new
way to move in the city.

00:24:53.584 --> 00:24:56.958
Broadway would be closed fortraffic
along the major squares -

00:24:56.959 --> 00:25:00.167
- from uptown to downtown.

00:25:03.459 --> 00:25:07.541
And a network of bike
lanes would be built -

00:25:07.542 --> 00:25:09.876
- to connect with
surrounding boroughs.

00:25:13.334 --> 00:25:16.875
We\'re very
opinionated in New
York City -

00:25:16.876 --> 00:25:19.751
- so there were 8.4 million
opinions about what should be
done.

00:25:22.959 --> 00:25:24.839
You cannot implement
European culture in
America.

00:25:28.709 --> 00:25:32.708
We don\'t need any bicycle lanes
in New York City -

00:25:32.709 --> 00:25:36.291
- because people don\'t
like to ride bicycles.

00:25:36.292 --> 00:25:39.833
Because people don\'t have
time to ride bicycles.

00:25:39.834 --> 00:25:43.751
Monday through Friday, American
life is like a machine.

00:26:03.667 --> 00:26:07.750
Any suggestion of change
was met with resistance
-

00:26:07.751 --> 00:26:11.501
- because it affected
their everyday
routine.

00:26:17.834 --> 00:26:21.833
I think what this
change was spurred on
by -

00:26:21.834 --> 00:26:25.374
- was more of an
alignment, a mechanism
essentially.

00:26:25.375 --> 00:26:28.918
That mechanism was the
pilot project process.

00:26:35.375 --> 00:26:39.626
Over night the street was
closed, chairs put in, tons of
people used it.

00:26:40.459 --> 00:26:44.833
There was this huge latent
demand that existed the entire
time.

00:26:44.834 --> 00:26:47.834
They just sooped into this area.

00:26:51.417 --> 00:26:53.617
But it wasn\'t quite good
enough. People were
complaining:

00:26:55.501 --> 00:26:59.292
Cheap folding chairs from
Costco? That\'s not NYC or Times
Square.

00:26:59.501 --> 00:27:03.834
So not long after that they
needed to revise their approach
-

00:27:04.042 --> 00:27:07.917
- and get some better
quality furniture.

00:27:07.918 --> 00:27:11.041
The idea was doing something and
giving people the experience -

00:27:11.042 --> 00:27:14.626
- not doing the perfect thing
and making it right from day
one.

00:28:02.125 --> 00:28:05.917
It\'s a shift from the one heroic
vision -

00:28:05.918 --> 00:28:09.042
- to a more iterative
evolution of what cities can
become.

00:28:28.834 --> 00:28:33.041
It\'s giving people a little
taste of what their lives could
be like -

00:28:33.042 --> 00:28:37.042
- every day of the year, if the
space was designed for them and
their kids -

00:28:39.334 --> 00:28:42.918
- and for the neighborhood.

00:28:42.959 --> 00:28:46.250
I am so encouraged by the fact
-

00:28:47.125 --> 00:28:51.166
- that New York has 50 million
visitors a year now.

00:28:51.167 --> 00:28:54.417
And all those visitors to our
city are now seeing Times
Square.

00:28:55.042 --> 00:28:58.374
Bicycles everywhere.

00:28:58.375 --> 00:29:01.095
They\'re taking that back to
Kansas City and Minneapolis and
elsewhere.

00:29:02.250 --> 00:29:06.459
They\'re saying: My idea of a
city and of a city street -

00:29:07.083 --> 00:29:10.917
- is now different than it was
before.

00:29:10.918 --> 00:29:13.416
That\'s precisely what
America needs right now -

00:29:13.417 --> 00:29:16.374
- because we\'ve had this love
affair with the automobile for
100 years.

00:29:16.375 --> 00:29:20.626
And the oil\'s running out, and
people want a different
lifestyle.

00:29:26.209 --> 00:29:30.124
In Times Square there was a
snowball fight -

00:29:30.125 --> 00:29:33.833
- that took place,
completely spontaneous and
unplanned.

00:29:33.834 --> 00:29:37.583
It\'s not like I ever thought:
We\'re going to reclaim space
here -

00:29:37.584 --> 00:29:40.876
- and there\'s going to
be a snowball fight.

00:29:47.792 --> 00:29:51.876
That wildness of this
city can really only
happen -

00:29:53.000 --> 00:29:57.334
- when a critical mass of people
are living their lives in the
public realm.

00:29:57.375 --> 00:30:01.709
When everyone\'s shuttered
indoors, there\'s no vitality or
spontaneity.

00:30:03.459 --> 00:30:06.876
It\'s a living thing.

00:30:22.334 --> 00:30:26.501
It\'s a wellspring of human
interaction that is always
feeding us.

00:30:29.501 --> 00:30:33.541
You know it when you walk
down the street in
Copenhagen.

00:30:33.542 --> 00:30:36.667
You can see that
organic human quality -

00:30:37.125 --> 00:30:40.792
- that I think good cities have.

00:31:06.709 --> 00:31:10.834
Chongqing is like many, but
maybe especially one of the
cities -

00:31:12.584 --> 00:31:16.166
- that is known by its skyline.

00:31:16.167 --> 00:31:19.417
Driving to Chongqing, crossing
one of the bridges to the
downtown area -

00:31:19.751 --> 00:31:24.082
- overlooking the rivers, seeing
all the high-rise, all the neon
lights -

00:31:24.083 --> 00:31:28.584
- is in many ways what we expect
and dream of seeing in a Chinese
city.

00:31:43.250 --> 00:31:47.666
The downtown area of
Chongqing is defined by a
peninsula -

00:31:47.667 --> 00:31:50.666
- much like Manhattan.

00:31:50.667 --> 00:31:53.547
Here, the roads follow the
length of the peninsula rather
than cross it.

00:31:55.000 --> 00:31:59.166
A new plan for a more
effective pedestrian network -

00:31:59.167 --> 00:32:01.999
- to criss-cross the downtown
area was developed.

00:32:02.000 --> 00:32:05.417
This is a pilot project thataims to
influence policy makers all over China.

00:32:08.918 --> 00:32:11.438
One small route is implemented
to show this approach
firsthand.

00:32:18.375 --> 00:32:21.833
We made a number of strategies
-

00:32:21.834 --> 00:32:24.554
- and one of the places we made
a recommendation about was
\"route 3\" -

00:32:24.792 --> 00:32:28.917
- which is one pedestrian
route in the inner city area.

00:32:28.918 --> 00:32:32.876
We should consider adding more
benches because people want to
sit...

00:32:34.125 --> 00:32:38.167
We take some existing
spaces and we utilize them
better.

00:32:39.167 --> 00:32:42.918
We make them inviting for
walking -

00:32:43.209 --> 00:32:46.958
- for social interaction.

00:32:46.959 --> 00:32:49.720
Every little quarter, every
little square meter between the
buildings -

00:32:50.459 --> 00:32:54.834
- has been given new pavement
and integrated into this new
route -

00:32:55.959 --> 00:33:00.083
- and has been given
importance for the local
community.

00:33:12.334 --> 00:33:16.333
So over there they took the
sidewalk through.

00:33:16.334 --> 00:33:18.999
I actually thought they\'d done
it here as well at one point.

00:33:19.000 --> 00:33:21.840
We\'re creating a pedestrian
route. At one point it meets a
street artery.

00:33:25.250 --> 00:33:29.334
Meaning it\'s an important
traffic route in the city.

00:33:29.417 --> 00:33:33.249
The question is: Who
do we prioritize?

00:33:33.250 --> 00:33:36.375
We convinced the local planners
-

00:33:36.417 --> 00:33:39.291
- that this being part of a
strategy to implement new
pedestrian routes -

00:33:39.292 --> 00:33:42.958
- it\'s very important that they
prioritize pedestrians.

00:33:42.959 --> 00:33:45.750
Get a good zebra
crossing, pull sidewalks
through -

00:33:45.751 --> 00:33:48.375
- to make it nice and convenient
for everyone to walk in this
area.

00:33:50.459 --> 00:33:54.792
And they did. They implemented
it. And this was done not six
months ago.

00:33:56.042 --> 00:34:00.082
I thought the sidewalk had
gone through here as well.

00:34:00.083 --> 00:34:03.875
- It has been changed.
- They changed it
back?

00:34:03.876 --> 00:34:07.167
Yesterday we learned that the
police and planning department
had then -

00:34:09.000 --> 00:34:13.333
- removed the implementation
again to create a new road
space.

00:34:13.334 --> 00:34:17.667
- It\'s bad that it\'s changed
back here. - They still care
about the vehicles.

00:34:25.209 --> 00:34:29.292
We must create examples showing
that you can make a different
choice.

00:34:30.042 --> 00:34:34.584
That it can be attractive to
make a choice where you don\'t
have the car.

00:34:35.584 --> 00:34:39.334
That is still rare in a Chinese
context.

00:34:40.751 --> 00:34:43.209
The small scale of the
street is extremely
important.

00:34:53.209 --> 00:34:57.584
My wife and I started in Italy
to document by counting the
people -

00:35:00.792 --> 00:35:04.958
- and seeing whether they were
standing in the sun or in the
shade.

00:35:04.959 --> 00:35:08.666
What was going on in Italy?

00:35:08.667 --> 00:35:11.147
And why was Italy famous for
being such a nice place for
people?

00:35:43.334 --> 00:35:47.542
We always did the old
cities in a 5 km per hour
scale.

00:35:47.709 --> 00:35:51.875
That means that when you
move at 5 km per hour,
walking -

00:35:51.876 --> 00:35:55.917
- you can see the people. You\'re
squeezed a little bit together.

00:35:55.918 --> 00:35:59.959
And it\'s a very
sensual and
interesting world.

00:36:00.125 --> 00:36:04.500
You can see all the details.
There are colors, there are
smells -

00:36:04.501 --> 00:36:08.375
- there are acoustics
which are very
interesting.

00:36:20.250 --> 00:36:24.417
If you go to a modern housing
area. it suddenly makes sense -

00:36:25.417 --> 00:36:29.458
- that much of the
stuff in the suburbs is
made -

00:36:29.459 --> 00:36:33.083
- so that the cars would be
happy when going 60 km an hour.

00:36:33.459 --> 00:36:37.959
For doing 60 km you need big
spaces, big signals, big turning
radiuses.

00:36:40.417 --> 00:36:44.959
That\'s a completely different
scale from the scale of the
walking man.

00:36:53.709 --> 00:36:57.918
I think everybody would love to
live with a garden and a house.

00:36:58.292 --> 00:37:01.917
I think that\'s a natural
instinct.

00:37:01.918 --> 00:37:05.042
But when it\'s the choice of
how much that costs you -

00:37:06.083 --> 00:37:08.803
- how much time you spend
getting to work, you start to
weigh that up.

00:37:09.209 --> 00:37:13.249
So people will work out
the economics of the
city.

00:37:13.250 --> 00:37:16.751
They\'ll work out that living in
the suburbs may not be a good
investment.

00:37:16.959 --> 00:37:21.375
And what used to be our parents\'
idea of an investment will not
be ours.

00:37:22.751 --> 00:37:25.918
I would\'ve agreed with
you three or four years
ago -

00:37:26.876 --> 00:37:29.917
- that the great Australian
dream of a freestanding detached
house -

00:37:29.918 --> 00:37:33.959
- with a front garden, a large
back garden, two cars in the
garage -

00:37:34.250 --> 00:37:38.208
- was the universal
aspiration of young people.

00:37:38.209 --> 00:37:41.875
I have seen a shift in that
period.

00:37:41.876 --> 00:37:44.541
Just this week we\'ve had
academics saying -

00:37:44.542 --> 00:37:47.541
- that creating these suburbs by
just rolling out houses like a
carpet -

00:37:47.542 --> 00:37:51.667
- is going to create ghettos of
the future which will make
people ill -

00:37:51.876 --> 00:37:55.667
- which will have
poorer health outcomes.

00:37:56.667 --> 00:37:59.709
So we\'re building a
problem for ourselves.

00:38:00.542 --> 00:38:03.500
Not only obesity, but social
isolation and financial
hardship.

00:38:03.501 --> 00:38:07.876
All those symptoms are showing
up on the edge of Australian
capital cities.

00:38:10.834 --> 00:38:13.034
Can you change a city model
if it was built for the
car?

00:38:15.167 --> 00:38:19.626
What I found in the 1980s was
that Melbourne was in fact
dying.

00:38:20.834 --> 00:38:25.459
Almost no population living in
the city. We had to write a
strategy for change.

00:38:26.042 --> 00:38:30.541
All we did was listen to the
people. We listened to what they
were saying.

00:38:30.542 --> 00:38:34.792
And we realized that the
question we were being given
was:

00:38:35.667 --> 00:38:39.918
How do you make a 24-hour city,
but make it feel and look like
Melbourne?

00:38:43.959 --> 00:38:47.167
Isn\'t life something organicthat jumps
up wherever we don\'t expect it?

00:38:49.959 --> 00:38:52.459
Can you design and plan a lively
city?

00:38:53.959 --> 00:38:57.625
Can you change people\'s desires?

00:38:57.626 --> 00:39:00.583
Why walk when you can
choose the car?

00:39:00.584 --> 00:39:03.542
Why live in a small apartmentwhen
you can have a house and a garden?

00:39:06.083 --> 00:39:08.918
Adams discovered a hidden
resource in the layout of the
downtown grid -

00:39:10.792 --> 00:39:15.042
- which became the key to
attract life back to the city.

00:39:21.834 --> 00:39:26.083
The laneways were the
crappiest space you could
think of -

00:39:27.959 --> 00:39:31.374
- in Melbourne earlier.

00:39:31.375 --> 00:39:34.999
It felt unsafe, it was the
backside of buildings.

00:39:35.000 --> 00:39:38.918
You had all the air
conditioners and dumpsters in
those spaces.

00:39:41.459 --> 00:39:45.417
It was never ever thought
about as a people space.

00:39:45.626 --> 00:39:50.083
But at the same time they had
this very nice human scale to
them.

00:39:51.292 --> 00:39:55.626
They were narrow and in shadow,
which is nice most part of the
year.

00:39:57.918 --> 00:40:01.541
So by opening up the buildings
-

00:40:01.542 --> 00:40:04.166
- and transforming the
friendliness of the environment
-

00:40:04.167 --> 00:40:07.834
- it completely
changed the life of
the city.

00:40:11.375 --> 00:40:13.656
The streets now became
places where people wanted
to stay -

00:40:15.417 --> 00:40:19.167
- so we started introducing café
bars, and we went from two in
1985 -

00:40:20.375 --> 00:40:24.501
- to over 500 today. People now
sit on the streets enjoying
coffee.

00:40:25.667 --> 00:40:29.542
The streets have
become our living
room.

00:40:40.083 --> 00:40:44.334
Melbourne has been
consistent over the past 30
years -

00:40:44.542 --> 00:40:48.792
- in its policy to bring people
back to live in the city
center.

00:40:49.542 --> 00:40:53.501
In the future the
population is expected to
double -

00:40:53.584 --> 00:40:57.208
- but the city plans to
accommodate for this growth -

00:40:57.209 --> 00:41:00.249
- without needing to
build more suburbs.

00:41:00.250 --> 00:41:03.011
3.6 billion people live in
cities today, 50% of the world\'s
population.

00:41:04.042 --> 00:41:08.125
That\'s going to rise to 6.5
billion people by 2050.

00:41:08.834 --> 00:41:13.334
We almost have to double the
urban capacity of our cities in
40 years.

00:41:18.542 --> 00:41:22.082
Are we as nimble as China?

00:41:22.083 --> 00:41:24.458
China is undergoing what is the
world\'s greatest social
experiment.

00:41:24.459 --> 00:41:27.791
How do you move more than a
billion people -

00:41:27.792 --> 00:41:30.751
- from an agrarian to
an urban environment?

00:41:30.792 --> 00:41:33.792
And that urban environment is
not for all. I see things they
do very quickly.

00:41:34.959 --> 00:41:38.875
But I also see
things where I worry
about -

00:41:38.876 --> 00:41:41.917
- what is the consequence of
that in 20 or 30 years?

00:41:41.918 --> 00:41:45.209
There is nothing to fear from
growth. There is from unplanned
growth.

00:41:45.876 --> 00:41:49.999
And if we start to
address how we make
people happy -

00:41:50.000 --> 00:41:54.082
- how we make our
cities financially
viable -

00:41:54.083 --> 00:41:57.334
- we must look at cities very
carefully and understand how
they work.

00:41:57.834 --> 00:42:01.042
We haven\'t got the time or money
to build the infrastructure
we\'ll need -

00:42:02.542 --> 00:42:06.666
- for the capacity we
need in the next 50
years.

00:42:06.667 --> 00:42:10.918
So we\'ll have to look at our
city and think: How do you do
more with less?

00:42:26.709 --> 00:42:30.458
If you look back
50 years from now
-

00:42:30.459 --> 00:42:33.959
- the city was
almost a city like
Venice.

00:42:39.375 --> 00:42:42.416
Unfortunately, after the
Liberation War -

00:42:42.417 --> 00:42:46.291
- the government\'s policy became
very central towards Dhaka.

00:42:46.292 --> 00:42:50.291
And internal migration
started at a very high rate.

00:42:50.292 --> 00:42:53.918
Nowadays it\'s
almost 7% to 8%
every year.

00:42:55.209 --> 00:42:58.917
And Dhaka started growing.

00:42:58.918 --> 00:43:01.875
Having that huge pressure...

00:43:01.876 --> 00:43:04.750
If you could control
potential resources
-

00:43:04.751 --> 00:43:08.250
- it could be a wonderful city.

00:43:14.834 --> 00:43:18.875
Dhaka is the fastest growing
city in the world.

00:43:18.876 --> 00:43:22.667
Half a million people move here
from the countryside every
year.

00:43:22.834 --> 00:43:27.292
To handle this pressure Dhaka follows
the urban model of China and the West.

00:43:28.375 --> 00:43:32.792
A model based on cars, highways,
high-rise residential suburbs -

00:43:33.083 --> 00:43:36.917
- and a massive
consumption of energy.

00:43:36.918 --> 00:43:40.250
Why do we have to
copy a western world
-

00:43:40.542 --> 00:43:43.917
- and just push it into
our planning process?

00:43:43.918 --> 00:43:47.042
This particular notion of living
How we are addressing it -

00:43:47.667 --> 00:43:51.500
- how we are denying
it, is an example -

00:43:51.501 --> 00:43:55.292
- of how we\'re destroying the
flavor this city could have.

00:44:20.792 --> 00:44:25.291
A group of activists in Dhaka
have translated Jan Gehl\'s
books.

00:44:25.292 --> 00:44:29.876
They introduced his methods ofcounting
pedestrians, rickshaws and public life -

00:44:30.626 --> 00:44:34.626
- to inspire a different
approach to planning.

00:44:35.501 --> 00:44:38.209
I think it was in 2005
-

00:44:38.959 --> 00:44:42.334
- when people saw that the
government was taking initiative
-

00:44:43.751 --> 00:44:47.584
- to ban rickshaws from some
roads.

00:44:48.751 --> 00:44:51.431
What is the reason? They claim
that the rickshaw is the main
source -

00:44:54.792 --> 00:44:58.751
- of congestion. Then they
banned the rickshaw.

00:45:05.042 --> 00:45:08.459
What did we find out? The
congestion is still there.

00:45:09.042 --> 00:45:13.250
They overlooked the main
issue. The main problem was
parking.

00:45:14.501 --> 00:45:18.584
The cars park for free
and take up all the
space.

00:45:23.918 --> 00:45:27.792
The private car
companies make the cars
-

00:45:28.542 --> 00:45:32.249
- and this is the zone to sell
them.

00:45:32.250 --> 00:45:35.501
The policy is that they
are giving us loans.

00:45:35.709 --> 00:45:39.751
Maybe the ADB or the World
Bank are giving us loans -

00:45:40.000 --> 00:45:43.750
- to make roads and flyovers.

00:45:43.751 --> 00:45:47.626
They are making them.
It\'s their business
area.

00:45:48.501 --> 00:45:52.500
They\'re selling them.
They\'re giving us
aid.

00:45:52.501 --> 00:45:55.583
It\'s not aid. We have to
pay them back.

00:45:55.584 --> 00:45:59.250
And we are burdened with that
loan. We shouldn\'t follow that
model.

00:46:07.834 --> 00:46:12.167
By banning rickshaws, the
government destroys employment
opportunities.

00:46:13.709 --> 00:46:17.834
And 300,000 rickshaws with
600,000 rickshaw pullers...

00:46:19.125 --> 00:46:23.125
They are the poor
people. So what can they
do?

00:46:23.542 --> 00:46:27.959
If they earn something today,
they\'ll eat. If they don\'t, they
don\'t.

00:46:33.709 --> 00:46:37.584
Only 5% of the people use
private cars. 37% use rickshaws.

00:46:41.250 --> 00:46:45.042
If the 37% switch to
using private cars -

00:46:47.334 --> 00:46:51.542
- then they can\'t move
anywhere. I have to just sit in
the car.

00:46:52.042 --> 00:46:55.750
Do they have to sleep and eat
there?

00:46:55.751 --> 00:46:59.709
It\'s my car. I have it, and I
have nothing to do. That\'s it.

00:47:34.626 --> 00:47:38.625
When policies and
planning come from the
top -

00:47:38.626 --> 00:47:42.125
- they never understand the very
aspiration of the people.

00:47:42.709 --> 00:47:46.876
So when you do it, you
have encompassed only the
rich -

00:47:47.667 --> 00:47:51.374
- or upper-middle
class.

00:47:51.375 --> 00:47:54.584
The rest, who dominate in
terms of numbers, are left
out.

00:47:55.334 --> 00:47:58.958
The whole problem started
growing.

00:47:58.959 --> 00:48:02.750
Unfortunately, if you don\'t
encompass everybody -

00:48:02.751 --> 00:48:06.626
- in your planning and
understanding of transportation
and housing -

00:48:06.876 --> 00:48:10.959
- you are heading towards a
chaos created by yourself.

00:48:12.209 --> 00:48:16.291
You have disregarded
them, but they\'re always
there.

00:48:16.292 --> 00:48:20.292
You can\'t say they don\'t exist.
They do, and the problem started
from there.

00:48:22.876 --> 00:48:26.083
How should this modernity be
prioritized? Who should be
prioritized?

00:48:48.334 --> 00:48:52.291
The new ten-year
plan for improving
Dhaka -

00:48:52.292 --> 00:48:54.875
- prioritizes highways
and road
infrastructure.

00:48:54.876 --> 00:48:57.583
It is heavily
funded by the World
Bank.

00:48:57.584 --> 00:49:01.459
The government will spend 10
million dollars on pedestrian
facilities -

00:49:02.209 --> 00:49:06.334
- while the budget for
flyovers will be 1 billion.

00:49:09.125 --> 00:49:11.165
Activists complain that the plan
is socially unfair.

00:49:17.709 --> 00:49:20.876
The transport authorities
have no concept of
equality.

00:49:23.209 --> 00:49:27.417
The government takes out
loans for car-based
infrastructure.

00:49:29.918 --> 00:49:33.542
These loans are paid by everyone
-

00:49:33.959 --> 00:49:38.167
- but most of those who must pay
back these loans don\'t even use
cars.

00:49:41.501 --> 00:49:45.125
It\'s cheap to make good
footpaths.

00:49:46.250 --> 00:49:50.124
But the pedestrian
environment is poor.

00:49:50.125 --> 00:49:53.417
It is mostly
pedestrians who die in
traffic.

00:50:02.209 --> 00:50:06.249
Protest groups are
taking the streets of
Dhaka.

00:50:06.250 --> 00:50:09.459
Demonstrators demand equality
and more rights for
pedestrians.

00:50:17.834 --> 00:50:21.875
We don\'t need cars, we need
public transportation.

00:50:21.876 --> 00:50:25.375
While one or two
people travel in a car
-

00:50:25.417 --> 00:50:28.584
- 50 people can
travel in a single
bus.

00:50:29.459 --> 00:50:33.459
This movement must be
spread throughout the
country.

00:50:35.959 --> 00:50:39.583
We want a car-free
Bangladesh!

00:50:39.584 --> 00:50:42.626
We want to be free of the
negative forces of economic
colonialism!

00:50:49.292 --> 00:50:53.583
At the current growth rate
thepopulation is expected to double -

00:50:53.584 --> 00:50:57.501
- from 160 million today to
more than 300 in just a few
decades.

00:50:58.209 --> 00:51:02.501
With this car-centered
development, if each person had
a car -

00:51:03.667 --> 00:51:07.750
- like in America, we would
have 300 million cars.

00:51:07.751 --> 00:51:11.626
Would there be any space
left in Bangladesh?

00:51:16.667 --> 00:51:20.250
Sometimes I get mad...

00:51:20.834 --> 00:51:24.709
Not mad, but I feel very
uneasy. We are sinking.

00:51:25.751 --> 00:51:29.542
I don\'t know how I can explain
it.

00:51:33.959 --> 00:51:37.918
Sometimes I cannot
sleep properly at
night.

00:51:38.959 --> 00:51:42.751
I think about what we eat.

00:51:43.250 --> 00:51:47.417
If all our food is
contaminated with toxic
chemicals...

00:51:56.042 --> 00:51:59.459
But other problems are
becoming more and more
prominent.

00:52:02.083 --> 00:52:04.417
Dhaka is considered a
high-risk earthquake zone.

00:52:06.459 --> 00:52:10.708
The urban development
magnifies this problem
heavily.

00:52:10.709 --> 00:52:14.167
The landmass is fast being
covered with asphalt and
concrete -

00:52:15.000 --> 00:52:19.500
- which causes rainwater to
flow into the polluted river
system.

00:52:19.501 --> 00:52:23.042
The groundwater is therefore the
only resource, and it is
depleting quickly.

00:52:28.042 --> 00:52:32.209
Last year, a small earthquake
of 5.4 magnitude hit the
city.

00:52:33.083 --> 00:52:36.875
In the case of a major
earthquake -

00:52:36.876 --> 00:52:39.396
- it is estimated that 80,000
high-rise buildings will
collapse.

00:52:39.584 --> 00:52:43.750
There is a connectivity. The
soil structure is changing.

00:52:43.751 --> 00:52:47.584
As a result, a minor
earthquake can create a big
problem.

00:52:51.167 --> 00:52:55.041
When the soil condition changes
-

00:52:55.042 --> 00:52:58.417
- the bearing capacity
diminishes.

00:53:02.709 --> 00:53:03.709
Sometimes I cannot sleep
-

00:53:06.292 --> 00:53:08.959
- because if we suffer an
earthquake of magnitude 6 -

00:53:10.918 --> 00:53:14.792
- most of our
buildings will not
survive.

00:53:37.918 --> 00:53:41.959
As a species, we have certain
conditions of learning.

00:53:42.250 --> 00:53:46.209
A kid walking down the
road and around the house:

00:53:48.751 --> 00:53:52.709
What does he see? He sees
small trees growing -

00:53:54.959 --> 00:53:58.584
- and insects and butterflies.

00:54:04.626 --> 00:54:08.541
If you see life, if you
see how it grows -

00:54:08.542 --> 00:54:11.918
- then when you grow up, you
will take care of the lives of
others.

00:54:13.542 --> 00:54:17.709
It\'s not school or a book. It\'s
the timeframe of your life. You
learn.

00:54:21.375 --> 00:54:24.167
So when you make us turn our
city into a place where you
don\'t walk -

00:54:27.000 --> 00:54:31.125
- your kids don\'t walk, you
are raising a generation -

00:54:31.918 --> 00:54:35.751
- that won\'t be
human when they grow
up.

00:54:42.542 --> 00:54:46.291
If we look at it as
if it\'s a bridge -

00:54:46.292 --> 00:54:49.208
- I think we can see where the
end of the bridge is.

00:54:49.209 --> 00:54:53.083
Because our destination
is the Western Modern
World.

00:54:53.626 --> 00:54:57.875
Now that we\'ve started the
journey and are on the middle of
the bridge -

00:54:57.876 --> 00:55:02.083
- we can see how the
capitalistic model, all those
modern things -

00:55:02.375 --> 00:55:06.626
- all the cars and all the
highways destroyed their lives.

00:55:08.834 --> 00:55:10.542
Now I can set up my journey.

00:55:12.334 --> 00:55:15.792
Which way will I go?

00:55:20.417 --> 00:55:24.584
We count, we measure,
calculate and
maximize.

00:55:24.918 --> 00:55:29.374
But did we count the 4 billion
people living in Third World
countries?

00:55:29.375 --> 00:55:33.208
And what will happen when they
drive a car, pollute -

00:55:33.209 --> 00:55:36.209
- and consume the amount of
energy that we do?

00:55:40.959 --> 00:55:44.792
What if we started all over?

00:56:23.334 --> 00:56:27.709
Imagine waking up and being
attacked by someone with a piece
of wood.

00:56:28.250 --> 00:56:32.291
You didn\'t know what was
happening. The power was out.

00:56:32.292 --> 00:56:35.459
The noise was incredible. You
could not stand or find
anything.

00:56:36.250 --> 00:56:39.959
You had no sense of bearings.

00:56:40.125 --> 00:56:44.209
The room was strewn with books
and things that had fallen
over.

00:56:44.292 --> 00:56:48.167
This was happening to maybe
half a million people.

00:56:53.709 --> 00:56:58.250
In 2011, Christchurch, NewZealand,
underwent a devastating earthquake.

00:57:01.501 --> 00:57:03.459
The inner city
suffered the worst
damage -

00:57:05.584 --> 00:57:08.125
- and most casualties
happened in high-rise
buildings.

00:57:18.459 --> 00:57:22.501
The immediate response is:
Build it back as it was
before.

00:57:23.501 --> 00:57:27.792
Rebuild it. But there\'s a lot of
research about cities after
disasters.

00:57:29.042 --> 00:57:33.167
What happens is that your
quality of life is destroyed.

00:57:34.876 --> 00:57:39.042
It\'s much less than before the
quake. You have a choice.

00:57:40.042 --> 00:57:43.958
You can try to get
back to where you were
-

00:57:43.959 --> 00:57:47.876
- but international evidence
suggests you improve the quality
of life -

00:57:48.626 --> 00:57:52.667
- beyond where you were before.
Try to make up some lost
ground.

00:57:54.375 --> 00:57:58.042
We\'ve got five
years of hardship -

00:57:58.667 --> 00:58:02.667
- but if we can make
Christchurch a better place -

00:58:02.709 --> 00:58:06.542
- it will help us regain some of
the lost quality of life -

00:58:08.459 --> 00:58:12.375
- and the damage to our
physical environment.

00:58:15.584 --> 00:58:18.708
The center of
Christchurch is named the
Red Zone -

00:58:18.709 --> 00:58:22.166
- and the public is not
allowed to access the area.

00:58:22.167 --> 00:58:26.249
The structural damage to the
buildings still standing is so
great -

00:58:26.250 --> 00:58:29.709
- that the entire
city has to be
demolished.

00:58:30.083 --> 00:58:33.250
It is estimated that up to 1500
buildings will be torn down -

00:58:34.542 --> 00:58:38.167
- before rebuilding begins.

00:58:46.918 --> 00:58:50.917
The first time I was in
Christchurch, the city was in
shock.

00:58:50.918 --> 00:58:55.124
They needed to talk about
everything they\'d been through.

00:58:55.125 --> 00:58:59.250
But how do you start? How do you
start rebuilding a city -

00:58:59.542 --> 00:59:03.458
- from scratch
almost? Or a central
city?

00:59:03.459 --> 00:59:07.417
It had to be inclusive. It had
to be everybody\'s project.

00:59:09.876 --> 00:59:11.834
Please welcome back to
Christchurch David Sim.

00:59:16.334 --> 00:59:18.974
I\'ve heard a lot about these
foreign experts telling you what
to do.

00:59:22.501 --> 00:59:26.501
I\'m not going to do
that. My job is to
listen.

00:59:27.125 --> 00:59:31.459
I want to hear what you want to
do and do what I can to help you
do that.

00:59:34.167 --> 00:59:37.417
What kind of city do you want?
Everybody has something to
share.

00:59:39.709 --> 00:59:43.792
The idea of a program that would
reach out to everybody -

00:59:45.334 --> 00:59:49.626
- so we could get their ideas,
would help us understand what
they wanted.

00:59:52.417 --> 00:59:56.709
The adversity of the destruction
was the opportunity to build a
new future.

00:59:58.792 --> 01:00:02.626
We called it \'Share an idea\'.

01:00:11.250 --> 01:00:15.000
We invited people to
share their idea -

01:00:15.667 --> 01:00:19.333
- of how Christchurch should be.

01:00:19.334 --> 01:00:22.417
We ended up with 106,000
ideas about what it should be
like.

01:00:30.918 --> 01:00:34.959
We employed a hundred people to
sit and type this information -

01:00:35.959 --> 01:00:39.999
- that came in online and on
bits of paper or post-its.

01:00:40.000 --> 01:00:44.042
And out popped all of the key
words that people were focusing
on.

01:00:45.125 --> 01:00:49.500
They wanted a low-rise city,
much like many older European
cities.

01:00:49.501 --> 01:00:53.750
They wanted spaces they could
relate to. They wanted cycle
ways -

01:00:53.751 --> 01:00:57.918
- and more gardens. They wanted
a smaller retail area.

01:00:59.834 --> 01:01:03.709
They wanted
effectively a city for
people.

01:01:10.918 --> 01:01:14.791
The people, without being told
what to think -

01:01:14.792 --> 01:01:18.667
- came together, and their ideas
were identical to much of the
work -

01:01:19.918 --> 01:01:23.751
- that Jan had been
doing around the world.

01:01:23.792 --> 01:01:26.958
It\'s really proving in a
sense that the things that we
want -

01:01:26.959 --> 01:01:30.918
- when we are people, opposed to
corporations, are very common.

01:01:35.626 --> 01:01:38.466
We had a section in the plan
where you could have tall office
buildings -

01:01:41.334 --> 01:01:45.751
- and still have the cathedral
tower standing proud above all
of that.

01:01:46.876 --> 01:01:51.250
If you imagine the tallest
spire in the middle of all of
this -

01:01:52.042 --> 01:01:55.792
- it could be a fantastic
composition.

01:02:00.959 --> 01:02:04.374
But if you imagine
-

01:02:04.375 --> 01:02:05.918
- what this was like before,
the normal sounds of a city
-

01:02:06.417 --> 01:02:10.959
- like cars, busses, people
talking, children laughing and
screaming -

01:02:13.792 --> 01:02:17.375
- the silence is really weird.

01:02:19.250 --> 01:02:21.125
And the fact that you
could hear birds
singing.

01:02:23.209 --> 01:02:25.626
I thought, \"It shouldn\'t be
like that.\"

01:02:28.417 --> 01:02:30.000
It\'s just, you know, wow!

01:02:33.459 --> 01:02:35.125
Where do we go from here?

01:02:47.709 --> 01:02:52.167
I think if you\'re a historian,
you can talk about this English
style -

01:02:52.667 --> 01:02:56.666
- or this Victorian
style. For ordinary
people -

01:02:56.667 --> 01:03:00.334
- the buildings have a more
important value, which is about
memory.

01:03:01.584 --> 01:03:05.792
Like: \"That was the café where I
used to go on Saturdays with my
granny.\"

01:03:06.667 --> 01:03:10.583
\"That\'s the shop where I
bought those shoes.\"

01:03:10.584 --> 01:03:14.125
\"That\'s where my hairdresser
was. This is where I met my
girlfriend.\"

01:03:15.375 --> 01:03:19.667
\"I saw her for the first time
there. Down there we had our
first coffee.\"

01:03:20.751 --> 01:03:25.083
Those stories are more
interesting because they touch
us emotionally.

01:03:26.751 --> 01:03:30.876
Cities are full of these
stories. Overlapping stories and
memories.

01:03:36.667 --> 01:03:40.501
It\'s very moving to
read some of these.

01:03:41.584 --> 01:03:44.417
\"Why are we doing nothing to
save our heritage building?\"

01:03:45.918 --> 01:03:49.917
\"What of our past will we
leave for our future?\"

01:03:49.918 --> 01:03:53.459
I think people feel that all of
their memories will be gone as
well.

01:03:53.751 --> 01:03:58.083
It\'s an interesting way of
seeing a city. It\'s not just
bricks and mortar.

01:03:59.334 --> 01:04:02.958
That\'s come through all of this.

01:04:02.959 --> 01:04:06.501
Because this is about
love. It\'s a heart.

01:04:07.792 --> 01:04:11.792
It\'s about people.
They\'re all
heart-shaped.

01:04:12.042 --> 01:04:16.250
Because people love their city.
They want it back. Or some of it
back.

01:04:24.083 --> 01:04:28.249
The plan for
Christchurch has become
a big battle.

01:04:28.250 --> 01:04:31.249
Landowners and
developers fight the
regulations -

01:04:31.250 --> 01:04:33.750
- against
high-rise office
buildings.

01:04:33.751 --> 01:04:36.416
The public insists on a low-risecity
with a lively public center -

01:04:36.417 --> 01:04:40.082
- where residents and
businesses can co-exist.

01:04:40.083 --> 01:04:43.501
The large majority want low-rise
buildings. We did a feasibility
study.

01:04:46.459 --> 01:04:50.667
Six stories... When you look at
the return on building costs -

01:04:53.209 --> 01:04:57.082
- the best return was
about six stories.

01:04:57.083 --> 01:05:00.792
Above that requires greater
foundation depth and stronger
structures.

01:05:01.250 --> 01:05:05.709
There\'s a threshold. Above that,
the costs go up more than the
return.

01:05:07.667 --> 01:05:11.918
So you have to go a lot higher
up to get a good rate of return.

01:05:19.876 --> 01:05:24.375
The big problem with tall
buildings is interesting.
There\'s loads of research.

01:05:25.584 --> 01:05:29.959
You can ask a surgeon or a
nurse: What is the foundation of
health?

01:05:31.417 --> 01:05:35.709
They\'ll say more or less the
same. Fresh air, exercise, meet
people.

01:05:38.709 --> 01:05:42.417
The higher up you are in a
building -

01:05:42.459 --> 01:05:45.416
- the less likely you are to go
in and out spontaneously.

01:05:45.417 --> 01:05:49.374
So the people in the
building have more boring
lives.

01:05:49.375 --> 01:05:53.459
There\'s much less life on the
streets. Getting out, meeting
people is vital.

01:05:59.292 --> 01:06:02.012
I wanted to find a tool. A way
of communicating what cities are
about.

01:06:06.876 --> 01:06:10.876
I wanted to find a simple
way of talking about it.

01:06:11.626 --> 01:06:15.584
If you put a few pieces of
Lego in front of people -

01:06:16.167 --> 01:06:20.083
- people immediately start
playing with them.

01:06:21.876 --> 01:06:24.375
I was a Lego kid. I played a lot
of Lego as a child.

01:06:26.042 --> 01:06:30.125
You can discuss how dangerous
Lego is in terms of -

01:06:32.125 --> 01:06:36.542
- you\'re the god in the world of
Lego. You build things from
above -

01:06:37.459 --> 01:06:41.041
- in a helicopter perspective.

01:06:41.042 --> 01:06:44.083
That can be dangerous. You start
building things because you can
-

01:06:44.834 --> 01:06:48.791
- without thinking, \"What is
it you really need?\"

01:06:48.792 --> 01:06:52.291
Welcome to Lego workshop. We\'re
doing three different tasks.

01:06:52.292 --> 01:06:55.958
First, build yourself. Then
think about what you like doing
in the city.

01:06:55.959 --> 01:07:00.667
And then build a model of the
place you\'d like to see in the
central city.

01:07:06.584 --> 01:07:10.584
Through these small scenarios
we\'re going to build up pictures
-

01:07:11.292 --> 01:07:14.958
- of what the city could be
like.

01:07:14.959 --> 01:07:18.041
If you imagine we were inside
the buildings -

01:07:18.042 --> 01:07:22.167
- we could look at all this
activity. It might make us want
to go outside.

01:07:25.959 --> 01:07:27.919
This could be a starting
point for talking about -

01:07:29.959 --> 01:07:32.792
- all the very complex city
issues that we\'re trying to
approach.

01:07:34.417 --> 01:07:38.041
If you start thinking about
-

01:07:38.042 --> 01:07:41.167
- who the environment is
for, and who are we working
for -

01:07:42.042 --> 01:07:45.417
- it\'s for people.

01:07:46.334 --> 01:07:48.934
On April 18, 2012 the
responsibility of rebuilding
Christchurch -

01:07:51.334 --> 01:07:55.208
- was taken away from
the city council -

01:07:55.209 --> 01:07:57.917
- and placed in a new unit led
by the national government.

01:07:57.918 --> 01:08:02.209
The government promised to
respect the overall vision for
the city.

01:08:02.959 --> 01:08:06.833
The greatest
strength that you
have...

01:08:06.834 --> 01:08:09.459
When I\'m faced with central
government or a business
community -

01:08:09.918 --> 01:08:14.042
- some of whom may say, \"No, we
don\'t want these rules\" -

01:08:14.209 --> 01:08:18.501
- then I\'ve got the ideas of my
people. Are you going to ignore
that?

01:08:19.918 --> 01:08:23.250
The city council developed a
legal framework called the
second volume.

01:08:24.959 --> 01:08:29.208
This described
restrictions on high-rise
buildings -

01:08:29.209 --> 01:08:31.666
- and rules against parking.

01:08:31.667 --> 01:08:34.082
This volume was
discarded by the
government.

01:08:34.083 --> 01:08:37.000
We\'ve decided to accept vol. 1,
but put vol. 2 aside for a
period -

01:08:39.334 --> 01:08:43.334
- because it would be
premature to accept those
rules -

01:08:44.209 --> 01:08:48.208
- and most appropriate
to review those rules
-

01:08:48.209 --> 01:08:52.209
- as the blueprint is
developed over the next 100
days.

01:08:53.417 --> 01:08:55.792
The dilemma is difficult.

01:08:57.083 --> 01:08:59.291
The enormous rebuild will
provide a massive boost to the
economy.

01:08:59.292 --> 01:09:03.124
- if it attracts fast
investments from developers -

01:09:03.125 --> 01:09:06.667
- international
hotels and
corporations.

01:09:06.959 --> 01:09:10.583
But profit is short term.

01:09:10.584 --> 01:09:13.144
So is political decision-making
with elections every four
years.

01:09:13.292 --> 01:09:17.291
But cities are built to
stand 100 or 1000 years.

01:09:17.292 --> 01:09:21.626
It seems you\'re at a tipping
point between becoming LA or
Copenhagen.

01:09:24.626 --> 01:09:28.416
Very much
so. Yeah.
Yes.

01:09:28.417 --> 01:09:32.292
While I\'d like to pretend that
I\'m in control of that, I\'m not.

01:09:35.083 --> 01:09:38.875
There are bigger economic
forces at play -

01:09:38.876 --> 01:09:42.417
- which will shape the future of
the city and the behavior of
people.

01:09:53.709 --> 01:09:57.709
There\'s a lot of talk about the
future city of Christchurch.

01:09:57.751 --> 01:10:01.666
It\'s very exciting. It will be
green and cycle-friendly and la,
la, la.

01:10:01.667 --> 01:10:05.918
I find it exciting, but my
question is: What\'s going to
happen now?

01:10:07.375 --> 01:10:11.708
Are people just going to wait
for this future city to be
built?

01:10:11.709 --> 01:10:15.751
People need things to do and to
feel like something is
happening.

01:10:20.083 --> 01:10:22.163
Gap Filler provides a way
for something to happen
now.

01:10:25.876 --> 01:10:29.999
You get life in a city by not
trying to plan everything.

01:10:30.000 --> 01:10:34.125
By allowing things to
happen organically where
possible.

01:10:35.959 --> 01:10:38.479
Life comes when you give people
a chance to contribute
something.

01:10:39.959 --> 01:10:44.417
It proves that people need
spaces to come and do that kind
of thing.

01:10:45.918 --> 01:10:49.292
To come and dance.

01:11:13.542 --> 01:11:17.334
There is this very difficult
tradition -

01:11:17.626 --> 01:11:20.066
- which comes from the way we
teach architecture and planning.

01:11:21.876 --> 01:11:24.500
It\'s the idea that one
person can solve everything.

01:11:24.501 --> 01:11:27.291
We even have this
term \'the master
plan\'.

01:11:27.292 --> 01:11:30.501
I\'m going to do the master
plan, which will answer all
questions.

01:11:31.083 --> 01:11:35.042
Is it possible? Cities are
unbelievably complex.

01:11:36.667 --> 01:11:40.666
Even the idea of a master
plan is really crazy.

01:11:40.667 --> 01:11:44.959
All we can do is make a
framework, a very robust
framework -

01:11:45.792 --> 01:11:50.167
- which allows life to take
place. One thing I can be sure
about -

01:11:51.292 --> 01:11:55.501
- in 10 years and 20 years
and 50 years and 100 years
-

01:11:56.876 --> 01:12:01.083
- is that human beings will
be more or less the same
size.

01:12:01.334 --> 01:12:05.292
Our senses will work more
or less the same way.

01:12:05.918 --> 01:12:09.750
We\'ll probably
enjoy meeting each
other -

01:12:09.751 --> 01:12:13.334
- in the same way we enjoy it
today. We\'ll be just as happy -

01:12:13.417 --> 01:12:17.459
- about handshakes and
hugs and flirting
glimpses.

01:12:22.792 --> 01:12:25.917
I don\'t believe that we can
plan for things.

01:12:25.918 --> 01:12:29.459
Or by me drawing a line that
I can make things happen.

01:12:29.834 --> 01:12:33.833
I can\'t force anybody to do
anything or be anyone -

01:12:33.834 --> 01:12:37.876
- but we can make
invitations. We can invite
people to walk.

01:12:39.459 --> 01:12:43.167
We can invite people to
sit, to stay.

01:12:43.584 --> 01:12:47.501
Invitations to a better
everyday.

01:12:49.834 --> 01:12:52.334
A better way to cross the
street or to wait for the bus.

01:12:54.959 --> 01:12:59.083
A better way to live your
life. That\'s all we can do.

01:13:05.959 --> 01:13:09.501
Two hundred years ago, the world
had one billion people.

01:13:10.334 --> 01:13:13.791
Today we are 7 billion.

01:13:13.792 --> 01:13:17.041
By the end of this
century, we will be 10.

01:13:17.042 --> 01:13:20.959
We estimate that 80% of us
will live in cities by
then.

01:13:22.417 --> 01:13:25.334
How will life in a city
look 100 years from now?

01:13:29.584 --> 01:13:30.709
As I see the scenery...

01:13:34.834 --> 01:13:37.083
City planning has been going
on quite a number of years -

01:13:39.417 --> 01:13:43.041
- with a rather incomplete
toolbox.

01:13:43.042 --> 01:13:46.959
It is so cheap to be sweet to
people in city planning.

01:13:47.876 --> 01:13:51.959
Compared to any other
investment it costs next to
nothing.

01:13:52.834 --> 01:13:56.959
So there are really perspectives
because man is a very clever
animal -

01:13:59.918 --> 01:14:04.125
- who knows what he likes
and when he is
uncomfortable.