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Over 450 participants from fifteen
countries participated in the Urban
Age South America conference in
São Paulo, Brazil. Presentations
and in-depth discussions about strategies
which enhance mobility, balance environmental
pressures, create social cohesion
and improve the physical form of the
environments in which half the world’s
population now live are available
for download from the Urban Age South
America conference
programme. Conference highlights,
commentary, photos, videos and a profile
of the 2nd annual Deutsche
Bank Urban Age Award winner, Edifício
União offer a snapshot of the
challenges and opportunities facing
São Paulo and other South American
cities. In other news, The Endless
City was recognised by Business
Week and Planetizen as their best
books for the year. |
Ricky
Burdett
Director, Urban Age
Centennial Professor
in Architecture and Urbanism
London School of Economics |
Wolfgang
Nowak
Managing Director
Alfred Herrhausen Society |
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SÃO
PAULO, BRAZIL, 3 - 5 DECEMBER 2008
Contributions from a cross-section of architects, planners,
sociologists, economists, policymakers and activists
shaped a lively debate about pioneering urban solutions
to the challenge of city-making in the twenty-first
century. This latest investigation into the future of
cities provided an important sounding board about how
to address today’s global urban pressures, including
how to retrofit city centres to allow for new growth
and implement a variety of policies and projects which
support sustainable design priorities. Presentations
and discussions available for download from the online
conference programme. |
CONFERENCE
HIGHLIGHTS
Governor
José Serra, State of São
Paulo, discusses his vision for São Paulo and
the large-scale impact of cooperative urban governance.
Alejandro Aravena, Executive Director
of Elemental, presents innovative schemes for designing
and financing low-income housing on central locations
in Santiago de Chile.
Mayor
Luis Casteñada Lossio, describes
how the creation of 150 km of new stairs have transformed
the lives of 2½ million residents in Lima.
Transportation and transformation in New York. Commissioner
Janette Sadik-Khan, New York City Department
of Transportation, presents the city's sustainable
transport agenda.
Richard Sennett, Professor of Sociology,
LSE and New York University, discusses the design
logic of selected architectural projects and their
impact on climate change.
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Governor José Serra, State of São Paulo
NYC Transport Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan
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São
Paulo photo portrait gallery
Urban Age delegates joined for site visits
to Paraisópolis (shown above) and Heliopolis,
São Paulo’s largest favelas, the city
centre and Cidade Tiradentes, the largest planned
social housing complex in Latin America among other
areas undergoing transformation in the city. Participants
saw how investment from the Municipality of São
Paulo in schools, open space, and low-income housing,
are helping to stabilise low income communities.
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EXCERPTS
Economic crises and cities
‘When cities are in crises,’ explains
Saskia
Sassen, ‘like the 70s when London
was bankrupt, New York was officially bankrupt, and
Tokyo was also bankrupt, that’s right before
the new era begins. That was the time when they had
the least inequality.’
Regulation, regulation, regulation
Gilberto
Kassab, Mayor of São Paulo, explains
the results of the Cidade Limpia, or ‘Clean
City’ initiative to remove billboards and regulate
visual communication: ‘The Citizens have discovered
their own city. They have recovered their self esteem
and the fact that they are proud to live here…the
state and local governments will spare no effort to
improve regulations to provide the wellbeing of everyone
and to organise urban space.’
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Urban protest
Graffiti in São Paulo, in the eyes of Teresa
Caldeira ‘is one of the most common
signs all over the city. All diverse spaces have become
uniform. These public descriptions are violence that
expresses itself in a city divided by walls. Graffiti
identifies walls, cities and areas as a space for
protest rather than separation.
Public space as a metaphor for democracy
For architect PK
Das ‘Mumbai is
growing and
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Pedestrian streets in São Paulo's Centro.
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expanding in many spheres, yet
its public space is continuously shrinking. The city
has less than ¼ of an acre of public space
per 1,000 people in contrast to London, which has
7.28 acres for the same number of residents…We
often look at cities from the point of view of real
estate opportunities. Can we look at our cities and
its development plans from the point of view of public
spaces? I believe that public dignity is reflected
in the state of public spaces and vice versa.’
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Hundreds of Vai Vai samba school members
assemble in the street for weekly practice sessions.
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The
porous city
Fernando
de Mello Franco reflects on the opportunity
to create an open city: ‘The Minhocão,
the elevated highway in downtown São
Paulo, is an urban disaster. On weekends, it’s
used by pedestrians while formal squares are completely
abandoned. We have to review the notion of public
spaces…when you redefine structures in São
Paulo – and that’s the public capacity
to redefine that domain – infrastructure is
no longer a border; they become pores, units of a
porous city.’
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REFLECTIONS
Climate Change and Cities Debate
Paty
Romero Lankao reflects on the climate
change and cities debate: Global warming has become
one of the single most important challenges to our
civilization, and cities play an increasingly important
role as sources of both transformations in the global
climate and innovations to reduce our emissions and
make us more resilient. Although the Urban Age South
America conference did not only focus on global warming,
presenters offered diverse and insightful perspectives
that can help us understand the multiple dimensions
of the relationships between cities and climate change.
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Taking the Train
José
de Souza Martins muses in Estado do Sao
Paulo how public transport inspires exploration and
a sense of solidarity with fellow citizens: ‘In
the beginning of December, I participated in the Urban
Age South America Conference, organized by the London
School of Economics, in Sala São Paulo. In
what was once the ‘hall’ of the
ticket windows of the Júlio Prestes
train station, with its beautiful
stained glass windows presenting an allegorical history
of the Sorocabana, was an amphitheatre transformed
for the conference.'
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Massive investment in public transport will extend
metro service and regional rail in São Paulo.
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School children visiting São Paulo's Centro.
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Living
in an Urban Age
In an insightful commentary on the prevalence of urban
crime in Latin America, Darryl
D’Monte compares poverty and social
exclusion in India and Brazil: ‘São Paulo
is arguably the most violent city in the world, with
120 murders per 100,000 inhabitants in the poorer
areas of the city. Participants at the Urban Age South
America conference in São Paulo discussed the
problems of crowded urban areas and looked for ways
to make these spaces less violent
and more
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inclusive. As Indians, Latin America
may, for all practical purposes, be our Area of Darkness,
almost another planet. We are hardly aware that we
are part of BRIC -- an acronym that includes Russia,
ourselves and China as large, emerging economies which
will dominate the world in a few decades. For that
very reason, we draw our urban knowledge from the
West, while Latin American cities have much to teach
us. For that matter, we can teach them a thing or
two.
RELATED
ACTIVITIES
São Paulo: From Megacity to Metropolis
An Academic Workshop organised by LUME of the Faculty
of Architecture and Urbanism at the University of
São Paulo (FAU/USP) brought thirty academics
together to focus on the historical formation of the
City of São Paulo and the challenges it will
confront in the future as it attempts
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to consolidate its growth. Presentations
introduced a new panorama of urban development in
São Paulo, with discussion about how planning
can once again be an effective tool for policymakers
and the public sector. Read
more…
Mumbai and São Paulo Share Strategies for Community
Intervention
Following the Urban Age South America Conference,
Deutsche Bank’s Alfred Herrhausen Society brought
winners from last year’s Deutsche
Bank Urban Age Award in Mumbai together with this
year’s winners in São Paulo to participate
in the first Net-Work-Shop, a platform to share community
intervention strategies. This annual workshop supports
award winners by giving them new references to stimulate
further development and collective learning. Within
this context, new ideas, experiences and solutions
were shared. The next workshop will coincide with
the Urban Age Istanbul conference in early November.
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Edificio União, winner of the 2nd Annual Deutsche
Bank Urban Age Award
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2nd ANNUAL DEUTSCHE BANK
URBAN AGE AWARD WINNER
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Winners of the 2nd Annual Deutsche Bank Urban Age Award
with jury representatives, Wolfgang Nowak, Managing
Director of the Alfred Herrhausen Society, Governor
Jose Serra and Mayor Gilberto Kassab. |
In
2002, twenty students from the school of architecture
at the University of São Paulo Paulo began
an investigation of innovative alternatives to precarious
housing conditions throughout the city. At the end
of the semester, students and community representatives
organised a ‘slum living’ workshop with
residents of an unfinished building on Solon Street
which housed 73 families. The workshop produced preliminary
designs to help residents improve their housing conditions.
In 2008, the Deutsche Bank Urban Age Award awarded
US $100,000 in recognition of their efforts and the
impact the upgrading has had in the Bom Retiro neighbourhood
of São Paulo. Learn more about Edifício
União and the 2nd
Annual Deutsche Bank Urban Age Award. In addition
to prize money bestowed on the Award winner, Gary
Hattem, Managing Director of the Deutsche Bank Americas
Foundation, awarded the three finalists: Instituto
ACAIA, Cooperativa
de Reciclagem Nova Esperança e BioUrban,
each with US $5,000 in recognition of their innovative
approach to improving the urban environment for city
dwellers and promoting new partnerships between the
city’s local actors and its institutions.
Edifício
União in São Paulo, Brazil recognised
with $100,000 international prize
(Click to view the Award Video)
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URBAN
AGE SOUTH AMERICA NEWSPAPER
Feature essays from local and international experts
paired with extensive research on the social, economic
and physical contours of the five largest metropolitan
regions in South America – São
Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Bogota, Lima and Buenos Aires
– document and analyse the region’s major
urban trends. A detailed focus on São Paulo
brings its urban growth into perspective with global
trends to reframe how South America’s largest
and most dynamic city is understood.
REPORT
RELEASED SPRING 2009
A forthcoming research report will summarise findings
from the Urban Age South America investigation. Analysis
of the worldwide context of urbanisation
in South America will
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include
emphasis on how regional economies function and which
mechanisms can address paralysing traffic congestion
and the high levels of inequality in South America.
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URBAN DOCUMENTARIES
São
Paulo City Stories narrate the daily texture of
urban life in São Paulo. Produced by Outros
Filmes for the Urban Age South America conference,
these films illustrate the city’s ongoing transformation
and its recovery from once horrific levels of crime,
as well as the formal and informal mechanisms which
collectively support the city’s thriving communities.
Testimony from poor and middle-class residents, the
unheard voice at the Urban Age conferences, depict
day-to-day experiences living and working in South
America’s fastest growing and largest city.
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Juliana spends 2½ hours commuting each way
from her home in Cidade Tiradentes.
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NEWS
Business
Week recognises The
Endless City as one of the best innovation
and design books for 2008
Praised for ‘arguing that the growth of cities
is not just a problem for local government agents
or urban planners but is inseparable from such major
political and economic forces as globalization, immigration,
employment, and sustainability,’ Business Week
highlights the books themes and issues which were
at centre stage of the U.S. Presidential election.
Planetizen’s
best books for 2009 includes The
Endless City. This annual list of the ten best
books in the planning field gives readers an overview
of the best ideas and writing in the field.
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Among other factors, the 2009 list considers a book's
potential impact on the urban planning, development
and design professions. Noting the trend in the growth
of ‘hypertext’ books, Planetizen praised
The Endless City along with Century of
the City by Neal Peirce, Curtis Johnson and Farley
Peters for mimicking the feel and content of the web
in their presentation. Rockefeller
Foundation has been a key participant in the Urban
Age programme, and Century
of the City – available at no charge
– shares creative approaches to harnessing the
vast opportunities of urbanization for a better world
alongside diverse perspectives of the leading urban
innovators who gathered at the latest Global Urban
Summit at the Rockefeller Foundation Bellagio Centre.
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Media Coverage of Urban Age
‘If only a few of the ideas discussed at the
Urban Age conference could reach the man or woman
in the street, we would be one step closer to coping
with the immense urban challenges we face.’
O Estado do Sao Paulo, one of the leading newspapers
in São Paulo, featured Governor José
Serra’s remarks about the Urban Age South America
conference. Extensive media coverage of the Urban
Age South America conference and a range of urban
issues in São Paulo is archived on Urban Age’s
online press
clippings.
EVENTS
- UPCOMING
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Forty units of Elemental’s new housing in Santiago
include public space and a community centre.
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Architecture
as Investment
Monday 27 April, Alejandro Aravena, Executive
Director at Elemental
in Santiago de Chile, Urban Age Director Ricky Burdett
and Tyler Brûlé, Editor in Chief of Monocle
magazine. At a time when market forces are eclipsing
architecture’s social value, Elemental’s
pioneering approache to designing and financing low-cost
architecture is transforming urban communities in
South America.
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Monday 27 April, 6.30-8.00pm at LSE, Houghton Street,
London. Contact urban.age@lse.ac.uk or call 020
7955 7706 for more information. Presented by Urban
Age and the LSE Cities Programme in partnership with
Monocle
magazine.
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LSE Cities Programme Students to Istanbul
Urban Age organised a study tour in Istanbul for LSE
Cities Programme Master students in mid-February.
As part of the Cities Studio Course ‘City
Making – the Politics of Urban Form’,
students will conduct a multi-scale urban analysis
in preparation of a strategic framework for the re-development
of Istanbul Haydarpasa, a prominent regeneration site
located on the Bosporus. The students will be hosted
by Istanbul’s Metropolitan Planning and Urban
Design Centre with four local universities organising
workshops as follows: Mimar Sinan University on urban
design approaches; Istanbul Technical University on
urban transport policy and projects; Sabanci University
on urban governance and Bilgi University on socio-spatial
policies in the city.
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The compact and highly walkable Beyoglu
district on the European side of Istanbul.
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Instant Cities: Landscape, Infrastructure
and Urban Form
The annual conference of the Indian Society of Landscape
Architects in New Delhi on 20 – 21 February
will feature Urban Age Executive Director Philipp
Rode speaking on “The challenge of city planning
and energy, environment and resource conservation
for tomorrow's urban landscape”. More
info...
EVENTS - PAST
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Good public transport systems that avoid low-
density sprawl helps to lower levels of greenhouse
emissions per capita.
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Forum
for Urban Design in New York
City hosted The Endless City in a discussion
with Ricky Burdett, October 2008 Members
of the Forum for Urban Design joined at the Century
Club -- where Philip Johnson famously held coveted
dinner discussions with an inner circle of architects
– to engage in a lively debate with Prof Burdett
about the stark contrasts between contemporary projects
and the urban population’s mostly ad-hoc existence.
While architects and urban designers
almost exclusively work on behalf of the wealthy,
Prof Burdett discussed the critical need for these
professionals and public officials
to grapple with
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half of the world’s population now living in
urban areas at a time of global climate change. Forum
member Robert Bruegmann, historian of architecture,
landscape and the built environment, drew upon his
own research to argue that sprawl is a historic development
pattern and not necessarily all bad. For Bruegmann,
living in the suburbs allows the working and middle
classes to reap the benefits of urban life without
having to pay exorbitant housing costs to do so. The
impact this has on traffic congestion and the environment
was left for a future discussion.
The Endless City utilised by LEAD
International, November 2008
The international
training session of Leadership for environment
and sustainable development in Mexico City brought
participants from over 40 countries together to explore
the role of cities in tackling climate change. The
workshop used Mexico City as a case study and Urban
Age research to understand the international context
and specific spatial qualities of cities.
Understanding Cities: Peter Hendy, TfL Commissioner,
November 2008
What’s worked? Peter Hendy explained how the
London Mayoralty and Transport for London, one of
the most comprehensive transit authorities in the
world, have created a new era for transport in London.
In an Understanding Cities public debate at LSE, The
Politics of Mobility chaired by Tony Travers, Director
of the Greater London Group, Hendy outlined how mobility
defines the growth and nature of urban life. ‘The
Mayor decides, and we deliver’ said Hendy, who
further described the intersection of mobility and
policy since the railroad age. More
info...
Urban Age joined transport debate about 2014
World Cup in Brazil, December 2008
Urban Age advisers Enrique Peñalosa and Richard
Brown discussed how to improve urban mobility in Brazilian
cities in the lead up to the 2014 World Cup. Major
Sporting Events Catalyze Transport Plans, organized
by the Institute for Transportation and Development
Policy (ITDP) and the International Union of Public
Transport (UITP) with support from the Clinton Climate
Initiative, featured plans for bus rapid transit,
light rail, metro and bicycles in São Paulo,
Rio de Janeiro, Belo Horizonte and Curitiba. More
info...
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FUTURE CONFERENCES
The Urban Age conferences are by invitation only,
with a limited number of seats reserved for international
guests. If you are interested in attending please
contact urban.age@lse.ac.uk
Urban Age Istanbul, 4-6 November
2009, Istanbul, Turkey
Urban Age Summit, May 2010, Berlin,
Germany
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