Foundations 19 – Infrastructure Space

São Paulo

New York

London

“You can actually invest in infrastructure to do things better,” ar- gues the British professor of urban studies. As an example he cited the 1858 design for Central Park in New York City. The park was planned and executed with great care – and gave the city a green lung. To achieve such success, it is necessary for everyone to come out of their little boxes not only to discuss sewage, schools, or airports but to consider the various interrelationships. In the forthcoming years and decades, we will see enormous development in the form of urbanization, particularly in Africa and Asia. In such hotspots the question will sooner or later arise: “What model do we follow?” About a third of people will then live in some form of slum – in a place without the infrastructure that exists in highly developed areas. “One has to understand how to deal with this problem on a localized level, not only how to deal with problems on a global level.” Ricky Burdett quantified one of today’s biggest problems. Nations that live at the current standard of the western world create a huge carbon footprint. The discussion should therefore be: How can we raise the standard of living for everyone while reducing the environmental footprint? His contribution to the discussion, says Ricky Burdett, is to elucidate the relationships between physical form, public transport, infrastructure, and sustainability. «

Urban density statistics show surprising results – London, for example, is an extremely low-density metropolis.

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There’s a tendency to be pretty negative when we talk about infrastructure.

In Bogotá investments in public transpor- tation directly influenced the literacy rate of the city.

Highways in the sky are planned for Rwanda, to be used by drones distributing urgently needed medicine throughout the country.

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