Foundations 19 – Infrastructure Space

Hong Kong

Shanghai

Mumbai

São Paulo

Large cities must be densified. An example requiring such inter- vention is London, where the density is dangerously low. Ultimate- ly, it’s a policy choice in determining how dense a city should be and how it should be developed. “70 years ago we had a tram in Detroit. It was taken away by the car industry because it would compete with their cause. And now the city is about to spend I don’t know how much money to bring it back.” Public transpor- tation and the physical form of a city are closely related. In Hong Kong, a very dense city, 93 percent of the inhabitants use mass transit because it’s the quickest means of getting around. In cities like Istanbul, Mumbai, and São Paolo, the poorer seg- ments of society are being displaced from the city center to the outskirts. “This is a symptom of what happened in the dynamics of urban growth in the 20 th century.” Burdett’s studies show that “ed- ucation levels and the quality of education are totally correlated to how close you are to the city center and also to the distance to public transport.” This means that every decision about whether or how to invest in public transport has a direct influence on the ed- ucation of the next generation. Some mayors understand this, as the example of Bogotá shows: Through smart investment in public transport, the Colombian capital ensures that young people have reasonably fast access to educational institutions – with the result that the city now boasts the highest literacy rate in Latin America. »

How many people use public transpor- tation and how long are the commuting times? Again, the figures give some surprising answers.

Take a very simple formal structure, use a technology which is happening as we speak, create places where at the moment there is nothing, make them as simple as you can – and other things will grow around them.

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London’s new crossrail promises to reduce social inequity in the metropolis.

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