The IdealCity

Unit VI

City Solutions:
A Healthy Urban Future

“The city as self, the city as cosmos...”
—Ihab Hassan, Egyptian-born academic

The child in the barrio of Bogota, waiting in line for hours to collect water for her family at the communal tap; the woman scavenging through mounds of garbage in Lagos, searching for saleable items so she can feed her children; the student in Washington, D.C., who has to carry a gun to school to protect himself; the day-laborer in Calcutta who leaves his shanty of reeds every morning to haul cartloads of bricks to the construction site of luxury apartments; the family in Paris that carries its belongings in one bag and looks for a place to sleep tonight.

From newspapers to discussions at home, much is said about the problems of cities. Much less is said about the health of cities.

Yet, urbanization may be the best solution for the future. It may be the only way to deal with the massive population increase. The problem is not that cities are bad. The problem is that with more and more people relying on the city's services and infrastructure, governments, planners and the society have not managed to keep pace with the demands and the pressures. This world and its cities have the resources to provide for the population that lives there. What it takes is a stronger will and a better distribution of resources.

To begin with, we should ask: what is a healthy city? As part of its healthy city program, the World Health Organization (WHO) has come up with a set of criteria.

Among other things, a healthy city must have:

  • a CLEAN and SAFE environment
  • meets the BASIC NEEDS of ALL its inhabitants
  • involves the COMMUNITY in local government
  • provides easily accessible HEALTH services

The United Nations Development Program (UNDP) has outlined these priorities as part of its urban strategy:

  • increasing SHELTER for the urban poor
  • provision of basic urban services such as EDUCATION, primary HEALTH CARE, CLEAN WATER AND SANITATION
  • improving women's access to BASIC SERVICES and government facilities
  • upgrading ENERGY use and alternative TRANSPORT systems
  • reducing air POLLUTION

Solutions to Urbanization,
Urbanization as Solution

The rapid growth of cities presents serious problems for city managers in terms of unemployment, pollution, crime, homelessness, racism, corruption, and health. Yet each of these can also be seen as an opportunity if turned on its head. Job creation can generate wealth, anti-pollution measures can improve health, the building of homes can create self-help opportunities and increase the self-esteem of the homeless - problems, in short, can be opportunities.
"Massive urbanization is the only way the world can survive the massive population increase," claims one expert on urban issues.
The City Summit, convened in June of 1996, had two main goals. On the one hand, the conference was aiming to raise awareness about the problems of our living environment. On the other, it saw this as an occasion to also focus on the potential of towns and cities as catalysts of social progress and economic growth. In preparation for the conference and in its aftermath, a number of positive cases came to light. Many of these are outlined in the "Doing Good" section. A few are highlighted here.

  • Housing Enablers: Shelter
  • Film for Hygiene: Environment and Health
  • Garbage that's not Garbage: Waste Disposal
  • Houses of Peace: Urban Violence and Safety
  • Flowers among the Garbage: Women and Community-Building

What most of these examples show is that:

  1. no one actor can improve the urban environment alone - responsibility must be shared between governments, non-governmental and community organizations and citizens;
  2. when the community is made a real partner in a project, the project is generally more successful.

IDEALCITY

“To change life, we must first change space”

- Henri Lefebvre, French writer

Ever since Ancient Egypt, civilizations have attempted to plan cities in order to make them work better. Planners seek to organize a city so that it benefits all its inhabitants. They do things such as build housing, construct infrastructure like roads and plumbing, provide public services like electricity and garbage collection, coordinate commerce, provide recreational facilities such as parks, stadiums and museums, and facilitate transport.

These days, planning is not a simple job suited for one department or group. More and more, the cooperation of a number of government departments, local organizations and private citizens is needed to make a city, even a neighborhood, function healthily. Nevertheless, a coherent vision of what is necessary, what is good and what works is needed if cities are going to survive in the future. Your job is to construct that vision.

Good luck and make sure you enjoy your city—that’s essential for its health and yours.

Reading Questions

  1. How would you define a healthy city? You can use the text as a guideline but try thinking about what you would expect from a healthy city. ______
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  1. What does it mean to provide basic services to all citizens? ______

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  1. What are some ways in which a community can get involved in improving an urban neighborhood? Are there any examples of this in your neighborhood or city? ______

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  1. What could you or your school do to get involved in improving your neighborhood? Are there any local organizations you can work with? How about the municipality? ______

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  1. Pick one of the examples under "City Solutions" in the text. Imagine the life of a person who lives in that city. Describe how their life might have been changed by the improvements mentioned in the example. ______

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IdealCity

Activity 6

Design

You now have three tools you can use to design your city. You have "Goals", a "Planning Table", and a "Site". Your problem now is to bring all of it together in a workable way, to make an “IdealCity” that will make sense. From here on, you are on your own.

Here are some suggestions as to how you can go about this.

Think about your site and the layout of your city. That is, think about where you want to put what. Do you want your city to be sprawled over a vast territory or do you want it to be concentrated in a more limited area? What are the advantages and disadvantages of each? How does it affect your goals? Think this way about all the other aspects of the layout. Where would you put things such as schools and markets? How about parks? Where would the main roads and highways run?

Think carefully about your goals, as they show you where you want to end up. Then think about how you can achieve each goal. Look at the services and infrastructure columns on your planning table. Will any of these help you achieve your goals? For example, one of your goals may be to keep air pollution low. How could you achieve this goal? In the services column, there could be an item called Public Transport. How would this help you achieve your goal?

Use your tools that you have constructed throughout this project and construct your IdealCity. Decide what format your final project will be presented in and build your city.