Abstract
Beyond Mobility is about reordering priorities. In the planning and design of cities, far more attention must go toward serving the needs and aspirations of people and the creation of great places as opposed to expediting movement. Historically it has been the opposite. In the United States and increasingly elsewhere, investments in motorways and underground rail systems have been first and foremost about moving people between point A and point B as quickly and safely as possible. On the surface, of course, this is desirable. However, the cumulative consequences of this nearly singular focus on expeditious movement have revealed themselves with passage of time, measured in smoggy air basins, sprawling suburbs, and—despite hundreds of billions of dollars in investments—a failure to stem traffic congestion, to name a few. An urban recalibration is in order, we argue, one that follows a more people- and place-focused approach to city building.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Notes
- 1.
Michael Southworth and Eran Ben-Joseph, Streets and the Shaping of Towns and Cities (Washington, DC: Island Press, 2013).
- 2.
Eran Ben-Joseph, ReThinking a Lot: The Design and Culture of Parking (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2012).
- 3.
Andrea Broaddus, “The Adaptable City: The Use of Transit Investment and Congestion Pricing to Influence Travel and Location Decisions in London” (PhD diss., University of California, Berkeley, 2015), 91.
- 4.
Ibid., 102.
- 5.
Edward L. Glaeser, Triumph of the City: How Our Greatest Invention Makes Us Richer, Smarter, Greener, Healthier, and Happier (New York: Penguin Press, 2011).
- 6.
Peter Hall, Cities in Civilization (New York: Pantheon, 1998).
- 7.
UN Habitat, World Cities Report 2016 (Nairobi, Kenya: UN Habitat, 2016).
- 8.
United Nations Population Division, “World Urbanization Prospects, the 2014 Revision,” 2014, http://esa.un.org/unpd/wup/.
- 9.
David Owen, Green Metropolis: Why Living Smaller, Living Closer, and Driving Less Are Keys to Sustainability (New York: Riverhead Books, 2009).
- 10.
UN Habitat, World Cities Report 2016.
- 11.
Ibid.
- 12.
UN Population Fund, State of World Population 2007 (New York: United Nations, 2007).
- 13.
Judy Baker, Urban Poverty: A Global View (Washington, DC: The World Bank, Urban Papers Series, UP-5, 2008).
- 14.
International Energy Agency, World Energy Outlook (Paris: International Energy Agency, 2016). http://www.worldenergyoutlook.org/resources/energydevelopment/energyaccessdatabase/.
- 15.
World Health Organization, 2016. http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs392/en/.
- 16.
UN Habitat, Planning and Design for Sustainable Urban Mobility, Global Report on Human Settlements (Nairobi, Kenya: UN Habitat, 2013).
- 17.
Gilles Duranton and Erick Guerra, Developing a Common Narrative on Urban Accessibility: An Urban Planning Perspective (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution, 2017).
- 18.
Robert W. Burchell et al., Costs of Sprawl 2000. TCRP Report 74 (Washington, DC: Transit Cooperative Research Program, Transportation Research Board, 2002).
- 19.
Reid Ewing and Shima Hamidi, Costs of Sprawl (New York: Routledge, 2017).
- 20.
World Health Organization, World Health Statistics 2016: Monitoring Health for the SDGs (Geneva, Switzerland: WHO, 2016).
- 21.
Hall, Cities in Civilization.
- 22.
Lewis Mumford, The Highway and the City (New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, 1963).
- 23.
Glaeser, Triumph of the City.
- 24.
Charles Kooshian and Stephen Winkelman, Growing Wealthier: Smart Growth, Climate Change and Prosperity (Washington, DC: Center for Clean Air Policy, 2011).
- 25.
Lynda Schneekloth and Robert Shibley, Placemaking: The Art and Practice of Building Communities (New York: Wiley, 1996); Charles Bohl, “Placemaking: Developing Town Centers, Main Streets, and Urban Villages” (New York: Project for Public Space, 2002), https://www.pps.org/reference/what_is_placemaking/.
- 26.
Jan Gehl, Cities for People (Washington, DC: Island Press, 2010).
- 27.
John Whitelegg, “Time Pollution,” The Ecologist 23, no. 4 (1993).
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2017 Robert Cervero, Erick Guerra, and Stefan Al
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Cervero, R., Guerra, E., Al, S. (2017). Urban Recalibration. In: Beyond Mobility. Island Press, Washington, DC. https://doi.org/10.5822/978-1-61091-835-0_1
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.5822/978-1-61091-835-0_1
Publisher Name: Island Press, Washington, DC
Print ISBN: 978-1-61091-928-9
Online ISBN: 978-1-61091-835-0
eBook Packages: Earth and Environmental ScienceEarth and Environmental Science (R0)