[sustran] FW: Jaime Lerner Lecture Notes

Paul Barter paulbarter at nus.edu.sg
Mon May 22 13:41:10 JST 2006


Forwarded from another list. 
 

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Mark Dempsey [mailto:dempseys3 at COMCAST.NET] 
> Sent: Wednesday, 17 May 2006 3:42 PM
> Subject: Jaime Lerner Lecture Notes
> 
> Notes from the 5/10/06 Jaime Lerner appearance at the Great 
> Valley Conference. Lerner is the former mayor of Curitiba 
> (and governor of the surrounding state). Curitiba remains a 
> shining example of how design can improve the quality of 
> life, even in a third-world, relatively poor city:
> 
> Jaime Lerner - 40 years in city building
> 
> Went in '88 to consult in Cuba, renovate Havana (jokes that 
> Castro speaks for 10 - 12 hours when he's happy.
> Lerner jokes that he's feeling happy, so watch out!)
> 
> "City is not a problem, city is a solution"
> 
> Promises 2 - 3 years to improve quality of life.
> 
> Needs political will, build core responsibility -
> *not* a problem of scale or finances.
> 
> Recounts the example of having to clean a bay for his city. 
> Rather than hire a garbage cleanup, he told fishermen that 
> the city would pay for garbage when they "fished" it out of 
> the bay. Fishermen could sell fish to the market, and garbage 
> to the city. Either way, they could win. It save the city 
> millions in cleanup costs, and made the bay more productive 
> for fishing.
> 
> Slides show: Vita the turtle - an admirable animal that has 
> its residence near its work. It even has an urban design 
> etched in its shell ("casque" says Lerner).
> 
> On the other hand (new slide with cartoon car) Otto the 
> Automobile is the kind of guy who's always the last to leave 
> the party. People are folding chairs, putting away dishes and 
> he's still around. He has a terrible drinking problem, and 
> smokes. He also is something of an egoist. He can only carry 
> a few people.
> 
> He's like your mother-in-law. You want a good relationship, 
> but you don't want her to run your life.
> 
> Accordian buses, like those in Curitiba that supplanted a 
> proposed rail installation, can transport 300 people (Volvo 
> says 270, but Lerner says Swedes don't know Brasilians)
> 
> "Without design, you don't have priorities."
> 
> "Cities are a strategy for living and working together." The 
> spine - public transport and land use.
> 
> Separate living and working, and it's a disaster.
> 
> You can apply design criteria either to a city or a state.
> 
> Curitiba has 1.8M in the city, 3M in the metropolitan area.
> 
> Slide: a wide road flanked by skyscrapers:
> 
>             X        X  
>       X    X        X    X
> X__X__X____X__X__X
> 
> The wide road is the transit corridor. The building heights 
> (density) decreases with distance from that corridor.
> 
> When Lerner ran for Governor, he polled only 6% of the vote 
> when the campaign began. His opponent was an experienced 
> politician, and an actor (handsome! ...the room laughed). 
> Lerner's design thoughts won, though.
> 
> His design for the larger scale of the state
> (Garana?):
> 
> Ensure development is no more than 1 hour from hospitals and 
> universities. His agrarian reform resettled 100,000 slum 
> dwellers to new housing on enough land to grow their own food 
> in 4 - 8 rural villages. The design paradigm: Street crosses field.
> 
> All transit modes are possible, but they must never compete 
> in the same space.
> 
> Curitiba's mass transit volumes:
> 
> 1974 - 25,000/day
> 2000 - 2,000,000/day
> 
> Frequency of buses: 30 seconds. (!)
> 
> The Curitiba system is a public/private partnership.
> The buses are privately owned, the routes, stops and fares 
> are publicly controlled. There are no subsidies.
> (I've also read that it boasts increasing ridership despite 
> increasing per-capita auto ownership, something that not even 
> the Europeans can boast).
> 
> Sustainable cities are particularly important, especially in 
> light of the climate change problem.
> 
> Lerner's five commandments:
> 
> 1. Use fewer cars.
> 
> 2. Separate garbage
> 
> 3. Keep work and home close
> 
> 4. Waste minimum, save maximum
> 
> 5. Have multi-use facilities (a stadium doubles as a market 
> in the morning)
> 
> Curitiba's education system promotes these things (and the 
> history of the city). The kids teach the parents.
> 
> The education is fun. Skits, and costumes are plentiful 
> (slide of the "leaf" family...people in tree
> suits)
> 
> Curitiba has a free university for the environment.
> Why not train *everyone* about the environment (even the janitors)?
> 
> Built a botanical garden in two months, not the typical 100 
> years. Mentions that speed is an important feature of 
> development changes. (His current practice, Lerner calls 
> "urban accupuncture.")
> 
> A city's identity is like a family portrait. Its preserved 
> history is a prominent feature of Lerner's public spaces and 
> monuments.
> 
> Lerner tells about meeting a man very interested in 
> biodiversity, fierce about it, even. He asked "Do you have 
> different land uses where you live, like entertainment, 
> shopping, offices?" No, said the biodiversity fan. "What 
> about different kinds of people, those with different 
> income?" No, says the biodiversity fan.
> 
> The crowd laughs, and Lerner says social diversity is as 
> important as biodiversity.
> 
> Shows a slide of redesigned street furniture, modelled on 
> Paris book vendor stalls (street merchant stalls with folding 
> security doors that double as sun shades).
> 
> With all his cautions about autos, Lerner still designed a 
> museum for Brasilian racing. He even designs electric line towers.
> 
> One principle of city design: create meeting places.
> (In Japan... he says you have to have real chutzpah to 
> propose urban accupuncture in Japan)
> 
> ...Jokes that age has its advantages, but you still have to 
> get up three times a night.
> 
> Waste land, like old quarries is a starting place for many 
> projects for parks, theaters, etc.
> 
> Cities must integrate formal and informal spaces to avoid 
> violence. Talked about bringing dangerous streets to life by 
> bringing "portable streets" to them (trucking in tubes with 
> meeting places, theaters,
> vendors)
> 
> Has a show of his designs at a Chicago museum.
> 
> Sponsored the "World Nature Games" - an olympics using 
> natural features (kayaking, cross-country runs, etc.) Did so 
> without building any buildings.
> 
> Makes recycled buses into travelling culture shows - theaters
> 
> His final words: "It is possible. You can do it. Si, es possible"
> 
> Standing ovation
> 
> Panel discussion: the room's energy diminishes immediately, 
> after the charming Lerner.
> 
> - GVC (the sponsor) takes credit for the Hwy 99 bond money 
> earmark - for high tech, sustainable visitor centers.
> 
> - Also touts the regional blueprint (Lerner would probably 
> agree that vision is important to promote, and the Blueprint 
> does that.)
> 
> West Sacramento mayor Cabalodon: sustaining a vision is 
> difficult if only because of political turnover.
> Unlike Lerner, politicians don't stay 40 years on the job 
> here. (Odd, Supervisor Illa Collin is just retiring after 
> some decades on the job...)
> 
> - Transactions, not vision are the focus of city councils. 
> Vision itself must be the product of civic involvement by the 
> population. A politician has to overlook stakeholders to 
> maintain the vision.
> (Nice excuse for lack of civic leadership...But Cabaldon was 
> courageous enough to attend this lecture, not something one 
> could say about any other Sacramento City or County leader)
> 
> - The owner of a local taqueria (Sal's), a woman on 
> Schwartzeneggar's business council, says business buy-in to 
> the vision is important, as is education.
> 
> Lerner comments: 
> 
> We cannot have consensus in everything. When the discussion 
> is done, you have to stop it.
> 
> For business people, what makes them invest, what makes the 
> difference?
> 
>  - quality of life
>  - qualification of employees (education)
>  - logistics (civic design)
> 
> Administration is still difficult (shakes his head, recalling 
> a conflict about redesigning a single bus stop).
> 
> County administrator: implementation is tough.
> Visionaries need to show up to get what they want.
> 
> The vision must be long term.
> 
> --
> One aside: Lerner previously mentioned that Brasilian 
> politicians get free media for a few months before their elections.
> 
> --
> --
> --Regards,
> --Mark Dempsey
> 


More information about the Sustran-discuss mailing list