7 principles for building better cities | Peter Calthorpe | TED

Summary

The speaker emphasizes the urgent need to address urban sprawl while tackling climate change, as building cities for an additional three billion people will significantly impact our environment and social well-being. He advocates for compact, mixed-use developments that foster community and reduce reliance on cars, showcasing how such urban planning can lead to substantial environmental and economic benefits. The speaker also critiques the hype around autonomous vehicles, warning they could exacerbate sprawl and congestion, advocating instead for walkable, bike-friendly cities that enhance community life.

Takeaways

• 🌱 The speaker emphasizes the urgency of addressing climate change alongside the rapid urbanization, highlighting the importance of sustainable city planning for the well-being of society and the environment.
• 🏙️ The way cities are designed reflects our humanity and has significant implications for social, economic, and environmental health, making it crucial to 'get it right' in city planning.
• 🌡️ Sprawl is identified as a key issue, not just in terms of low-density development but as a pattern that isolates and segregates people, regardless of density, which is detrimental to societal and environmental health.
• 🔄 The antidote to sprawl involves creating compact, walkable, mixed-use environments that foster interaction and integration, supporting both community and environmental sustainability.
• 📊 A model developed for California demonstrated the stark differences in outcomes between sprawling and compact city development, with the latter showing significant benefits in terms of land use, greenhouse gas emissions, and vehicle miles traveled.
• 🚗 The reliance on cars is a major contributor to carbon emissions, and cities that promote alternatives to car dependency can achieve substantial environmental and economic savings.
• 💰 The script points out that the cost of housing and transportation is a significant burden on middle-class families, and compact city development can help reduce these costs.
• 🏡 The transformation of Los Angeles towards a transit-oriented city, with significant investment in transit over highways, exemplifies a shift away from car-centric urban planning.
• 🌆 The concept of high-density sprawl in China is discussed, illustrating how even dense cities can suffer from isolation and lack of community interaction due to poor urban design.
• 🚶‍♂️ The speaker advocates for urban design principles that prioritize walking, biking, and transit, arguing that these are the most efficient and community-enhancing forms of transportation.
• 🤖 Concerns about autonomous vehicles (AVs) are raised, with the argument that they may exacerbate sprawl and congestion rather than alleviate it, and that they represent a move away from more sustainable transportation options.

Q & A

What is the main challenge of urban development mentioned in the script?

The main challenge is the need to build cities for an additional three billion people, effectively doubling the urban environment, while also addressing climate change and ensuring social well-being, economic vitality, and community connectedness.

How does the speaker suggest that urban development can contribute to solving climate change?

The speaker suggests that by shaping cities in a way that reduces dependence on cars, promotes mixed-use environments, and encourages walkability and transit use, urban development can help mitigate climate change.

What is the term used in the script to describe a type of urban development that isolates people?

The term used is 'sprawl,' which is characterized by low-density development that segregates people into economic and land-use enclaves, separating them from nature and hindering social interaction.

What are the 'co-benefits' of urban form mentioned in the script?

The 'co-benefits' refer to the multiple advantages that can be gained from urban development strategies that promote environmental sustainability, social well-being, economic vitality, and community connectedness, allowing various interest groups to align their goals.

How does the script describe the impact of urban sprawl on land consumption and greenhouse gas emissions?

The script describes that the sprawl version of California would almost double the urban physical footprint and result in tremendous savings in greenhouse gas emissions if compact development and reduced car dependence were adopted instead.

What is the significance of reducing vehicle miles traveled (VMT) as mentioned in the script?

Reducing VMT has a significant impact on air quality, carbon emissions, and household expenses, as driving less is both environmentally friendly and cost-effective for families.

How does the script relate the 2008 financial crisis to urban development?

The script relates the 2008 financial crisis to urban development by pointing out that the crisis was partly due to the overproduction and sale of large-lot, single-family homes that were too expensive for the average middle-class family and did not fit their lifestyle.

What transformation has Los Angeles decided to undertake according to the script?

Los Angeles has decided to transform itself into a more transit-oriented environment, investing in billions of dollars of bonds for transit and none for new highways, aiming to become a city of walkers and transit users rather than a city of cars.

What are the seven principles adopted by the Chinese government for urban development as mentioned in the script?

The seven principles are: 1) Preserve the natural environment, history, and critical agriculture. 2) Mix uses, incomes, age groups, and land uses. 3) Promote walkability. 4) Encourage biking. 5) Connect the street network to allow many routes and kinds of streets. 6) Invest in transit. 7) Focus on a city hierarchy based on transit rather than freeways.

What is the speaker's concern regarding autonomous vehicles (AVs) and their impact on urban development?

The speaker is concerned that AVs may lead to an increase in vehicle miles traveled, potentially revitalizing sprawl and causing more congestion. He also fears that people in private AVs may travel greater distances, leading to less walkability and a less connected community.

How does the speaker view the potential of autonomous vehicles to solve traffic congestion?

The speaker believes that autonomous vehicles are not a silver bullet for traffic congestion and may actually generate more traffic. He suggests that the focus should be on improving walkability, biking, and transit systems for a thriving city.

Outlines

00:00

🌱 Urban Development and Climate Change

The speaker emphasizes the critical role of urban planning in addressing climate change, particularly the challenge of accommodating an additional three billion people in cities. They argue that improper urban development could undermine climate solutions, as cities significantly impact the environment, social well-being, and economic vitality. The speaker identifies 'sprawl' as a key issue, which isolates people and segregates them economically and by land use, hindering the interaction vital for societal thriving. They propose compact development with mixed-use environments as an antidote and illustrate the benefits through a model for California, showing significant reductions in land consumption, greenhouse gas emissions, vehicle miles traveled, and household costs.

05:00

🏙️ Transforming Cities for a Sustainable Future

This paragraph discusses the transformation of Los Angeles into a transit-oriented city, with a significant investment in bonds for transit over new highways. The speaker highlights the importance of creating walkable, mixed-use neighborhoods to improve quality of life and reduce reliance on cars. They also touch on the issue of high-density sprawl in China, which, despite its counterintuitive nature, leads to similar problems of isolation and lack of community interaction. The speaker advocates for planning that promotes local services, walkability, and community interaction, and shares examples from Chongqing, where urban design principles are being implemented to create more connected, efficient, and environmentally friendly cities.

10:02

🚗 The Impact of Autonomous Vehicles on Urban Planning

The speaker expresses concerns about the hype surrounding autonomous vehicles (AVs), warning that they could lead to increased vehicle miles traveled and congestion if not properly managed. They argue that private ownership of AVs could encourage people to live in more remote locations and travel greater distances, potentially revitalizing sprawl. The speaker also points out that shared AVs might not significantly reduce vehicle miles traveled. They advocate for prioritizing walking, biking, and public transit as the foundation for thriving cities and communities, cautioning against the potential negative impacts of relying too heavily on AVs for personal transportation.

Keywords

💡Climate Change

Climate change refers to long-term shifts in temperatures and weather patterns, primarily as a result of human activities such as the burning of fossil fuels and deforestation. In the video, it's a central issue that the speaker suggests needs to be addressed alongside urban development to ensure a sustainable future.

💡Urban Environment

The urban environment encompasses the physical, economic, and social aspects of cities and towns. The speaker highlights the doubling of the urban environment and the importance of shaping cities correctly to address not only environmental impacts but also social well-being and economic vitality.

💡Sprawl

Sprawl is a type of urban growth characterized by low-density, auto-dependent development that spreads out over large areas. The speaker argues that sprawl, regardless of density, isolates people and segregates them economically and by land use, which is detrimental to the health of both society and the environment.

💡Compact Development

Compact development is a form of urban planning that involves higher-density living spaces, mixed-use zoning, and walkability. The speaker contrasts this with sprawl, noting that compact development can lead to significant reductions in land consumption, greenhouse gas emissions, and vehicle miles traveled.

💡Co-benefits

Co-benefits refer to the multiple positive outcomes that can result from a single policy or action. In the context of the video, the speaker discusses how different interest groups can come together to support urban forms that provide co-benefits such as reduced environmental impact and improved social well-being.

💡Land Consumption

Land consumption is the process of using land for urban development, often at the expense of natural landscapes and agricultural land. The speaker points out that sprawl leads to almost double the urban physical footprint, whereas compact development can significantly reduce land consumption.

💡Greenhouse Gas

Greenhouse gases are gases that trap heat in the Earth's atmosphere, contributing to global warming. The video discusses how urban planning can influence greenhouse gas emissions, with compact development leading to tremendous savings due to reduced reliance on cars.

💡Vehicle Miles Traveled (VMT)

VMT is a measure of the distance traveled by vehicles, often used to estimate transportation-related energy use and emissions. The speaker emphasizes the impact of reducing VMT through compact urban design, which can improve air quality, reduce carbon emissions, and save households money.

💡Healthcare

Healthcare in the video is discussed in the context of the health impacts of urban design, particularly the pollution caused by car-dependent cities. The speaker suggests that by reducing reliance on cars and promoting walking and biking, urban areas can improve public health.

💡Affordable Housing

Affordable housing refers to housing that is cost-effective for people with low to moderate incomes. The speaker mentions the 2008 financial crisis and argues that promoting compact development can reduce housing costs, making homes more affordable for the middle class.

💡Transit-Oriented Development

Transit-oriented development is a type of urban planning that maximizes the amount of residential, business, and leisure space within walking distance of public transportation. The speaker cites Los Angeles as an example of a city transforming into a more transit-oriented environment, which can help reduce car dependency and promote a more sustainable urban lifestyle.

💡Autonomous Vehicles

Autonomous vehicles, or self-driving cars, are vehicles that use sensors and artificial intelligence to travel between destinations without a human driver. The speaker expresses concern that the hype around autonomous vehicles may lead to increased vehicle miles traveled and congestion, potentially exacerbating urban sprawl and undermining the benefits of compact urban design.

Highlights

The urgent need to address climate change while simultaneously building cities for an additional three billion people, doubling the urban environment.

The importance of urban planning in shaping not just environmental impacts but also social well-being, economic vitality, and community connectedness.

The concept that the way cities are shaped reflects the humanity brought to bear and the necessity of getting it right for the survival of mankind.

The role of human behavior in driving climate change and the potential for urban planning to mitigate this through better city design.

The definition and dangers of 'sprawl', which isolates and segregates people, regardless of density, and its negative impacts on society.

The need for an antidote to sprawl in the face of massive urban construction, focusing on mixed-use, walkable neighborhoods.

A model developed for California to reduce carbon emissions by examining different urban development prototypes and their outcomes.

The stark comparison between sprawl and compact development in terms of land consumption, greenhouse gas emissions, and vehicle miles traveled.

The co-benefits of urban form that unite different interest groups, such as environmentalists, farmers, and neighborhood groups.

The economic and health benefits of reducing reliance on cars through better city planning, including savings on vehicle and utility costs.

The transformation of Los Angeles towards a more transit-oriented environment, with significant investment in transit over highways.

The challenges of high-density sprawl in China, with its associated health costs and the desire for a return to community-focused urban design.

The principles adopted by the Chinese government to combat sprawl, including preserving natural environments and promoting mixed-use development.

The importance of walkability, biking, and transit in creating thriving cities and communities, in contrast to the isolation of private vehicles.

The potential negative impacts of autonomous vehicles on traffic congestion and urban sprawl if not properly integrated with urban planning.

The vision for a city with auto-free streets, prioritizing pedestrians, cyclists, and public transit for a more efficient and equitable urban environment.

The optimism for change in urban planning, driven by public understanding and the ability to form political coalitions around common urban goals.

Transcripts

So, let me add to the complexity

of the situation we find ourselves in.

At the same time that we're solving for climate change,

we're going to be building cities for three billion people.

That's a doubling of the urban environment.

If we don't get that right,

I'm not sure all the climate solutions in the world will save mankind,

because so much depends on how we shape our cities:

not just environmental impacts,

but our social well-being,

our economic vitality,

our sense of community and connectedness.

Fundamentally, the way we shape cities is a manifestation

of the kind of humanity we bring to bear.

And so getting it right is, I think,

the order of the day.

And to a certain degree, getting it right can help us solve climate change,

because in the end,

it's our behavior that seems to be driving the problem.

The problem isn't free-floating,

and it isn't just ExxonMobil and oil companies.

It's us; how we live.

How we live.

There's a villain in this story.

It's called sprawl, and I'll be upfront about that.

But it's not just the kind of sprawl you think of, or many people think of,

as low-density development

out at the periphery of the metropolitan area.

Actually, I think sprawl can happen anywhere, at any density.

The key attribute is that it isolates people.

It segregates people into economic enclaves

and land-use enclaves.

It separates them from nature.

It doesn't allow the cross-fertilization,

the interaction,

that make cities great places

and that make society thrive.

So the antidote to sprawl is really what we all need to be thinking about,

especially when we're taking on this massive construction project.

So let me take you through one exercise.

We developed the model for the state of California

so they could get on with reducing carbon emissions.

We did a whole series of scenarios for how the state could grow,

and this is just one overly simplified one.

We mixed different development prototypes

and said they're going to carry us through the year 2050,

10 million new crew in our state of California.

And one was sprawl.

It's just more of the same: shopping malls, subdivisions,

office parks.

The other one was dominated by, not everybody moving to the city,

but just compact development,

what we used to think of as streetcar suburbs,

walkable neighborhoods,

low-rise, but integrated, mixed-used environments.

And the results are astounding.

They're astounding not just for the scale of the difference

of this one shift in our city-making habit

but also because each one represents a special interest group,

a special interest group that used to advocate for their concerns

one at a time.

They did not see the, what I call, "co-benefits" of urban form

that allows them to join with others.

So, land consumption:

environmentalists are really concerned about this,

so are farmers;

there's a whole range of people,

and, of course, neighborhood groups that want open space nearby.

The sprawl version of California

almost doubles the urban physical footprint.

Greenhouse gas: tremendous savings,

because in California, our biggest carbon emission comes from cars,

and cities that don't depend on cars as much

obviously create huge savings.

Vehicle miles traveled: that's what I was just talking about.

Just reducing the average 10,000 miles per household per year,

from somewhere in the mid-26,000 per household,

has a huge impact not just on air quality and carbon

but also on the household pocketbook.

It's very expensive to drive that much,

and as we've seen,

the middle class is struggling to hold on.

Health care: we were talking about how do you fix it once we broke it --

clean the air.

Why not just stop polluting?

Why not just use our feet and bikes more?

And that's a function of the kinds of cities that we shape.

Household costs:

2008 was a mark in time,

not of just the financial industry running amok.

It was that we were trying to sell too many of the wrong kind of housing:

large lot, single family, distant,

too expensive for the average middle-class family to afford

and, quite frankly, not a good fit to their lifestyle anymore.

But in order to move inventory,

you can discount the financing and get it sold.

I think that's a lot of what happened.

Reducing cost by 10,000 dollars --

remember, in California the median is 50,000 --

this is a big element.

That's just cars and utility costs.

So the affordable housing advocates, who often sit off in their silos

separate from the environmentalists, separate from the politicians,

everybody fighting with everyone,

now begin to see common cause,

and I think the common cause is what really brings about the change.

Los Angeles, as a result of these efforts,

has now decided to transform itself

into a more transit-oriented environment.

As a matter of fact, since '08,

they've voted in 400 billion dollars of bonds for transit

and zero dollars for new highways.

What a transformation:

LA becomes a city of walkers and transit,

not a city of cars.

(Applause)

How does it happen?

You take the least desirable land, the strip,

you add where there's space, transit

and then you infill mixed-use development,

you satisfy new housing demands

and you make the existing neighborhoods

all around it more complex,

more interesting, more walkable.

Here's another kind of sprawl:

China, high-density sprawl, what you think of as an oxymoron,

but the same problems, everything isolated in superblocks,

and of course this amazing smog that was just spoken to.

Twelve percent of GDP in China now is spent

on the health impacts of that.

The history, of course, of Chinese cities is robust.

It's like any other place.

Community was all about small, local shops

and local services and walking, interacting with your neighbors.

It may sound utopian, but it's not.

It's actually what people really want.

The new superblocks --

these are blocks that would have 5,000 units in them,

and they're gated as well, because nobody knows anybody else.

And of course, there isn't even a sidewalk, no ground floor shops --

a very sterile environment.

I found this one case here in one of the superblocks

where people had illicitly set up shops in their garages

so that they could have that kind of local service economy.

The desire of people to get it right is there.

We just have to get the planners on board and the politicians.

All right. Some technical planning stuff.

Chongqing is a city of 30 million people.

It's almost as big as California.

This is a small growth area.

They wanted us to test the alternative to sprawl

in several cities across China.

This is for four-and-a-half million people.

What the takeaway from this image is,

every one of those circles is a walking radius

around a transit station --

massive investment in metro and BRT,

and a distribution that allows everybody

to work within walking distance of that.

The red area, this is a blow-up.

All of a sudden, our principles called for green space

preserving the important ecological features.

And then those other streets in there are auto-free streets.

So instead of bulldozing, leveling the site

and building right up to the river,

this green edge was something that really wasn't normative in China

until these set of practices

began experimentation there.

The urban fabric, small blocks,

maybe 500 families per block.

They know each other.

The street perimeter has shops

so there's local destinations.

And the streets themselves become smaller,

because there are more of them.

Very simple,

straightforward urban design.

Now, here you have something I dearly love.

Think of the logic.

If only a third of the people have cars,

why do we give 100 percent of our streets to cars?

What if we gave 70 percent of the streets

to car-free, to everybody else,

so that the transit could move well for them,

so that they could walk, so they could bike?

Why not have --

(Applause)

geographic equity

in our circulation system?

And quite frankly, cities would function better.

No matter what they do,

no matter how many ring roads they build in Beijing,

they just can't overcome complete gridlock.

So this is an auto-free street, mixed use along the edge.

It has transit running down the middle.

I'm happy to make that transit autonomous vehicles,

but maybe I'll have a chance to talk about that later.

So there are seven principles that have now been adopted

by the highest levels in the Chinese government,

and they're moving to implement them.

And they're simple,

and they are globally, I think, universal principles.

One is to preserve the natural environment, the history

and the critical agriculture.

Second is mix.

Mixed use is popular, but when I say mixed,

I mean mixed incomes, mixed age groups

as well as mixed-land use.

Walk.

There's no great city that you don't enjoy walking in.

You don't go there.

The places you go on vacation are places you can walk.

Why not make it everywhere?

Bike is the most efficient means of transportation we know.

China has now adopted policies that put six meters of bike lane

on every street.

They're serious about getting back to their biking history.

(Applause)

Complicated planner-ese here:

connect.

It's a street network that allows many routes

instead of singular routes

and provides many kinds of streets instead of just one.

Ride.

We have to invest more in transit.

There's no silver bullet.

Autonomous vehicles are not going to solve this for us.

As a matter of fact, they're going to generate more traffic, more VMT,

than the alternative.

And focus.

We have a hierarchy of the city based on transit

rather than the old armature of freeways.

It's a big paradigm shift,

but those two things have to get reconnected

in ways that really shape the structure of the city.

So I'm very hopeful.

In California, the United States, China -- these changes are well accepted.

I'm hopeful for two reasons.

One is, most people get it.

They understand intrinsically

what a great city can and should be.

The second is that the kind of analysis we can bring to bear now

allows people to connect the dots,

allows people to shape political coalitions

that didn't exist in the past.

That allows them to bring into being the kinds of communities we all need.

Thank you.

(Applause)

Chris Anderson: So, OK: autonomous driving, self-driving cars.

A lot of people here are very excited about them.

What are your concerns or issues about them?

Peter Calthorpe: Well, I think there's almost too much hype here.

First is, everybody says we're going to get rid of a lot of cars.

What they don't say is you're going to get a lot more vehicle miles.

You're going to get a lot more cars moving on streets.

There will be more congestion.

CA: Because they're so appealing --

you can drive while reading or sleeping.

PC: Well, a couple of reasons.

One is, if they're privately owned, people will travel greater distances.

It'll be a new lease on life to sprawl.

If you can work on your way to work,

you can live in more remote locations.

It'll revitalize sprawl

in a way that I'm deeply frightened.

Taxis:

about 50 percent of the surveys say that people won't share them.

If they don't share them,

you can end up with a 90 percent increase in vehicle miles traveled.

If you share them,

you're still at around a 30 percent increase in VMT.

CA: Sharing them, meaning having multiple people riding at once

in some sort of intelligent ride-sharing?

PC: Yeah, so the Uber share without a steering wheel.

The reality is, the efficiency of vehicles -- you can do it

with or without a steering wheel, it doesn't matter.

They claim they're the only ones that are going to be efficient electric,

but that's not true.

But the real bottom line is that walking, biking and transit

are the way cities and communities thrive.

And putting people in their private bubbles,

whether they have a steering wheel or not,

is the wrong direction.

And quite frankly,

the image of an AV on its way to McDonald's to pick up a pack

without its owner,

just being sent off on these kind of random errands

is really frightening to me.

CA: Well, thank you for that, and I have to say, the images you showed

of those mixed-use streets were really inspiring, really beautiful.

PC: Thank you. CA: Thank you for your work.

(Applause)