A Urban Health keynote at Atlanta by Gil Penalosa.
Thank you so we are going to talk about Urban Health and Urban Health as the effects of the urban environments on humans and Urban Health is BAS I’m going to base it on three pillars social nature and the build environment and especially and how do they relate within
Each other and I hope that this week the key question is how do we want to live how do we want to live because if we want children to walk to school we need to do small schools so that the catchman are small but if we do gigantic
Elementary School it’s not going to be walk too and everything I’m want to talk about it is the same if it’s the city is 20,000 people or a million or 10 million the issues are very similar in any city of 10,000 or 10 million we need to be
Able to walk and bike and use public transit and everybody has to have Nature close to home and just a few years ago when we were thinking how to deal with equity and with population growth and with climate change I mean we see the symptoms everywhere and not only the symptoms but
Also the consequences at the city level at the personal level even if some still don’t want to believe in it but we need to decide how do we want to live and then covid arrived and people say oh everything changed I think know I think our perception changed
It’s like if we had gotten some magnifying glasses to look at our cities and things that were in front of our nose all of the sudden we saw it like homelessness poverty that seem invisible and lack of equity 90% of the hotels were empty and we were just painting
Rectangles for people to sleep on the parking lots but on the positive side we’ve been told that the quality of the air was bad but we didn’t know how bad because we had been living with this air all our lives and then we said people stay home for a
Few days and then like magic the air was cleaner city after city after City all around the world all around the world it was very clear that we’ve seen how to clean the air that’s why the key question is how do we want to live because we can choose this or we can
Clean the air now we know what is possible we know what is possible it’s like if we had gotten a magic wand to clean the air are we going to go back to 2019 and having millions and millions of people killed and millions of people with lungs
Infections for life but on the positive side a horrible situation also brought opportunities we told people hey go outside go to the parks but be physically distan well there were not enough Parks so we remember that the streets are public space they belong to all of us I’m from Oakland New Zealand
To Oakland California look in one day the mayor of Oakland California said tomorrow all of the neighborhood streets are going to be slow only 10 miles an hour and only for the people that live there it’s not about the money this is not technical in 24 hours with fewer
Cars we wanted bike Lanes but people said no it’s too expensive it’s too hard it’s too Technical and it used to take decades 10 15 20 years and now it took 10 15 20 days in London in bot I mean everywhere all around the world we’re doing bike Lanes
In days instead of decades so it showed us that it’s doable and then we said oh we need dedicated lanes for public transit we just got out and painted and it was done and again not decades but days we wanted markets on the streets we use the
Streets some places you in a golf course how many people play in a golf course 200 a day max and the mayor San Francisco said as of tomorrow these golf courses are going to be public parks so instead of 200 people it’s thousands and thousands of
People so what are we going to do in the future for Equity are we going to have 200 a day or thousands a day so the impossible all of the sudden became possible and we were so happy because we said finally people are have seen that
Is not a technical that is not Financial so this is a wonderful opportunity we’re going to jump over Co and we’re going to change and for example this is not a joke 25 to 30% of the cities are streets are streets it’s the biggest public space in the cities what if when they’re
Going to PVE the street in front of your house they knock on the door and say hey we’re going to do this every 30 years we’re going to do it next next semester you want all of it payment or half payment half I mean cities around the
World are doing it it seems easy Melbourne Australia or already has done more than 60 hectares of gray to Green it seem but of course it’s not because some people want more cars more isolation B pro so we need to decide how do we want cities to become it’s up to all of
Us and I think Urban Health is really about this it’s about how we’re going to have Equitable and sustainable cities where everyone is going to live healthier and happier I live in Toronto in Canada but in my previous life I was in bogot and I wasn’t working on issues of people and
Cities and equity and sustainability all that about Urban Health bot is the capital of Colombia in the northern tip of South America and for example I led the construction of over 200 Parks tomorrow I’ll talk about more about that on the session that we got from 1 to 230 but it
Was Parks all over the place and also open streets I found a small program of a few miles and a few thousands of people and we turn it into the world’s largest baa Park it’s simple we should do it in every city in the world you open streets
To people you close into cars and the magic happens magic happen we went from a few miles to 75 miles 121 kilomet we interconnected all of the large parks and young and old and rich and poor and fat and skinny some people walk some people bike or run or chat or socialize
More than anything people enjoy the presence of each other more than a million people every Sunday and Holiday is magnificent it’s the best export of bogot to the world because it changed Minds it reminds us that the streets are public space they belong to everybody and we can have different uses according
To the time of the day the day of the week the week of the year and now many cities are doing it all over the place this is also about social integration I mean in India when I started in India there were none Now 50
Cities in India are doing it and if your city doesn’t want to do it because oh it’s bot is India and your city is a little bit snobby tell them that Paris is doing it even in the winter time I mean we meet each other as equals and
That is really powerful remember on on on public health everybody should do it because it’s low cost all you really need is people and streets so if you have people and streets you can do it no risk you are not building Arenas or gymnasiums and the benefits oh my God
Are endless especially mental and physical health economic development this is 100% Public Health I love it because I have not seen something as massive worldwide on public health because this is about everything it’s about all ages and abilities all backgrounds physical activities social so when we talk about loneliness and all
This is every week and people like the wonderful University of Los SES has been doing a lot of research on this and has shown that if you have open streets every Sunday people are more active in the days in between they don’t wait till the next
Sunday enough about bota for now and I I’ve been now I live in Toronto and I’m the founder of 880 cities and cities for everyone and I’ve been very lucky to have worked in over 350 cities all over the world and also as part of giving back I have a webinar every other
Tuesday with people from over 40 countries get connected it’s always free hopefully always interesting you heard maora Carter yesterday she’s the guest in 3 weeks you can go to the website and see all of them for free but everywhere I go people say Gil what’s 8 0
Cities what is it well 8 C is not really about walking or cycling or Parks or Street those are the means not the end 8 this is more about creating Healthy Communities where people are going to live happier and is about everybody all ages all abilities and everywhere people say
Oh girl can my children walk to school can my grandparents ride their bike to get EGS I mean imagine simple what if your city what if your city everything they did had to be great for an 8 and an 80 year old not 8 to 88 and 80 as an
Indicator because if it’s the sidewalk the crosswalk the park the library the restaurant the building the convention center everything 8280 because if it’s good for the eight and 80 it’s going to be good for everybody from zero to over 100 we need to stop building cities as if
Everybody was 30 year old and athletic and men in cities designed by men we need to change and create cities 88 cities cities for everyone that is the concept but we got we have a new future today we got to work on it today imagine for a second half of the homes
That will be around within the lifetime of today’s children do not exist today half of them that’s incredible today we got about 3.5 billion people living in cities within the lifetime of the students of Georgia Tech we’re going to go to 7 billion a lot of us in the emerging
Countries but also some of the so-called developed countries also the us is going to grow by 80 or 100 million people the us is going to do about 50 million homes in the next 40 years 50 million is a lot it’s like all of the homes of Canada
France and Australia together what a wonderful opportunity because they can this can help us fix a lot of the Sproul and the mistakes of the last 70 years Canada all of the big cities are going to grow by at least 50% in the next 25 years but at the same time something
That is interesting the population growth is slowing it’s going to end it’s going to Peck in around 40 years already the population of the top 30 developed countries is decreasing only reason I live in only reason why population is growing is because of immigration more people are
Dying that are being born and we see that in all the US and Denmark and Germany and France and Canada so it’s very very clear that even countries like India the population is going to start decreasing the big issue is how to attract and how to retain people in
Cities so it’s very interesting on this pay attention on this because it’s a little bit confusion because it sounds contradictory but it’s not today a little over 50% of the population live in cities within 40 years is going to go to over 80% and it’s the good news is that in
The Cities Live the healthiest people the bad news is that in Cities Live the unhealthiest people too so as we go from three and a half billion to 7 billion and as the population is going to start decreasing we are at a crucial moment now where some cities continue to grow but also
Are going to plateau and many are already decreasing so how cities are built is the most important decision of our time if if you take away anything I hope you take away this the most important decision of time is how cities are built how cities are built is how people
Will live billions of people for hundreds and hundreds of years whatever we do today is going to have a huge impact and cities must be fun and must be Equitable and must be sustainable where everybody will be able to live healthier and happier that is what Urban
Health is about about cities for people let’s do cities for people it sounds obvious but it’s not this is how we’ve been doing cities in the last 100 years we’ve been sending the poor people to the worst places with no Parks no Transit no jobs even in the wealthiest country in the world
People by ZIP code you’ve seen this people in the dark red is life expectancy 60 next to them in the next neighborhood is going to be 90 we’ve been focusing on cars car cars and not on people’s happiness this is how we’ve been doing cities so when we do do let’s
Do cities for people is really critical because we have not been doing cities for people this is Florence Italy and a highway intersection of Atlanta at the same scale it seems like we had learned how to do cities and then we all learned this is how we used to do cities
This was typical city of the us all cities were like this imagine how people used to go to school or get bread or talk to their friends or whatever and this happened and it was one after the other after the other hundreds of cities this is
Atlanta I mean all cities were 15 minute cities before the car arrived so the reality is that the last 40 years or 80 years have not been very good have not been very good and I said not very good because we have not had good po physical and mental health or
Quality of air and water and climate change and economic development so we need to improve the cities that we have today we also got to create great cities for many many more people I mean last week the surgant general of the US came out with an epidemic of loneliness and
Isolation why is this is bad because this has to do has a negative impact on distrust mental health suicide race friendship dementia premature deaths half of the people in the US report experiencing loneliness and this is across the world all over the place there is a crisis of loneliness
Surrounded by millions we really need to improve our social connections and that’s how we do the cities tomorrow I’m going to talk a lot about the how today I’m talking more about that one on another topic every year we’re killing over 1.3 million people in traffic incidents not accidents they can be
Avoided they’re incidents but if we do City like this we’re going to continue killing them just by putting a small island in the crossw we eliminate more than half why are we still doing this crosswalk without an island and older people are the most affected in this city the mayor show me
Very proud we are putting lights on the sidewalks I said great but not so great that you’re putting the post in the middle of the sidewalk and then he took me to our neighborhood and showed me these brand new sidewalks they look like a roller coaster imagine with a baby stroller or
Something so many places we don’t even do sidewalks or we do sidewalks and we don’t put ramps we know we’re treating people walking like a second class Citizen and we do these gigantic cars this is why so people dying in the US is increasing so much because of the size
Of the cars also and the speeds I mean size does matter why do we allow these cars on the cities at least we should charge two or three times the taxes because also they waste a lot of roads and things we have 50% more deadly than
Others and of course there is no equity in other way learning how to read or write this is the older people over 65 because people many people did not know how to read or write two generations ago still now the young people there are many countries in the world there a lack of
Equity we double we double the life expectancy and that should be an amazing news every country in the world double more than double the life expectancy in the last 115 years we should be able to live older healthier happier but there’s so much discrimination against all people there should be no discrimination
By age any age and we are living longer and these are mostly healthy years why do we have such negative perception is as if our body ages but not our mind like berar sh said we don’t stop playing because we grow old actually I like it add in award
We don’t stop playing and walking because we grow old we grow old because we stop playing and walking I mean if we your aging as a decline it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy aging let’s keep in mind it’s not a problem to solve it’s not a disease to
Cure agent is living we start ageny the day we are born so let’s fight a every we’re living longer much much much longer and this is so great I mean it’s onethird of Our Lives onethird I mean I call it the new 60 because people in the history of
Humanity that have lived to 60 half are alive today half this is really new and people are gardening and eating ice cream on the streets and playing with their grandchildren the people over 60 in the next 30 Years is going to go from 962 million to over two billion I mean
The people over 60 are going to double and the people over 80 are going to quadruple so what is the role of the international Society I mean what is our role there is a lot of need and also a huge opportunity because ERS are givers
ERS are no takers ERS are asset to the communities not liabilities we got to change the conversation I mean we have added life I mean we have added years to our lives now we need to add the life to those years and all of us can work on
That I mean we got to work on the well-being what is well-being well is being well and it’s not a secret we know what needs to be done tomorrow I’m going to go over five specific actions eat more plant base sleep contact with nature socialize physical activity I
Mean we got a lot of good examples around the world in Soul South Korea they had a small river through the middle of the city when it was car car car 60 years ago they put a six Lane they got full of cars so they said oh we
Need a second floor they did it oh it got full of cars they said oh we need a third floor no the mayor said no City they W have soul Mobility through the private car none and everyone has tried it so the mayor took down the second
Floor and the first floor and he brought out the river this is 13 kilomet 9 miles through the middle of Soul imagine 9 miles even the retail said mayor are you crazy people are not going to stop for coffee as if going at 60 miles an hour
Anybody was going to stop for coffee now they stop for coffee because they use the linear Park and they walk and the traffic is at slow speed so it takes action and vision and passion and perseverance and gods this is Victoria g a magnificent City look
How it was transformed as we speak the Sham say half of it is being transformed into a preter Melbourne Australia it used to be horrible 30 years ago it would not have been in the top 300 cities they even made fun of themselves a useless City Center well there were no
Trees for example what happened they planted trees and the tempure has gone down in many neighborhoods by six8 8 degrees some places by 20 degrees and the people it’s amazing what the trees have done and all of these langu that were dark and dirty and now are fantastic for business and for the
Community so cities do change so our our challenge is how can we get decision makers how can we get Public Health to work with everybody elected officials and planners and transportation nobody wanted to live in Melbourne now everybody wants to live in Melbourne they don’t need a car they walk in the
Daytime in the evening at at night so those are examples sidewalks we got to have sidewalks everywhere the sidewalks are probably the most important sidewalks on the street go from point A to point B not on the sidewalks on the sidewalks we meet boyfriends and girlfriends and the neighbors and the
People that said coffee and fruits and vegetables in the sidew we develop a sense of belonging we go to any City we leave the backpack and we go out and we start walking and we go shopping people of all ages and all abilities sidewalks is so important look at transformation
Of C from Hearts to people the side was really is the most important infrastructure in any City in any City it’s not marginal it’s more important than almost anything in the cities the side teaches that walking is much more than walking and I love working in Argentina because then I see
People dancing Tango on the sidewalks and also we now have technology that tell us how many steps and how many steps we did indoors and Outdoors and Outdoors next to Nature or not next to Nature and also how much water the trees need and how what is the
Age and we have drones I mean when we have in in infrastructure so things change I’ve been working in Finland well look at this wonderful 1100 students it was it was minus 25 Celsius 30 Fahrenheit 80% of the kids backing to school 80% so they said no such thing as
Bad weather it’s bad clothing this is a frozen lake and they’re going home and they’re just chatting and socializing another example in bogot after I was commissioner one of my brothers became mayor and he built 175 miles of protected bway in three years there were some places so poort that
It’s almost impossible for you in Atlanta to even imagine the level of poverty but look at how it can be transformed why do we need really good places to walk and to bike because it’s safer but also because we need to dignify the people that walk
The people that bike and as you can see the Brad for cars doesn’t have any payment you need to if you don’t have enough money you need to decide is it walking and cycling or cars bot had over 300 kilometers of protected bike W before the pandemic
Over 800,000 bike rides and at the same time look at some of the the other infrastructure built in bogot look at very lowi income areas very those are schools public schools amazing beautiful schools all over the city brand new schools as good as any school in Atlanta with swimming pools
And auditoriums in extreme poverty area look at those schools 67 schools all public and free 2third managed by nonprofits I mean this is to say that we know what needs to be done but we got to do it over a thousand Parks like those in very poor areas the poor people
Need better Parks the poor people when people feel miserable the poor people is in the leisure time when they’re working it’s okay but in the leisure time is when the wealthy people have theater and restaurants and C cottages and country clubs but not the poor people the poor people need better
Sidewalks and better bikeways and better parks and better connectivity and better mobility and this also was a sample of democracy imagine in a country with the car is such a stat symbol to say hey people this is going to be only for buses and people on a bus is going to go
Faster than on a car for the first time ever so these are so much why you know why I’m not saying why bot I mean I mention bot because bot is very poor compared with Atlanta very poor so I’m just saying it’s not an issue of money
But I’m saying the why is not about B is why Urban Health why Urban Health because of the benefits if we live and we have an umbrella in the cities about Urban Health we’re going to improve the culture the education the recreation the environment transport everything we’re
Going to improve so we got to change so the focus of cities got to be around Equity Equity more than equality we need Equity first before we can think about equality we need sustainability we need everyone to live healthier we need everyone to live happier so we need to
Plant cities radically different we need to manage cities radically different all of us in public health and urban planning and transportation we need to work together remember what I said at the beginning how cities are built is the most important decision of our time there’s not going to be a martian coming
Down to tell us that we’ll create these Urban healthy cities this is not a technical thing there’s enough knowhow and good practices of course all phds here are welcome to do better information and more more solutions and to evaluate and but we have enough KN how on good practices it’s not Financial
The cities and wasting billions and billions widening highways doing infrastructure so that the cities can spra it is about policy policy but it’s not about political parties there should be an agreement on the what on the what on the what all political parties 80% of the nimes and 80% of the yimes should
Agree because they what is do we want to save lives do we want to stop killing people in traffic incident do we want trees and parks and healthier people and happier and Liv in older I mean there might be differences in the how so maybe the Democratic party wants to do it with
Unionized workers the Republicans want to Outsource to the private sector but we need to come to an agreement on the what on the what do we want that’s why the P of policy is Big because it’s about everybody needs to participate it’s about being bold it’s about developing alliances with the public and
Private and universities how great to be at this magnificent University we need to develop a shared Vision but shared vision is not enough action action action because if we have a shared vision and we don’t act then we become frustrated we know what needs to be done but we don’t do
It the shared vision is like the pieces of a puzzle the pie is the image what is it that we want so it doesn’t matter which piece of the puzzle we’re doing as long as there are p of the same puzzle and then with the shared vision and lots
And lots of action we’re going to be able to create cities to live healthier and happier so let’s do it now thank you