lo sviluppo della città e la bicicletta
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Today there is much talk of the compact city, considering perhaps the only valid model for sustainability and Italians and Europeans know very well what it is because we just have to walk in our historic towns and urban areas already established to see the effects.
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| Aereal view of Edinburgh from ecocompactcity.org |
The big citiesinstead, especially since the secondhalfof the last century, have grownquite differentlyand it hascontributed decisivelytocreatevery largeurban agglomerationsin which it waslostalmostcompletelythe ideaand the feeling ofthe city, at leastas weintendeditup to thattime.
As all of usarchitectshavestudied on the booksofplanning, there have been two mainmodelsof modern urbandevelopment: the Anglo-Saxongarden cityand the EuropeanandCartesiancity derived fromfunctionalist theoriesofCIAM.
Apart from thetheoriesand books, however it is rather easy, as well as necessary,see the results inreality, analyzing the type ofcitywhich derives from them, the spaces that generatedandespeciallythe relationship thathascreatedwiththe people wholive them.
In the first type, adopted throughout all theEnglish-speaking world, it hasincreaseda lotthe sizeof the urbanizedcity, generating the so-called“sprawl”, maintaining at the same time an excellent relationshipbetweenbuilt andgreen. Buildings dimension remainedgenerallyon a human scaleandthe close relationship betweenthe publicand private has enabled tomaintain a highdecorof public spaces, thanksto the development modelchosen, as these are perceived asa sort of extensionof theprivate space. The downside has instead given by the significant use of the land, the difficulty and the cost of providing public services to all, especially the public transport that often become impossible, forcing the population to the indiscriminate use of the car, the only medium that enables them to reach the most centralareas.
In the second type, derived from the functionalist theories, the spaces of the city have generally widened, especially the open ones and more difficult to manage, thus having the same negative aspects of the American model, the high consumption of land and the need to use the car. However we must add to these to the loss of human scale, due to both the large size of the buildings that of public spaces, a key factor to explain the discomfort of living in certain neighborhoods, where it is often very difficult to gain a sense of belonging that allows to feel better and to comply more common and public areas.
However in both models of development has prevailed the use of private car over the systems more adapted to humans, such as walking or cycling.
In fact,anotherphenomenonthat is helpingin recent yearsto prefer thecompact cityto the diffuse is theincreasing useof the bicycle, that in some cases, as in that of the city ofCopenhagen,hasevenbecomea symbol ofpublic transport policyin terms ofenergy savings andair qualityand thusthe health of citizens.
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| Cycling in Copenhagen from Wikipedia The success of Danish model is affecting a lot the United States, so much that many people who live in the major urban areas in the United States have begun to use the bike. It just seems that its use for moving within the city has a long list of benefits including economic ones, as pointed out in the Guardian some months ago in the article “Four Reasons U.S. business leaders want to import Danish-style cycling”. |
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| Cyclists in San Francisco Photograph: People For Bikes |
Protected bike routes increase retail visibility and sales volume per parking space, since the bikes take up less parking space than cars.
Protected bike routes make real estate more desirable and help to build the sort of neighbourhoods that people enjoy walking around.
Protected bike routes help companies score talented workers, who reach their desk the way they prefer.
Protected bike routes make workers healthier and more productive, burning calories and strengthening hearts, hips and lungs.