World Town Planning Day and the Importance of Cities
The initiative of Argentine urban planner, Carlos Maria Della Paolera, launched World Planning Day on November 8, 1950. Concerned that there was significant urban growth driven by forces that were undermining quality of life, Professor Paolera determined that the design of cities needed far more attention, particularly those aspects that could be sustainable and supportive for all aspects of human thriving.
Most people do not have World Town Planning Day marked on their calendars! Yet, one can readily see that many human struggles around the world will be determined by how successful we are at facing urban issues. There are clear implications as the future unfolds.
One such implication arises from the speed and scale with which we have built our cities, often neglecting the subtle needs of people and their communities. It seems we have done much better at building in bulk, or “quantity” than we have at building “quality” spaces. We will need to do better.
A consequence of this emphasis is that we will now need to retrofit what is already built. Massive amounts of energy, physical material, money and effort have gone into roads, buildings, utilities and equipment to keep our cities running. In places where density is very low, access to the vitality of cities may be so far away that the only option is to drive our cars to get there.
Planning movements such as the Congress for the New Urbanism have sought to increase our ability to take poorly built urban or suburban areas and re-design them for better use by humans. This is encouraging. Affordable housing is in short supply in many cities around the world. It seems logical to imagine that just building more living space the way we have always done it will not solve our climate and resource scarcity problem. Along with improved sustainability concepts for new developments, we also need to learn how to make better use of what we already have, re-occupying our city spaces in new ways.
World Town Planning Day can inspire us to find new ways to understand what is happening to cities around the world. The United Nations has long recognized that as cities go, so goes a region or even a country.
CitiIQ measures the health and wellbeing of 35 important aspects of a city. It is intentionally human-centric providing consistent, comparable, and efficient ways of helping cities set goals and make progress that impacts their citizens in positive ways. The CitiIQ measurement is designed to capture subtleties and fine-tuning that can transform our collective well-being.
World Town Planning Day may not spark global parades, but the impulse of Carlos Maria Della Paolera more than 70 years ago was right on the mark. As goes our cities, so goes our own individual well-being.
For more information CONTACT:
Milton Friesen, General Manager