So BMW put up a number of advertisements along the Septa R5 rail line a little bit ago including this one:

Last night I attended a lecture by Enrique Peñalosa, a visiting scholar at NYU and former mayor of Bogotá, Columbia. In his 3-year tenure as mayor he was responsible for promoting a city model that prioritized children, public spaces and public transportation while restricting private car use.

The biggest question for cities and urban planning is how do we want to live? A city should prioritize human needs. So far wealth, income and production have been the qualities that have come to define our urban centers. However in the global spectrum these values are incomparable standards, especially when contrasting the success of a developed country’s cities to those of a developing country. Peñalosa suggests the value we need to prioritize as a global community is HAPPINESS. And in order to incorporate happiness into planning models, people need the following:

• to walk
• to be with people
• to have contact with nature
• to play
• not to feel inferior

By cultivating these values, a truly democratic city is born: a city where public good prevails over private interest and public transit/ greenways/ bicycle & pedestrian-only promenades/ walking/ cars are all given equal access to land. This model is most efficient when high frequency is coupled with low cost, and for this reason depends on higher density.

Emphasis on car access including widening highways and building elevated freeways kills the city. Studies have shown that elevated highways are directly proportional to increases in crime and declining property values. Widening highways is directly proportional to putting more drivers on the road and increasing travel distance, making traffic jams even worse.

So, while I do have a certain affinity for BMW’s torque : horsepower ratio, I find their latest advertisements disastrous, especially when they’re targeting mass-transit users.

Links:

Enrique Peñalosa