Ford Motor Company presented the City of Tomorrow Symposium in San Francisco: a day-long event featuring leaders exploring how to best shape the future of our cities. Janette Sadik-Khan spoke at the event.
Locals in NYC know the significance of Janette Sadik-Khan, whether they like it or not. The former New York City Department of Transportation Commissioner has undertaken a number of city-centric projects, subjecting her to the best and worst of innovation and politics. She’s in a unique position to gauge what it means to design the city of tomorrow. Now at Bloomberg Associates, Janette Sadik-Khan offered her real-life case study in how to develop a city of tomorrow, today.
Sadik-Khan was brutally honest in her presentation: cities will never be blank spaces ever again. Sensitivity to existing community is essential. This was demonstrated by the struggle Sadik-Khan faced as she undertook retrofitting hundreds of New York City streets with bike lanes, usually consisting of inexpensive road markings in paint and often not requiring major infrastructure redesign or expense. The space was there, only the human psychology needed to be tapped. However, the asset of a bike lane was change, period, and people tend to hesitate around change, even as small as that. Sadik-Khan advanced further on the look of streets and the power of lines and directional arrows- tapping into the broad question of how streets should look. Should they be zooming lanes of cars as characterized in old impressions of streets? Should they be crowded, full of people, as an extension of the sidewalk. Extreme reads in both ways offer compelling points, on one hand, the pleasure of high-speed travel with people sequestered to beautiful sidewalk. The other hand is that so long as the city of tomorrow is hinged on the idea that transportation is a utility, it means it’s time to set aside individual treatment and even private cars, and certainly the monopoly on street space. Car traffic will exist, but be much slower, contained, and almost impractical. That’s a change that can be very hard to swallow.
In order to build the city of tomorrow, according to Sadik-Khan, it’s all about street-level data. Not just topography maps and tax revenues. Rather, tapping into meaningful human interactions and stories that take place on the street. When is it busy? When is it empty? Who’s living here? Is anyone living here? These pieces of information can positively influence the city of tomorrow to be varied and elegant. The sense of peace on a side street is as integral as the bustle of a urban center. However, imagine a city without honking cars, elements of chaos, movement. Is it meaningful? Our impression of an urban space is dependent on its degree of chaotic energy. Sadik-Khan, in her presentation, introduces the idea unwittingly as a picture of a reclaimed intersection shows people relaxing as cars whiz by. She regards it as a successful space. Is it successful because people feel emotionally involved? Does a city need an element of risk to feel real?
