Taking Liveability Seriously
DR. PIETER VAN HEYNINGEN
Dr. Pieter van Heyningen, founder and CEO of SustNet – a company focused on developing and managing sustainability-oriented innovation systems and districts. Dr. van Heyningen is also senior lecturer and associate at the School of Public Leadership, Stellenbosch University.
“ S
ize doesn’ t always matter, sometimes quality is better” – a pattern of thinking, steadily replacing the“ bigger is better” philosophy.“ Bigger is better” is not only unsustainable, but a fallacy. An example of this: mega-malls. An established trend in South Africa, their success has been declining in the US, even being banned in some states, as they are shown to have negative socio-economic impacts( especially on the social dynamics, and liveability factors of urban centres).
Of course malls are attractive in car-consumerist cultures, and dangerous neighbourhoods – hence the need for understanding the contexts of our developments. Many South Africans are unfortunately prone to both the consumer culture and subject to the safety-issue context.
There is, however, rapidly-emerging alternatives to the car-culture and disingenuous‘ bigger, brighter, faster is better’, path to development – and this approach puts liveability and citizen-oriented design at the forefront. Interestingly, this trend is coming out of the USA, as a counter-culture to the Trumpist“ Big League”( or is it“ Biggly”?) thinking, representing a more sustainable approach. It also considers the 21st century knowledge as founded on citizens with talent, knowledge and skills, and gears urban design and infrastructure for their needs. That is, cities need to be liveable for them to function optimally in this age.
Innovation taking the stage
The live, work, play slogan is no longer sufficient with innovate primed for inclusion. In conjunction with the development of one of America’ s first Innovation Districts, the city of Boston took these principles so seriously, they ripped up their mega high-way and replaced it with a massive green belt. This is now a central feature, having reshaped the entire city’ s culture, in one bold move. This project, called the‘ big-dig’ took the notion of walkability and liveability very seriously into consideration – something South Africa yet has to‘ get’.
Other cities, such as Los Angeles, have strongly adopted transport-oriented development( known as TOD) which puts people, their liveability, and their movement at the centre of development. The psychology behind this goes as deep as an understanding of how people feel when they walk past two city blocks, how pavements have been designed, and how green spaces influence psychological health and well-being( check out the TEDx Talk by Jeff Speck on The General Theory of Walkability).
Where to begin?
South African cities have so much latent potential to transform their inner city cores, following these principles – but where do we start in activating it?
Barcelona shifted its entire economic strategy, and did pretty well since, around the concept of the walkable and people-centred city. The point to be made here is that as thinking shifts, so does the design of our cities and spaces. What follows is innovation, productivity, and progress. A large scale societal shift in thinking is the ultimate driver of
44 OCTOBER 2017 SA Real Estate Investor Magazine