From Cars to Citizens. Rescuing Social Urban Design: The Dutch Model

Urban planning, or, urbanism, has been developed and practiced since ancient times to plan city life, and, in a certain manner centralize a way to organize, move, and exist. Urban planning not only designs the city’s infrastructure but also creates a lifestyle for its inhabitants. Since the Industrial Revolution, urbanism has been forced to renovate itself thoroughly and even though the modernity project seemed irreversible, in recent decades some cities have moved to the opposite side.

Since the invention of the automobile, a good urbanist would prioritize it by building big highways and wide streets to facilitate its circulation so it would become a vehicle for freedom. Streets began to grow bigger, and cities became emptier. Urban planning went from planning roads in the city to planning them through the city.

CITIES ARE SLOWLY LOSING HIGH SPEED LANES AND FILLING UP WITH LIFE AGAIN

We are now aware of the serious consequences of this type of urban planning, such as air and noise pollution, and the loss of public spaces, consequences that have a negative impact on people’s daily lives all around the world. Therefore, urban planning is transforming again to relocate humans in its center, and not cars. This focus is already occurring in countries that realized the adverse side effects of planning for vehicular circulation and have recently improved and prioritized pedestrian, cycling, and public services infrastructure.Cities are slowly losing high speed lanes and filling up with life again.

PROBLEMS OF TRADITIONAL URBANISM
Talking about traditional urban planning, the invention of automobiles can be defined as a historical social trigger. It was followed by economic and industrial development, and therefore urban development. All over the world, large roads were built, lanes began to be enlarged, streetcar lines disappeared and the multilevel detour system appeared. Strictly speaking, this was an overwhelming global event.

This huge post-industrial urban transformation has been clearly described by Winfield (2007) while addressing how these transformations not only modified the way in which people distributed themselves in the territory, but also their ways of life, land uses and landscapes. It is not like urban planning refused to develop an inclusive or humanistic design; it simply followed the 20^th Century’s economic ideology. Big urban transformations (second-floor highways, freeways, vehicular enlargements, and the like) would soon bring the problems we all know: noise, traffic, pollution, and the disappearance of public areas that are essential in what we understand as a city.

One of the most immediate consequences—one we don’t talk much about—is noise pollution, also known as environmental noise or stress, a phenomenon that is constantly generating harm. We can only realize the damage noise pollution causes to us when cities and governments create environmental policies to reduce the problem.

Air pollution is another well-known consequence of urban planning based on cars circulation: “motor vehicles are the most important source of some pollutants (carbon monoxide in particular) [...] and, to a lesser extent, of suspended particles of sulphur dioxide and volatile organic compounds” (Romero, Olite & Álvarez Toste, 2006).

According to Rosales-Castillo et al. (2001), since the 1990s, in research such as Dockery and Pope’s (1994) “studies are compared and show evidence of increased mortality and morbidity associated with moderate concentrations of suspended particles. Daily fluctuations of sulphur dioxide and suspended particles have been associated with increased morbidity, mortality and reduced lung function”.

REESTABLISHING SUSTAINABLE URBANISM
In Urbanism Without Effort, Charles Wolfe (2019) states how the relationship between humans and the urban environment must be rediscovered to arrive at an “effortless urban fabric” which means reorienting urbanism based on the innate interactions that urban inhabitants already have with each other and with the surrounding urban and physical environment.

Orienting urbanism towards sustainability, rather than a contemporary innovation or a revelatory discovery, is to rediscover the causes that led humans to orient themselves in a city in the first place. Reclaiming public spaces and designing functional cities (around communication, mobility, and organization) is precisely to address the very object of urbanity, to understand the constantly evolving social contexts in which cities were created.

I recently talked to Chris Bruntlett, a well-known sustainable urban mobility advocate, writer, and now International Relations Manager at the Dutch Cycling Institute which perhaps is today’s most important public-private network for sustainable mobility. We talked about many valuable topics: how cycling to the office changed his perspective and his career, the status value of cars in our culture, how precious public space is (he used a very cool analogy about transforming hallways into living rooms). We also talked about how we dispose of resources when designing cities, the importance of citizen involvement, and, of course, how the Netherlands has excelled in restoring its cities.

THE DUTCH EXAMPLE
Chris also told me that one of the things he loves about living in the Netherlands is that this country was one of the first to recognize the mistake of designing for vehicles, so they never fully converted their infrastructure and, long before all other countries, since the 1970s have poured their efforts into creating cities that serve their citizens and not the other way around [see box].

So, what is being done in the Netherlands that the rest of the world could learn from? The main strategies and policies implemented there are the following:

• High quality cycling infrastructure: an extensive network of confined lanes, bridges, tunnels, and special cycling roads.
• Shared infrastructure such as trains with bicycle cars and huge bicycle parking lots at major stations.
• Pedestrian zones: pedestrianization policies to improve urban mobility and establishment of special zones with vehicular restrictions.
• Efficient public transport systems: inclusive cards that allow the use of multiple modes of transport such as buses, trains and streetcars with a unique payment method.
• Investment to improve public transport service quality.

In the Netherlands, the change is well under way. Cities such as Rotterdam, Utrecht, The Hague, and Amsterdam have demonstrated that these new infrastructure changes improve people’s lives, facilitate sustainable mobility, and stand for what is most important in a city: quality for living everyday life.

PHILOSOPHY AND URBANISM
Urban design comes with many responsibilities, including making difficult decisions and dealing with opposing stakeholders. In addition, it is crucial to compare the effects of one design against another, trying to balance the well-being of citizens with the functioning of the city and its economic development.

All this cannot occur if urban planners lack a certain philosophy of how a good urban design should be. There cannot be urban planning without a preconception of a model for urban design, its purposes, and its scope. Therefore, philosophy has had a significant role in how we designed cities for centuries, even if we did it without realizing where that conception came from.

Hence the importance of citizen organization and active participation. It is essential to demand inclusive infrastructure that authentically reflects people’s lifestyles and that, regardless of the physical, psychological, or economic capabilities of citizens, is equally accessible and dignified for everyone.

WHAT’S NEXT?
Just as we have seen the transformation in urban planning in the post-industrial era, we are now witnessing a second transformation, coming slowly but exponentially, and this time it is sure to be just as hegemonic. Developed countries are leading the way, but that does not mean that full economic development is a condition for this urban change. Changes have caused a domino effect that warns urban planners and legislators of the latent demand which poor urban design has kept hidden. Amsterdam, Bogotá, Barcelona, Tirana, and Paris are just some examples of cities that have begun to act and will indeed set the example for many more to come. It is essential that urban planners all around the world learn from those who are leading the way, but it is still more important that we try to make it happen as citizens, for the sake of our health and happiness.

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