Jan Gehl, Danish architect, urban design consultant and author of ‘Public Spaces, Public Life’ was in Calgary on September 2, 2009. He passionately spoke about what makes a great city and gave examples of how to re-build cities to make them great.

Gehl’s passionate journey started when he was asked why architects are not interested in people? “Architect schools teach a lot about form, but not much about life. Good architecture is always a good balance between form and life,” says Gehl.

Gehl says there is sensible density and then there is senseless density. “You can build very good density without doing silly towers, which don’t help life in city spaces. With 4 or 5 stories carefully organized you can increase densities and increase the quality of life.” “Sensitive density”, Gehl says, “has to take into account people scale.”

Many cities are suffering from what Gehl calls Brasilia Syndrome. These cities look great from high up above. Gehl notes that in Brasilia, “you have government buildings with a big green space in the middle. The people scale is completely missing. Endless lanes are unuseful for the people. If you are not motorized, it has no meaning at all. It is an awful place. For the people it is not a nice space.”

“As we build bigger and bigger buildings we have lost our sense of scale. We forgot we are basically a horizontal 5 kilometre an hour walking animal. Fly in and out star architects can build very big things very fast that are completely out of scale. These buildings are for dinosaurs, not for people,” says Gehl.

Dubai is an example of what not to be. “Dubai may be one of the worst places I have been anywhere near. It is not a city at all. It is a collection of high rises around a 100 kilometre highway. It reminds me of perfume bottles in my wife’s shelf. Fly in and fly out architects come in and try to find a shape that is better than the next guy’s shape. They end up with a 100 perfume bottles.”

     

Sensible density first asks how people are actually going to use the space. Gehl’s advice is, “Always make too little room for it.” He uses an example of a lecture. “If you are expecting 100 people for a lecture, then use a room for 50 people. People will think to themselves how lucky I was to get a seat here. Those in the corridor will think that they are lucky to see in the distance through the doors.” Gehl says our cities have been designed like 100 people attending a lecture with 500 seats. “Too much space for too little people,” notes Gehl.

According to Gehl, great cities have become destinations in their own right. “Our enjoyment is being closer to other people,” say Gehl. He believes humans are social animals and that the “biggest interest of people is people” and therefore the main leisure activity in great cities is people watching.

“There is not one city in the world that doesn’t want to have a lively, safe, sustainable, and healthy city. By making it better for pedestrians and bicyclists, we address these issues,” says Gehl. He pointed out that cities like Copenhagen and Melbourne have done just this.

Gehl says that outdoor cafes are the key to more people friendly cities. “Initially Copenhagen said that we are not Italian, that cafes would not work there because it was too cold. Now we have 7,000 outdoor cafe seats,” says Gehl. Outdoor cafes in Copenhagen are bristling with people from the beginning of March till Christmas.

   
                   

As a result of Gohl’s work, Strøget street was created in 1962 in Copenhagen. The street is a carfree zone and is now the world example of how to push cars out and invite the people back in. Ambitiously Copenhagen is striving to be the best city for people in the world. Their goal is for everyone to walk 20% more and for 50% of people to bike to work by 2015. Right now 37% of the city bikes to work.

Melbourne is another example of how a city can be transformed. “Melbourne was known as being dull and uninteresting,” says Gehl. In Gehl’s words the city “turned into vibrant and fantastic. In 10 years they have achieved miracles.” Three times in the last ten years Melbourne has been voted the best city in the world.
  
                            

“Melbourne at first said that the weather was too unpredictable. Now they have 15,000 cafe seats,” says Gehl.  He adds that, “from the air it looks like cancer city or any other colonial city. At eye level it is much more like Paris. There are 40% more people in the inner city, twice as much at night, and 4 times more people sitting. They bring in 500 trees every year. Gradually the whole city is becoming green. These changes were good for the economy in the area too.”

The best example of how to build housing communities is in Malmo, Sweden. “They have density, but also have fantastic spaces between buildings. This is the sensitive density I would like,” says Gehl. It doesn't look much from the air, but at street level Gehl says it is beautiful.



Gehl says that there is lots happening in New York City. “In New York they don’t talk about it, they do it,” says Gehl. They have the goal of being the most sustainable metropolitan city in the world. They are planning to put in a million trees and 6,000 miles of bicycle lanes. Gehl points out that the bicycle lanes are in between the sidewalks and the parked cars. Whereas in some Canadian cities the sidewalks are next to parked cars, which are next to the bicycle lane. Incredibly Gehl says, “the parked cars protect the bicycle lanes.”

World class cities set world class goals. These changes can happen in Calgary, for as Gehl ended his presentation, “if you can make it there (New York), you can make it anywhere.”