We are here for Art of the MOOC with a very special guest Enrique Penalosa.

Thank you so much Enrique for joining us.

We know you're a very busy man, you're running for office.

And so we really appreciate that you take some time to talk to us.

>> Thank you Pedro, it's a pleasure to be here.

because out of the whole universe, out of the whole planet, the only microscopic

piece of planet to which we have access.

Bright to access this.

Probably a dense space, in our cities.

So it's an extremely important part of our planning, of our city.

It is the most important part.

It's about a good city, I think is a city which

fosters the encounter between all kinds of different people.

Fosters the encounter between rich and poor as equals.

And, of course this only happens if a city has good quality spaces,

because stationary rates have many alternatives.

Jackie used to say that I could see this one,

where people like to be out of their homes.

Not inside a shopping mall or in a apartment,

but out in the sidewalks, grasses, parks.

And I agree with this.

I think we human beings are pedestrians.

We need to walk.

Not in order to survive.

We could survive with outside a park.

>> Mm-hm.

We need to walk in order to be happy, just as birds need to fly, or deer need to run.

We need to walk.

Also we need to be with people.

We need to see people, we need to be contact with people.

>> As a mayor of Bogota, you enacted very specific, you took action.

You really transformed the city.

Can you tell us a little bit about what the main structures were that you

used to take the city in that direction.

Of more pedestrian life, of more public spaces for

people [INAUDIBLE] Most

valuable asset of our city is road space, is space between buildings.

>> Mm-hm.

>> The issue is how to distribute such space between pedestrians, bicyclists,

public transport, and cars.

And this is not a legal issue.

This is not a technological decision by engineers.

This is a ideological, a political decision.

A developing country simply by definition, most people do not have cars.

So most people walk so if it's too

[INAUDIBLE] then we should be much more space

to pedestrians than to motor vehicles.

Or also a person on a bicycle wants the same

bright growth space as somebody in a car.

So we [INAUDIBLE] was basically to distribute

growth space and work them out graphic way.

We first, we gave exclusive lanes for buses because if buses are equal,

in theory a bus with a hundred passengers has a right to a hundred times more road

space than a car.

We created a bike way network,

a protected bicycle network.

At that time, it was not so much involved.

There were no bike was [INAUDIBLE] I believe they're in New York and

[INAUDIBLE] are protected bicycle lanes.

Some of them bicycle highways, about 70 kilometers

of bicycle highways, with cars right next to them,

about [INAUDIBLE] especially [INAUDIBLE].

Well the city argues that sidewalks should be for people.

But, when we arrived in city hall,

all sidewalks were parking lots.

There was maybe not one single street.

It was somebody in a wheelchair could go from one corner to another So

we had a war, get cars off the sidewalks.

There are tens of thousands of cars on the sidewalks.

It was very difficult because [INAUDIBLE] that register are 50% of

the population who had cars, but all the power.

They were the office of the newspapers, radio, television and

it was a very painful battle.

It was at one point [INAUDIBLE] I have about 50

[INAUDIBLE] I was public enemy number one.

But this is, I think what makes a difference between

an advanced and and a backward city.

There's no infrastructure.

It's not that it has sidewalk.

It's not that it has subway service.

But that the quality of it's sidewalks.

So, when we put that we have to say okay.

We already stopped [INAUDIBLE] because there is enough space to park

on [INAUDIBLE] as well as for [INAUDIBLE].

So we have to have some TV commercials.

We explain.

It seems that sidewalks are relevant tourists the thing you messed up,

however sidewalks unlike streets are not for getting from one place to another.

They can be used for that but sidewalks are for playing,

for kissing, for talking, for a doing business, so

sidewalks really are much closer to use of parks or plazas.

What most cities want where nobody feels excluded or inferior.

Also I would say that I create cities before,

which has at least one and hopefully several great public spaces.

What is a great public space?

What is so fantastic that even the rich cannot afford going there?

The rich usually don't want to go anywhere where they be with the poor.

They're poor to them.

They want everything that is possible to avoid this.

But it takes something so marvelous Central Park or [INAUDIBLE].

So, it's so fantastic, so

fantastic and so wonderful

that everybody has to go.

So, public space must go with the character.

I think what is memorable.

What is memorable in a city is its public pedestrian space.

Most people, if they remember, their childhood.

I mean, we talk to them about, tell us about your neighborhood of

your childhood most people, we remember experiences in public space.

What is memorable, what is for an artist.

And it is the same for our [INAUDIBLE].

[INAUDIBLE] public space, the scenario,

the theater is the agora so when public

space is the place as a meeting place for

people like shopping malls [INAUDIBLE] Shopping

malls don't allow politicians or artists.

They're just what, you're not allowed to go.

To talk to people or even to disseminate some leaflets.

I have been kicked out of some shop because the police, because I was not

even distributing leaflets, just because I was [INAUDIBLE] some caution so.

Enrique Peñalosa

ART of the MOOC: Arte Público y Pedagogía

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