crisis too big city is the other side of the crisis of nature
Foreword by Italo Calvino in Invisible Cities. 1972.
I know nothing about planning, my perspective is that of a modest observer in my capacity as a citizen trying to understand what is happening around them. There are positive values \u200b\u200bare lavish urban in some areas within cities should be encouraged to extend to the body center. I understand they are capable of creating a city within a city without having to invest large sums of public money. We talked about values \u200b\u200brelated to the closeness and proximity, the diversity of economic activities concentrated in a space, the mix of urban functions that allow synergies or coexistence in the same place from different social strata, which could reduce the creation of spaces in the city specialized in certain income levels, whether exclusive suburbs or housing developments. These values \u200b\u200bare directly related to the increased quality of life of a community. In my view leads to the creation of new jobs, reducing commute long with a consequent reduction in noise pollution and gases, the economic upgrading of the area under of these processes, the densification of the urban core, etc.
no intention to be exhaustive, we place the possible causes of this transformation in the dynamics of the Chueca district of Madrid has experienced in the past 15 years ("gentrification ?) and which we believe you skipped the natural limits of their own neighborhood to get to Malasaña, the Street belonging mentioned. The commercial hub which is Fuencarral, repowering the process of partial pedestrian suffered in 2009, has helped bring to the street Holy Spirit significant traffic from people with some purchasing power. Also the successive attempts to reform the environment of the Plaza de la Luna, miserable old fornication center scale, which aims eradicate the last vestiges of a brothel marketing that refuses to disappear. These attempts to change the Square of the Moon have crystallized, in addition to the reform of the square in the pedestrian streets of some of its adjacent (Ballesta and disappointment), the opening of new businesses linked to the world of fashion, leisure and hospitality replacing the squalid slums and other actions that have cast its effect on internal Malasaña and in particular on the street in question. Another possible cause, the very economic crisis has led some people to lose their jobs, which have acted as a trigger to start this project I always believed. They have wasted a good crisis.
There are several problems whose resolution would improve the living on this street, making it a more democratic center. Mitigate these problems would therefore be desirable: a-A high noise pollution. The agglomeration of local drinks and uncivil behavior of some people who come to this area generates significant noise levels during the weekends. A problem whose solution is complex since a very tough laws in this area can drown out the process of opening new businesses but that it might redirect ensuring compliance current noise.
b-The existence of some excess traffic. Although the street is pedestrian access is allowed by private vehicle floor. The ban on private traffic flow except for the people who justify their homes in the area for public transport and the supply of premises, improve the quality of life in the area to reduce motor noise, pollution and strengthen small businesses because it would favor people "colonized" the street even as happened on Fuencarral.
c-The gradual removal of the resident population in these places and their replacement other higher-income sector. Social diversity of an area, defined as cohabitation and coexistence of different sectors of the population income, nationality and age is a value of wealth must be preserved and enhanced.
Far showcase of urban development is in the media, linked to certain architecture of the show, so characteristic of the era of excess we live in the past decade and is still practiced (Guinness Book Architecture . The handle to the City) , has occurred in this small area of \u200b\u200bMadrid is an interesting urban renewal of the street itself and from the Malasaña. If we can avoid the negative impacts mentioned above, this type of regeneration seems to be more productive and interesting from the standpoint of social and urban interventions that great for political power, in turn redirected, probably, by the power economic. However, one must ask whether this process by which the commercial and leisure activity has flourished in its various manifestations, has been a spontaneous process or has been remote-controlled by the municipality of Madrid favoring local opening different applications, facilitating investment firms in the area or other more subtle ways through planning urban planning at the end of the day Can we speak of spontaneity in urbanism. hard to see a similar process in the Canary islands within cities, at least this is my perception. I mean to identify those spaces which has launched a process of urban renewal and recovery of certain areas (also can be rural) spontaneously or facilitated institutionally, by which a place with a particular application manages to be recovered and revitalized community for achieving social type a plus for the neighborhood, city or town where it belongs. If so, please excuse my ignorance, I invite you to display and highlight their strengths. In the Canary Islands (not a single case) is not revitalize areas become completely associated to aggressive real estate processes and linking them to the construction of infrastructure very invasive and ultimately segregated from the central urban core. Also through the strategy of letting die justify entire neighborhoods and then powerful interventions.
Somehow, these processes of renewal and recovery of necessary and urgent in the urban context Islands. The litany of pre-election pre-campaign and speaks of the need to create new beaches in some cities canary, the urgency to return to the sea cities, facilitating the influx of more tourists, removing an obstacle ports or create many others where there is not, create second and third runways, destroying emblematic places to pick up new ones ... Projects that have little to do with a serious program and defined urban or urban culture itself and everything to do with processes economic driven by the economic powers of the moment, the political sphere that it is very docile. This is the new despotism, equally interested than before but much more sophisticated. What is the proposed city that sustain these interventions? What we want to create islands? Do not incur a high opportunity cost to spend huge amounts of public resources to projects that are at very high risk of being a total ruin economically and socially? There urban surgery success stories that illustrate the process of urban renewal in the Canaries. Without neglecting the differences in scale and respect the property of the people living in those places, in the sense of ensuring that the renewal process will no deportation to other areas and that the action, always based on democratic values, improve quality of life. At the same time must allow for the attraction of new groups that enrich the diversity of society. Perhaps we ought to study a little more detail the dynamics of small urban renewal occurring in larger nuclei and facilitate the success of certain sectors of the city, without major investments or to change the urban landscape dramatically. Is it just a matter of creating the legal and institutional conditions conducive to the promotion. O to facilitate creative and entrepreneurial attitudes of the population, which is directly connected with the education they receive the canaries.
Photo 1: Place in the C / Holy Spirit.
Photo 2: One of the cafeteria on the C / Holy Spirit
Photo 3: A florist
Photo 4: Some of the trendy shops
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