Seoul’s transformation into livable city. Makes Tokyo look stunted.

去年の夏、ソウルを訪れて驚きました。短い期間で、東アジアの他の醜い都市から離れて、魅力的で住みやすい都市になりました。ソウルを見たときに、なぜは東京政府と都市計画は、過去でなくて、未来を見つめないのでしょうか。

In the past five years, Seoul has gone from one of East Asia’s ugliest mega-cities to one of its most livable and attractive. The transformation has been rapid. While I think Tokyo is often stunted by its autocratic government and urban planning, Seoul shows that East Asian cities can be dynamic and forward-looking.

On a visit last summer, I toured new city parks (the Cheonggyecheon river and Seonyudo island), visited art galleries, experienced the mix of old and cutting edge architecture, and met meta-designers, Seoul’s city brand manager, and a national environmental researcher.

Seoul becomes urban green leader

It is exciting to read about how Seoul, Korea’s Mayor Oh Se-hoon is remaking his city into a green leader. Accomplishments include reducing air pollution by 20% in just four years. I like how Seoul uses attractiveness and energy efficiency as success metrics.

I am impressed that Seoul is connected an attractive city with economic growth and international competitiveness. May Oh is quotes as saying, “If the city is attractive, people, information and capital flow in. This in turn creates economic re-vitality and it also creates a lot of jobs.”

This forward looking attitude seems lacking in Tokyo’s city government. Why does Japan’s largest city cede environmental leadership to smaller cities like Yokohama and Nagoya? How will Japan compete globally in the next economy with last century’s technology? What will it take for Tokyo to abandon the status quo and become a leader in new urbanism? Tokyo has so much grassroots energy and creativity for brining nature into the city and making streets livable, yet so little government and corporate support.

Dead space by design III: Furukawa river buried by a freeway

On my way to Temple University, I passed the Sannohashi bridge, and realized that the river was almost completely covered by an elevated freeway. Later I learned the river is called Furukawa (古川), an extension of the Shibuyakawa.

The freeway destroys all the life the river could support, and also diminishes the value of the houses left in its shadows.

This is just one of many Tokyo rivers, canals and historic bridges buried by freeways. A hopeful vision of what could be is seen in the “daylighting” of Seoul’s Cheonggyecheon (Hangul: 청계천) river. As it is now, what remains of the river is a dead space created through poor planning.

The Tokyo Metropolitan Government’s Bureau of Construction has a cool interactive map showing every bridge of this river, with photos of each bridge and the views upstream and downstream. And there are photos of this river during Edo, Meiji and contemporary times.

“Daylighting” Cheonggyecheon River

A great article in today’s New York Times about “daylighting” the Cheonggyecheon River in Seoul. Daylighting refers to uncovering streams buried under pavement. Three miles of elevated freeway were removed, a plant-rich stream restored, and central urban land was converted from car-centric to people-centric.

Benefits include:

• summer temperature reduction by 5 degrees Fahrenheit
• improved storm drainage, which global warming has worsened
• reduction in small-particle air pollution from 74 to 48 micrograms per cubic meter
• less auto congestion despite the loss of vehicle lanes
• bio-diversity gains include 25 versus 4 fish species, 36 versus 6 bird species, and 192 versus 15 insect species
• 90,000 daily visitors, including walking and picknicing
• higher real estate values for adjacent buildings
• political gains for former mayor, now South Korean President Lee Myung-bak (also formerly head of construction at Hyundai Corporation)
• restoration of the historic center of a 600 year city

Government officials and urban planners from Los Angeles, Singapore, San Antonio, and Yonkers have expressed interest in restoring urban streams. Sadly, the article did not mention anything about Tokyo, where most of its historic canals and rivers are covered by streets and elevated freeways.

Entering the Ecological Age

Last week I heard Peter Head of ARUP present “Entering the Ecological Age,” the Brunel Lecture for the Institute of Civil Engineers. Director of ARUP’s “integrated urbanism” practice, Head focuses attention on the potential devastation of climate change and the role of cities in launching a new ecological era that uses renewable energy efficiently.

Head’s most sobering prediction is that by 2100 there is a 50% chance of earth temperature rising by more than 5 degrees celsius, which would lead to the end of human civilization.

The solution is massive reduction in carbon dioxide by retrofitting old cities and building new ones organized around non-polluting transportation. Surpassed only by Australia, the US uses twice the energy per capita of Japan and Europe because of its reliance on the automobile as the primary transportation vehicle and the great distances between housing, work, schools and shopping.

I was interested in Head’s advocacy for “biomimicry.” Janine Benyus’ 1997 book Biomimicry: Innovations Inspired by Nature lists ten principles include uses water as a resource, diversfty and cooperate, gather and use energy efficiently, optimise not maximise, use materials sparingly, clean up not pollute, do not draw down resources, remain in balance with the biosphere, run on information, and use local resources.

I also found it interesting that Head believes cities are the most dynamic and capable of meeting the challenges of the post-industrial age. He cites the work of C40 Cities as climate leaders. Some urban initiatives he cites are Seoul’s removal of a freeway above the Cheonggyecheon River, and Singapore’s introduction of dragonfly habitats to reduce mosquitoes and dengue fever.

Head advocates an 80% carbon reduction by 2050 (compared with 1990 levels), which will require massive change in advanced and developing countries. His work seeks to contribute to the 2009 COP 15 meeting in Copenhagen (Convention on Climate Change), the most important since the 1997 Kyoto Protocol.

You can download a lengthly PDF version of the talk on the ARUP website, and watch video of the lecture on a website called Resilient Futures.