3 ways we can redesign cities for equity and inclusion Vishaan Chakrabarti

[Applause]

give us your sense of what we’re

thinking about cities in terms of how

they are struggling and how they might

recover from both a health and an equity

crisis that we find ourselves in sure uh

well as you said she you know it’s

pleasure to be here and I really enjoyed

this conversation joy this conversation

with this community you know after 9/11

there are a lot of forecasts made about

what would happen with cities and people

said cities would be over skyscrapers

would be over and a lot of those

forecasts didn’t age very well and so I

think rather than forecasting about what

cities might be I think we should talk

about what cities should be coming out

of what are really these dual challenges

of pandemic on one hand and

long-standing structural racism on the

other hand that the black lives matter

movement has really made so clear to the

world and and if you think about those

two challenges they’re interrelated

because as one of the last questioners

alluded to the impacts of the pandemic

have not been equitable and communities

of color in particular have suffered

disproportionately from the pandemic and

so I think coming out of this in our

cities and I think our cities are

everything you described as these

engines of culture and commerce but I

think we need a new narrative a new

social contract for the way we think

about our cities and I think you know

right now people are going to naturally

tend towards this austerity model

they’re gonna say well we’re gonna go

broke from all of this and so we have to

pull back and investing in our people

and I think that’s exactly the wrong

thing to do

we need a new narrative of generosity

not austerity and I think we need to

focus on the equitable the sustainable

and the attainable prior to this crisis

and these crises that are in Pontus

right now

you know people that we now call

essential workers communities of color

we’re not having equal outcomes in our

cities our cities were working very well

for the prosperous and not working at

all for people in other parts of the

economy and really critical parts of our

world in our culture so if we wanted to

craft a new urban equity agenda what

would that look like what would it

entail and I think about three

components one is the idea of having

equitable health and housing and we can

talk about how those things are

interrelated sustainable urban mobility

and really changing the way in which we

move around our cities particularly as

it relates to climate change

70% of carbon emissions come from

buildings and cars often routed our

cities and so we can have an

extraordinary impacted scale in terms of

the environment and climate justice and

then finally the idea of attainable

social and cultural resources and I

think if we focused on those three

things equitable housing and health

sustainable urban mobility and

attainable social and cultural resources

as ideas for policy coming out of these

crises that we could craft a new urban

equity agenda excellent

um deshaun that that’s really it sounds

like you’re thinking on all cylinders

all about this but let’s just start with

housing because you know cities before

the pandemic were already really

challenged you know most people could

not afford to live in decent housing in

many of our major urban centers and

housing costs were skyrocketing and that

actually meant that the essential

workers that we now recognize we need to

have it mixed in with the entire city

fabric are living further and further

away

and there further from their jobs and I

just wonder from your point of view how

do we start to reset that balance sure

it’s a critical question obviously

everyone prior to these crises this this

dual crisis you know spoke about

gentrification and that became a concern

across cities globally as cities kind of

recovered from the industrial era of the

1970s became more attractive places to

live but then in turn became

unaffordable and I think we’re presented

with a false choice in terms of this

narrative that we are either the

impoverished cities of the 1970s where

we have no tax base and there’s horrible

crime or so forth or the cities that we

just experienced which are cities of

kind of bushwa banality where cities

have become so prosperous that the very

things that made them attractive became

monocultures and we were not only losing

the housing or essential workers and

communities of color as you mentioned

but also losing the spirit of what we

all love about cities in the first place

which is the diversity and the

inclusivity that makes cities

interesting and have positive social

friction so how do we get out of that

false choice and think about instead a

housing agenda that is about both equity

and attainability well I think first of

all we need to think about how could

housing policy change in the future

now if remote working becomes something

that is much more prevalent we may in

fact in many of our cities see a drop

and demand for office space and if that

occurs it could very well be that we

have a lot of older office buildings

that could through tax incentives and

policies and this has been done in other

places like in lower Manhattan where we

can convert older buildings into

affordable housing supportive home

housing for formerly huh

homeless people because what we need to

break out of is the fact that the

essential workers you’re talking about

what leads to homelessness is the fact

that make people in cities are rent

burden which means they’re spending more

than a third of their income on housing

costs and so we need an activist

government to intervene in that and to

be able to say well you know maybe some

of that older office stock could become

housing and also most cities have

brownfield sites railyards other places

where we could build mixed income

affordable attainable housing and that

will lead to better public health

outcomes because housing is health you

cannot have a healthy society if people

are under housing stress or have

homelessness going on and so those two

things are just joined at the hip right

Bashan I mean I think you were talking

about something that we are all very

keen to figure out in our in our world

but it comes down to something that if

you are speaking about a new urban

acquitting agenda are you also speaking

about a different kind of budget

allocation like how does that get done

and how do we avoid that well I think we

have to talk you know fanciers talk

about equity and debt and I think we

need to talk about social equity and

social debt and you know we’ve seen what

happens when there is an economic crisis

that leads tost arity and austerity

often just leads to more cycles of

hardship more economic ruination and

that is not the path we should take here

so we probably will need to borrow some

more money and actually put debt to good

use to build the kind of infrastructure

of opportunity that I’m talking about

but we also need to acknowledge that our

cities are wealthy places when I was

Manhattan planning director New York

City’s budget was about forty three

billion dollars the budget we passed

last year in New York City was almost

double that and that’s been pretty much

of a global phenomena and so if you look

at whether it’s London breed in San

Francisco or Anne Hidalgo in Paris the

mayor’s around the world are

understanding you have to invest in your

people you cannot have a massive

retraction at a time of social need and

so we’re gonna have to find the way to

pay for it both through you know some

deficit spending as well as looking at

the industries that are thriving and

saying whether we can pay higher taxes

for some people I know I could pay

higher taxes in order to have a more

equitable world that I’d gladly do so

okay I wanted to actually switch to the

topic of transportation because that is

so much a part of our infrastructure is

also obviously so much part of what our

cities are driven by whether it’s the

amount of pavement we have now on our

streets the accessibility we have to

public transportation I wonder though in

the context of all of that are we going

to see the rise in the use of the

private car because I people going to be

fearful or cautious about about being in

in that public of space well uh this is

a great question it’s a big concern many

people are concerned that as certain

cities recover we’re gonna see

widespread sheeps widespread use of

private automobiles and you know mass

transit was not the problem here and I

think both density and mass transit have

been painted with a rather negative

brush when it comes to the Cova dub

situation because you know we just heard

from Singapore there are places that are

quite dense that have survived the

Kovach crisis much better than a lot of

the cities in the West have despite the

use of mass transit and so mass transit

can be made to be safe but I think what

we really need to do is step back and

look at what happened which is you know

most of our cities have about 30 percent

a full one-third of their roadbed assume

you have their land committed to roads

right it’s a it’s a staggering figure to

think of a third of Tokyo or a third of

New York being committed to roads and

then the majority of that road space is

used by private vehicles today and I

think we need to complete

we rethink that equation and again in

the spirit of equity and ecology we use

that public space in terms of express

buses that can be spaced so that you had

more social distancing on buses while

you needed them because you had many

more of them walking and biking has

proved to be a very effective means of

transport in the kovat environment as

long as people are keeping their

distance and I think you know in terms

of both the ecology in terms of urban

human connectedness all of that is so

much more possible if we stop using

roads solely for cars and especially

private cars because the problem here is

not a technological problem it’s a

spatial problem if you look at how much

space a person in the car takes up

versus a bicycle or a pedestrian I don’t

care whether the car is autonomous or

electric or whatever it is it just takes

up too much space per person and that’s

what we need we have the space in our

cities to move around in a much more

efficient ecological timely manner and

in a way that’s much more pleasant for

people in terms of quality of life if we

simply give more of our streets over to

people as opposed to cars right right

and we do we do see that happen and I

believe Helen is here with some

questions from our community ok the

first question I want to bring up is

from Kira Kira gold from our community

can we bring that up how might the long

term fracturing on families in urban

cities especially for black families

given higher rates of unemployment

sickness the impacts of the gig economy

and even the lack of property ownership

and the dominance of women headed

households need to be written into a new

equity agenda it’s a great question Kara

thank you for asking it I really believe

that well we need to go directly to

people in communities and ask them what

their needs are you know for too long

we’ve been you know in architecture we

talked to the Truvia San Leonardo drew

the Vitruvian Man which was you know the

man and circle on the square and then

look Corbusier drew the modular man

there was always about the man right and

it was always about this kind of eye

Eli’s idea of what the human being that

you designed for or the family that you

designed for and I think we instead need

to go to communities and ask them what

their needs are you know in terms of

what their family structures are and and

how to then build for them and

understanding and resuscitating the idea

of public housing that works and public

housing that isn’t just top-down but

public housing that is bottom-up in

terms of understanding what what

people’s needs are and how we can

address those needs through investment

in our communities and building for our

communities excellent let’s move to

another question this one from Ian Firth

who says in your 2018 TED talk you

challenged us to conceive and planned

cities differently now with an urgent

focus on low-carbon and healthy public

spaces how can we quickly instigate

better urban transportation systems that

prioritize healthy and low emission

systems Ian wonderful to hear from you

you know I think it builds on the

question she asked me which is really

this you know I think there’s a moment

we have right now to leverage the

emptyness to the extent that we don’t

have congestion in our cities for the

first time like we have blue skies over

New Delhi it’s mind-blowing

and you know I think this is a moment

when we can leverage the emptiness and

say do we want to once we have a vaccine

or a treatment do we really want to go

back to those congested cities and I

think most people would say no and I

think that we then need to say is well

how can we achieve that and again it

just it’s it isn’t about rocket science

we know that walking biking low-emission

buses for people who are handicapped or

mobility challenged that you know we can

absolutely move people around in our

cities in a low-emission way and we have

the framework to do it cities started in

on this already London Stockholm other

cities Curitiba Brazil started in a lot

of these policies prior to these

pandemics and I think we just need to

build upon that

to kind of take this little silver

lining of a lack of congestion and less

air pollution and less carbon emissions

right now and see if we can give that as

a gift to the world going forward okay

one more and then I will jump out here

is a question from an otaku who asks as

a New Yorker I am curious how you do

school zoning and rezoning as a tool in

reducing inequality do you expect covin

and it’s aftermath to accelerate the

divide between those who can and cannot

afford good education I and as a fellow

New Yorker I certainly worry about that

and I think we especially need to worry

about we all know about the outcomes

that can be produced if people have good

early education and you know one of the

things that I’ve been thinking about is

we’re all talking about how retail is

transforming and we’re you know maybe

we’ll see fewer chain stores in cities

like New York and and maybe instead of

those chain stores we could use those

empty storefronts for educational or

social purposes pop-up libraries pop up

universal pre-k or classrooms you know

things that still give our street life

vibrancy and activation but not without

relying on chain stores and instead

relying on social infrastructure and

educational infrastructure that rather

than as your question talks about

schools owning that you know we bring

the mountain to Mohammed that we

actually distribute in a more diffuse

way around our cities the educational

infrastructure the people need in their

communities which includes by the way

things like vocational training and

senior education so we you know create a

kind of cradle to grave educational

system that’s a kind of Street

infrastructure across our cities I think

that’s possible in a world in which

we’re gonna see fewer chain stores

wonderful I will be back

thanks fun some that reminds me of

something that you’ve spoken about

before which is the sort of the more

locality like the idea that we see in

Paris right now we’re you know essential

NEADS and essential community needs are

not with you no not necessary for us to

travel across town or even you know have

to have to get on any public

transportation to to get our needs and I

know that that’s a model that you are

very enthusiastic about but could you

say more about how that would work in in

other cities outside of an enlightened

place like Paris well you know it’s

interesting because I think gee that

model begins in even small agrarian

villages like I think about farming

villages I visited in Japan or the one

my father was born in in India where

even a you know the farmers live at this

very intimate scale and then they go out

and and tend their fields and then they

come back to a community and that

community has shared infrastructure

shared social services and I think that

is a paradigm that can be replicated and

also kind of tailored to the individual

cultures and places and climates all

around the world and so to me this isn’t

just about Paris or or Tokyo or

Singapore it’s really I think the human

instinct of why do people live in

collectives to begin with and it isn’t

just out of economic circumstance we

know through the history of humanity

that people actually like being together

and that we’re seeing this test now as

we’re all working remotely but we all

miss each other right now I know I miss

giving you a hug and so we don’t you

know we don’t get to do that in person

anymore and I think it’s a basic human

need and so this idea that we can create

that kind of village living at a lot of

different scales for a lot of different

societies a lot of different cultures a

lot of different assignments is

absolutely possible its ecological it’s

fun it’s it’s joyous it’s part of our

cultural life in terms of how we create

culture so I think that’s possible at

all scales and in lots of different

places

I’m are they looking forward to all of

that

Ishod tell me what are you thinking now

in terms of how dramatically office life

will change do you feel like things will

ever be back to some version of what we

used to know or are we really setting a

course for something new well it’s a

great question a lot of people are

obviously concerned about this I mean

I’m again I’m trying to stay out of the

fortune-telling business but I do you

know what I can imagine is that you know

again after 9/11 people said office

space was dead and like you know it

never get built again and obviously that

didn’t turn out to be true I know that

as an architect and you know in my

studio we’re itching to get back to the

office we know that there’s an

opportunity cost to working this way but

at the same time you know there may be

people who have really difficult

commutes who you know they and their

CEOs might have kind of a lined bowl of

saying you know the employer says I

don’t really want to pay for that

cubicle and the employee says I don’t

really want it commute to that cubicle

every day and so I do imagine that over

the long term this is going to reduce

some of the commutation and so I think

it will be a mixed situation but I do

believe that a lot of industries we

still need that face to face

serendipitous contact that sparks

innovation and sparks creativity and so

I still fully believe in that and fully

believe that that will be part of why

cities recover from all of this but you

know I think the other thing to say

about that is that I’m in the middle of

writing my next book and there’s so much

interesting history associated with how

cities changed in the course of

pandemics sewer and water infrastructure

light and air standards from between you

know from tuberculosis cholera to the

bubonic plague and the Spanish flu it

all changed the form of our cities and

this will too but hopefully for the

better but also in a way that you know

builds upon our desire for human

connectedness absolutely I think we have

time for one

question from Helen indeed thank you so

much that was so beautiful I have a

question from Dred Scott who says I like

a lot of what you’re saying and

proposing but without addressing class

and how policy is created and by whom

these changes seem impossible how can

these changes actually be implemented

hi Dredd good to see you at least on

your little photograph on the screen uh

it’s a great question and I don’t

pretend to have all the answers to that

but I think we do know that unless there

is a different sense of representation

in terms of what our government is how

our government can can be reformed in

everything from criminal justice reform

in terms of how we police our streets

that that none of this can come to pass

that we need diversity or representation

and also again I think we need to

rethink our narratives and not

constantly fall in the trap of of you

know what we’ve been living in for the

last 50 years and instead think about

how do we get a much broader sense of

representation and have the the

self-governance that that you know that

our democracies promise us and I think

unless you have that you can’t institute

the kind of urban equity agenda that

we’ve been talking about thank you thank

you for Sean you know I know that you’re

not in the business of fortune-telling

but I think you are absolutely in the

business of building back better I think

that your ideas and your initiatives are

more more needed now than ever I have

just one more question for you which is

you are embarking on now your new role

as a Dean of an architecture school and

I wonder what is the pedagogy going to

look like how is it changing what are

your thoughts about where where even the

whole education of those people who

build our environments how will how will

that shift

it’s on my mind constantly obviously as

an incoming dean and this I think

relates back to the question we got from

Dred Scott because I have so much hope

when I see you know Berkeley is a big

public university in my undergraduate

body 41% of my students are

first-generation we have a lot of

diversity inclusion we’re going to get a

lot more diversity and inclusion I hope

in the coming years and those students

will go out and become our future

leaders and it’s in those students I

mean they asked me really tough

questions about how we’re gonna

diversify our faculty and diversify our

pedagogy and I think one of the big

questions that a lot of students have is

what’s their instrumentality in all of

this how do they take what they learn

and become urban planners landscape

architects architects who really change

the narrative and change how we

implement policy on the ground you know

Berkeley is obviously right next to

Oakland and there’s just so much to do

in terms of listening to that community

and working with that community our good

friend Walter Foote has been doing that

for decades and I just think that

Berkeley is one of these places as a big

public university that really gives me

hope because of the students and the

faculty and what what impassioned them

and I do think pedagogy will change as a

consequence of all of this because we

have to look at everything through this

frame of what is equitable what is

sustainable and what is attainable yeah

that’s that’s a lot of new thinking for

the architecture fields but we welcome

that Bashan Helen I’m just here to say

thank you thank you so much for sharing

your thoughts and wisdom with us today

it was amazing and I I wish you the best

of luck as you desert New York for the

west coast which is really I’ll be back

it was lovely to see you thank you as an

honor a privilege

thank you son thank you thank you