Topic of 4th July (revised)

[Ed(김상욱)]

Topic: How can we make our city better?

Thanks to Tyler Brule, a eminent British journalist, the founder of the internationally well-known design magazine “Wallpaper*”, the chief editor of his newly published international magazine “Monocle” and the founder of the advertizing/Branding company “Winkreative”, especially for his tireless work on Monocle regarding ‘Urban Planning’ that has inspired me for a while to dig into the subject more.

‘Monocle’ has been issued for few years so far and gradually gaining more and more popularity for its outstanding articles on various subjects: global affairs, business, culture and design. In its 25^th issue, I read an essay of ‘Urbanism’, discussing how to improve the urban environment in particular. The same edition also included a research ‘The world’s top 25 most liveable cities’ which apparently did not list any of Korean cities, but the list consisted of cities from Europe and Japan. It was not a big surprise to me though since I was aware of the fact that the chief editor and the researchers were huge fans or even fanatics of European and Japanese ways of life where ‘Street life’ is more vibrant and focused than ‘big-road automobile life’.

 If you have ever been out of this country and had a chance to enjoy the quiet peaceful atmosphere of European cities, you might have figured that we are missing something in our place. Is it about the extend or the size of cities? Or should we build those castle looking buildings or more Catholic churches to make the city lose more of its identity? No, we know that won’t be the correct answer. One possible correct answer could be ‘revive streets’ and do something with the ugly big roads filled with cars pumping out carbon emmissions and making lousy noise that makes you get stressed out.

What happened in Daegu? To my understanding, most part of Korea’s urban planning has been largely influenced by the U.S. where not enough consideration had been given to liveable streets. The U.S. accepted the great modernist Le Corbusier’s idea to ‘Kill the street’, meaning get the pedestrians and sidewalks cafes and other obstacles out of the way of traffic. His prescription for Paris would have created bridges and underpasses on all major streets, but fortunately was rejected by Prisians who denied a plan to make vehicles dominate the streets. However, sadly it found home in the U.S. and if you look around, that is what we also can find here in Daegu.

This urban planning policy has put us in bad urban environment even though it might conquer congestion. It has created a vicious circle afterall. People tend to buy cars and drive rather than wasting time to use inconvenient public transportation. This is a key reason we are so dependent on foreign oil and it is the biggest single cause of our enormous carbon emissions. The city has been covered with motorways that lead anywhere you want, while the street network was degraded and transit removed. This of course reduced congestion but the side effect was fewer jobs, businesses and people. Only the downtown area is relishing the benefits of this poor planning as that is almost the only spot where people could gather up and do things.

I personally think that if our city officials had been more diligent and competent, they could have been able to systemize public transportation way more efficiently, instead of pouring so much tax into subway and road construction which merely stuffed construction companies’ pockets. And thanks to our conservative incompetent officials, the monorail is under construction that I suppose hardly can be a good decision considering cost efficiency.

 People are increasingly attracted to urban living and more environment-friendly way of life, but apparently my city seems to fall far behind. The more streets and wide sidewalks there are, the more freedom we could relish. It is never too late to transform the city to the one that our next generations can enjoy more liveablility and quality of life.

Q. 1. Do you agree with my idea that Daegu's city planning is more focused on 'road' than 'street' ?

    2. Do you think the city's public transportation is convenient? if not, what aspects of it you do not like?

    3. If you have been to some other cities, which one was your favorite and why?

    4. How much impact do you think 'Urban planning' does on its citizens' lives?

    5. Apart from those discussed already, what else in Daegu do you think can be improved?

[Vuitton(김소윤)]

질문이없다니......난감해지네요 ㅋㅋ전 아직 영어가 서투니까요~~토픽 감사합니다^^

[Ed(김상욱)]

아..반대로 생각했는데 ;; 제가 잘못생각했네요 ;; 질문 만들어 올릴게요 ^^;

[Michael(추제형)]

에디형 직접 쓰신듯...ㅋㅋㅋㅋ짱!ㅋ

[scott(박범석)]

오우 심도있는 대화가 되겠네요~~^^!! 작성하시느라 수고 많으셨어요^^

[DARIEN (이승훈)]

행님 역시 포쓰가 남다르셔요 ㄷㄷㄷ

[Julia(김이레)]

좋은 토픽이네요 감사합니다~

[Daunte]

토픽 고마워요 에디님,,, 멋진 토픽이네요.