I Once Met a Man from Bogotá

What kind of city do you want to live in?
If Birmingham's population loss is any indicator then we do not have a city that many people want to live in. We have pollution issues, education issues, transportation issues... in short, social equity issues. We don't have a city where people feel that they can prosper and improve themselves in. So we have to ask ourselves, what will it take to make Birmingham the city people want to live in?
To answer this question we would do well to look to the rest of the world for examples of cities that people want to live in. (I'll exclude some large cities as they benefit, in population numbers, from being located in areas of the world with severely undeveloped regions surrounding them which means they are the only available option for the people nearby to live urbanly.) So among the multicultural, successful melting-pots of the developed world what features tend to be commonalities? I believe this can be summed up quickly in saying that the successful and prospering cities of the world make it easy and enjoyable for people to connect, communicate, and collaborate* with one another. This means having mixed-use, mixed-income, mixed-ideological environments where peoples' ideas collide together to produce the creative fusion that drives innovation.
This mixing is the key to fixing the issues. A frequently discussed problem in America today is the echo-chambers that we've segregated ourselves into. It's Disneyfication; we've gone and separated ourselves into Adventureland, Frontierland, and (for most of the suburbs) Fantasyland. (I think it's kind of telling that Tomorrowland features a Möbius strip of an highway, reflective of the endless rat-race of a maze that is suburbia.**) People of different backgrounds and ideas don't often cross one-another. Is it any wonder that the political system has become polarized? Is it any wonder that we can't agree on what direction to go in as a country? We are profoundly divided. "United We Stand" has become more epideictic rhetoric than practice.
So if we are to begin to heal the fractures in our society we must rethink what we mean when we say "that all Men are created equal". Former Mayor of Bogotá, Enrique Penalosa, spoke on his challenges and successes as mayor at UAB's inaugural Sustainable Smart Cities Symposium last Thursday. Chief among his points was how our cities have now become designed for cars (and the successful who can afford them) at the expense of people. He made a wonderful case for becoming hostile to cars in our approach at urban redesign favoring instead policies and infrastructure that empower every citizen. Now, lest that sound too terribly socialist, let me put it in his words: "we need cities where the $30 bicycle is just as important as the $30,000 car." It's not advocating that everyone ride a bike or that everyone receive a car, it's advocating that everyone be treated fairly under the law (which includes government policy and funding).
Right now suburban living is a subsidized fantasy. From highways to low-density water and sewer systems, home mortgage deductions to Fanny and Freddie, government has distorted the market of cities with subsidy. Even your gas is subsidized. And it's a fantasy that's about to come crashing down around you. 2008 was the death-knell. Housing finally porked out to its bloated maximum and then exploded. Derivatives were merely the wafer-thin mint at the end. Life support is being attempted right now by the Fed but oil cost is about to smother America like a murderous pillow.
All this brings us back to the question at hand. What is to become of Birmingham? What shall we mold it into? I propose that we have to build a Birmingham for people. A city where not only are ideas welcomed, they are nourished and cherished. A place where everyone can both contribute and reap the fruits of creativity. We need collaborative spaces, relaxing plazas, and gardens both literal and ideological.
And we can do this. We need only believe that we can.


*Yes, it's totally IBIB's tagline.
**Commute to work, work to commute. That's good ol' 1950's thinking right there.