Quote:
Originally Posted by chris08876
East Asia is the model for 21st-Century Urbanism.
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I've been to both Medellin and many of the "new" cities in East/SE Asia (new in the sense that they experienced rapid modernization only in the last 20 years--Beijing, Shanghai, Hanoi, Jakarta). I have to say that the East Asian cities are no more a model than Medellin is. While they've undergone impressive transit expansion and skyscraper construction, they have terrible, terrible pollution problems to the point that your lungs hurt walking around. Most of the new neighborhoods are soulless and anonymous--a model of mid-20th-century urbanism, not 21st-century urbanism. The most beautiful and well-planned cities of East Asia -- Singapore, Hong Kong, Tokyo, Seoul-- developed in the late 20th century.
Medellin, on the other hand, is an environmental leader. Other cities with similar geography, located in the basin of a valley, have horrible air pollution problems, but not Medellin. They provide water, sanitation, and electricity to every slum along the hills, and have been striving to connect these neighborhoods to services such as libraries, schools, and transit (even addressing the inherent geographical challenges in creative ways, such as cable cars and escalators). For a city of a relatively small population, it has an impressive, clean, and growing heavy rail system. Of course, it has problems on an equal magnitude to those of the East Asian cities, including a murder rate on par with some of the poorest American cities.
It's certainly not a model for 21st-century urbanism for US cities that are already developed, but for the "new" cities of the future that will modernize mostly in the 21st century, it's a pretty brilliant example.