WEBVTT

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So, let me add to the complexity

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of the situation we find ourselves in.

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At the same time that we're solving
for climate change,

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we're going to be building cities
for three billion people.

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That's a doubling
of the urban environment.

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If we don't get that right,

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I'm not sure all the climate solutions
in the world will save mankind,

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because so much depends
on how we shape our cities:

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not just environmental impacts,

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but our social well-being,

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our economic vitality,

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our sense of community and connectedness.

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Fundamentally, the way we shape cities
is a manifestation

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of the kind of humanity we bring to bear.

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And so getting it right is, I think,

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the order of the day.

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And to a certain degree, getting it right
can help us solve climate change,

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because in the end,

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it's our behavior that seems
to be driving the problem.

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The problem isn't free-floating,

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and it isn't just ExxonMobil
and oil companies.

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It's us; how we live.

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How we live.

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There's a villain in this story.

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It's called sprawl,
and I'll be upfront about that.

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But it's not just the kind of sprawl
you think of, or many people think of,

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as low-density development

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out at the periphery
of the metropolitan area.

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Actually, I think sprawl can happen
anywhere, at any density.

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The key attribute
is that it isolates people.

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It segregates people
into economic enclaves

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and land-use enclaves.

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It separates them from nature.

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It doesn't allow the cross-fertilization,

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the interaction,

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that make cities great places

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and that make society thrive.

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So the antidote to sprawl is really
what we all need to be thinking about,

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especially when we're taking on
this massive construction project.

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So let me take you through one exercise.

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We developed the model
for the state of California

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so they could get on
with reducing carbon emissions.

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We did a whole series of scenarios
for how the state could grow,

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and this is just one
overly simplified one.

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We mixed different development prototypes

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and said they're going to carry us
through the year 2050,

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10 million new crew
in our state of California.

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And one was sprawl.

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It's just more of the same:
shopping malls, subdivisions,

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office parks.

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The other one was dominated by,
not everybody moving to the city,

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but just compact development,

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what we used to think of
as streetcar suburbs,

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walkable neighborhoods,

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low-rise, but integrated,
mixed-used environments.

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And the results are astounding.

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They're astounding not just
for the scale of the difference

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of this one shift
in our city-making habit

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but also because each one represents
a special interest group,

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a special interest group
that used to advocate for their concerns

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one at a time.

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They did not see the, what I call,
"co-benefits" of urban form

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that allows them to join with others.

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So, land consumption:

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environmentalists are really
concerned about this,

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so are farmers;

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there's a whole range of people,

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and, of course, neighborhood groups
that want open space nearby.

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The sprawl version of California

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almost doubles the urban
physical footprint.

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Greenhouse gas: tremendous savings,

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because in California, our biggest
carbon emission comes from cars,

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and cities that don't depend
on cars as much

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obviously create huge savings.

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Vehicle miles traveled:
that's what I was just talking about.

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Just reducing the average 10,000 miles
per household per year,

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from somewhere
in the mid-26,000 per household,

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has a huge impact
not just on air quality and carbon

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but also on the household pocketbook.

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It's very expensive to drive that much,

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and as we've seen,

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the middle class is struggling to hold on.

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Health care: we were talking about
how do you fix it once we broke it --

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clean the air.

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Why not just stop polluting?

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Why not just use our feet and bikes more?

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And that's a function of the kinds
of cities that we shape.

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Household costs:

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2008 was a mark in time,

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not of just the financial
industry running amok.

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It was that we were trying to sell
too many of the wrong kind of housing:

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large lot, single family, distant,

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too expensive for the average
middle-class family to afford

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and, quite frankly, not a good fit
to their lifestyle anymore.

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But in order to move inventory,

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you can discount the financing
and get it sold.

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I think that's a lot of what happened.

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Reducing cost by 10,000 dollars --

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remember, in California
the median is 50,000 --

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this is a big element.

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That's just cars and utility costs.

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So the affordable housing advocates,
who often sit off in their silos

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separate from the environmentalists,
separate from the politicians,

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everybody fighting with everyone,

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now begin to see common cause,

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and I think the common cause
is what really brings about the change.

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Los Angeles, as a result of these efforts,

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has now decided to transform itself

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into a more transit-oriented environment.

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As a matter of fact, since '08,

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they've voted in 400 billion dollars
of bonds for transit

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and zero dollars for new highways.

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What a transformation:

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LA becomes a city of walkers and transit,

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not a city of cars.

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(Applause)

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How does it happen?

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You take the least
desirable land, the strip,

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you add where there's space, transit

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and then you infill mixed-use development,

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you satisfy new housing demands

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and you make the existing neighborhoods

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all around it more complex,

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more interesting, more walkable.

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Here's another kind of sprawl:

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China, high-density sprawl,
what you think of as an oxymoron,

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but the same problems,
everything isolated in superblocks,

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and of course this amazing smog
that was just spoken to.

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Twelve percent of GDP
in China now is spent

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on the health impacts of that.

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The history, of course,
of Chinese cities is robust.

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It's like any other place.

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Community was all about small, local shops

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and local services and walking,
interacting with your neighbors.

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It may sound utopian, but it's not.

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It's actually what people really want.

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The new superblocks --

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these are blocks that would have
5,000 units in them,

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and they're gated as well,
because nobody knows anybody else.

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And of course, there isn't even
a sidewalk, no ground floor shops --

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a very sterile environment.

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I found this one case
here in one of the superblocks

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where people had illicitly set up
shops in their garages

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so that they could have that kind
of local service economy.

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The desire of people
to get it right is there.

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We just have to get the planners
on board and the politicians.

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All right. Some technical planning stuff.

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Chongqing is a city of 30 million people.

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It's almost as big as California.

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This is a small growth area.

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They wanted us to test
the alternative to sprawl

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in several cities across China.

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This is for four-and-a-half
million people.

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What the takeaway from this image is,

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every one of those circles
is a walking radius

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around a transit station --

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massive investment in metro and BRT,

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and a distribution that allows everybody

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to work within walking distance of that.

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The red area, this is a blow-up.

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All of a sudden, our principles
called for green space

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preserving the important
ecological features.

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And then those other streets in there
are auto-free streets.

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So instead of bulldozing,
leveling the site

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and building right up to the river,

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this green edge was something
that really wasn't normative in China

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until these set of practices

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began experimentation there.

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The urban fabric, small blocks,

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maybe 500 families per block.

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They know each other.

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The street perimeter has shops

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so there's local destinations.

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And the streets themselves become smaller,

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because there are more of them.

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Very simple,

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straightforward urban design.

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Now, here you have something
I dearly love.

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Think of the logic.

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If only a third of the people have cars,

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why do we give 100 percent
of our streets to cars?

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What if we gave 70 percent of the streets

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to car-free, to everybody else,

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so that the transit
could move well for them,

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so that they could walk,
so they could bike?

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Why not have --

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(Applause)

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geographic equity

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in our circulation system?

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And quite frankly,
cities would function better.

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No matter what they do,

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no matter how many ring roads
they build in Beijing,

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they just can't overcome
complete gridlock.

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So this is an auto-free street,
mixed use along the edge.

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It has transit running down the middle.

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I'm happy to make that transit
autonomous vehicles,

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but maybe I'll have a chance
to talk about that later.

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So there are seven principles
that have now been adopted

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by the highest levels
in the Chinese government,

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and they're moving to implement them.

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And they're simple,

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and they are globally,
I think, universal principles.

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One is to preserve
the natural environment, the history

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and the critical agriculture.

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Second is mix.

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Mixed use is popular,
but when I say mixed,

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I mean mixed incomes, mixed age groups

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as well as mixed-land use.

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Walk.

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There's no great city
that you don't enjoy walking in.

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You don't go there.

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The places you go on vacation
are places you can walk.

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Why not make it everywhere?

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Bike is the most efficient
means of transportation we know.

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China has now adopted policies
that put six meters of bike lane

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on every street.

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They're serious about getting back
to their biking history.

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(Applause)

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Complicated planner-ese here:

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connect.

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It's a street network
that allows many routes

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instead of singular routes

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and provides many kinds of streets
instead of just one.

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Ride.

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We have to invest more in transit.

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There's no silver bullet.

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Autonomous vehicles are not
going to solve this for us.

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As a matter of fact, they're going
to generate more traffic, more VMT,

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than the alternative.

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And focus.

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We have a hierarchy of the city
based on transit

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rather than the old armature of freeways.

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It's a big paradigm shift,

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but those two things
have to get reconnected

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in ways that really shape
the structure of the city.

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So I'm very hopeful.

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In California, the United States, China --
these changes are well accepted.

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I'm hopeful for two reasons.

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One is, most people get it.

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They understand intrinsically

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what a great city can and should be.

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The second is that the kind of analysis
we can bring to bear now

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allows people to connect the dots,

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allows people to shape
political coalitions

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that didn't exist in the past.

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That allows them to bring into being
the kinds of communities we all need.

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Thank you.

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(Applause)

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Chris Anderson: So, OK:
autonomous driving, self-driving cars.

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A lot of people here
are very excited about them.

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What are your concerns
or issues about them?

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Peter Calthorpe: Well, I think
there's almost too much hype here.

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First is, everybody says
we're going to get rid of a lot of cars.

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What they don't say is you're going
to get a lot more vehicle miles.

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You're going to get a lot more
cars moving on streets.

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There will be more congestion.

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CA: Because they're so appealing --

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you can drive while reading or sleeping.

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PC: Well, a couple of reasons.

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One is, if they're privately owned,
people will travel greater distances.

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It'll be a new lease on life to sprawl.

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If you can work on your way to work,

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you can live in more remote locations.

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It'll revitalize sprawl

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in a way that I'm deeply frightened.

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Taxis:

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about 50 percent of the surveys say
that people won't share them.

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If they don't share them,

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you can end up with a 90 percent
increase in vehicle miles traveled.

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If you share them,

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you're still at around
a 30 percent increase in VMT.

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CA: Sharing them, meaning
having multiple people riding at once

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in some sort of intelligent ride-sharing?

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PC: Yeah, so the Uber share
without a steering wheel.

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The reality is, the efficiency
of vehicles -- you can do it

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with or without a steering wheel,
it doesn't matter.

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They claim they're the only ones
that are going to be efficient electric,

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but that's not true.

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But the real bottom line
is that walking, biking and transit

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are the way cities and communities thrive.

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And putting people
in their private bubbles,

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whether they have a steering wheel or not,

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is the wrong direction.

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And quite frankly,

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the image of an AV on its way
to McDonald's to pick up a pack

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without its owner,

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just being sent off on these
kind of random errands

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is really frightening to me.

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CA: Well, thank you for that,
and I have to say, the images you showed

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of those mixed-use streets
were really inspiring, really beautiful.

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PC: Thank you.
CA: Thank you for your work.

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(Applause)