Chapter 20 Interview with Yang Baojun: Awakening the Feeling of Street Life Wang Jun

When an empire is strong, it is done for the sake of singing praises, which has nothing to do with science and democracy. Yang Baojun, chief planner of China Urban Planning and Design Research Institute, has participated in the planning of many cities and is a senior advisor to many mayors.In recent years, mayors have become obsessed with the main road, which makes him very anxious. He has a first-class eloquence, and he keeps giving advice to the mayors, but he often falls into the situation of "saying nothing". He reveals the unfavorable side of the big road, and at the same time thinks about the problems behind the phenomenon.He said that it is stupid to build big roads regardless of reality; at the same time, he lamented that Chinese culture has a preference for big things, "What kind of tavern, no matter how small, dare to call it a big restaurant!"

He believes that the loss of the human dimension of the main road is not only an increase in urban problems; the pursuit of the so-called style, "this has nothing to do with science and democracy." The main road has become a gust of wind Wang Jun: As far as you know, what is the state of the main road in domestic cities? Yang Baojun: The main road has been a wind in recent years. It is very strong and has a wide range. It is blowing in many big cities.These cities have a biased understanding of modernization, thinking that big roads and tall buildings are modernization. Naturally, there is a yearning for wealth accumulation, but the essence is a mentality of getting rich quickly.The media also played a bad role, constantly reporting on which city looks different every day, how many years it has changed, how many overpasses have been repaired, and so on.These are all from the perspective of construction. Although it is not unreasonable from an economic point of view, the city needs to be developed, but on the whole, there is a potential crisis in doing so.

Wang Jun: What kind of situation have you seen? Yang Baojun: As a big city in the north, we want to develop our own characteristics.I asked what kind of features they want to engage in?They said to build the widest road.I say it's stupid, is there such a need?Is there such a possibility?What is the price?What are the side effects?None of them thought about it.There are many cities with this idea.Chinese culture has a big side. Any street is called a street, any building is called a building, and any tavern, no matter how small, can be called a big restaurant. A county town with a population of more than 100,000 to 200,000 people, if they want to be famous, they have to build roads with a width of 80 meters to 100 meters. I said to them, why do you have such a name?A provincial capital city wanted to build a 160-meter-wide road. I opposed it, but it was built. I also said that I want to create my own brand. I told the mayor how many roads like this do you need to build to form a brand?He said that every road should be wide.I said, although there are many big roads in Beijing, there are also narrow roads?He actually said that we all want to build two-way 8-lane roads.If it continues like this, there will be no second one in the whole country!

I asked him again, your city already has a history, what about the existing houses?He said demolishing, or demolishing houses, or demolishing greenery, or demolishing the isolation belt in the middle of the road, or canceling the bicycle lane, and putting bicycles on the sidewalk.I said, is this people-oriented or car-oriented?He said that I restricted bicycles, and they went to take the bus.I said that a city has a bicycle population because there is a reasonable distance between living and working, and bicycles are a good means of transportation. How can you force them to take the bus?But they didn't listen, and the trees were cut down row by row.

Wang Jun: Is this situation common? Yang Baojun: I just talked about the situation in a big city.What about medium-sized cities?Most of them follow the trend, lose their ability to distinguish, feel that the narrow road is not enough, and build roads with a width of 60 meters or 80 meters every now and then.In some cities, planning limits the road width to 40 meters, but they insist on making it 100 meters.Last year, the Ministry of Construction and other four ministries and commissions jointly issued the "Notice on Clearing and Controlling Unrealistic Broad Roads and Large Square Construction in Urban Construction", but this situation is still repeated.Their countermeasure is: divide the construction into two phases, build the first phase first, and then wait for the policy to be thawed.Small cities are also doing the same, and some small towns have also learned from it.Recently, a member of the democratic party pointed out that the problems in urban construction have affected the countryside, and the countryside is also copying the cities, and they are also doing such things, which is very harmful.

Why do high-level officials make repeated orders? Wang Jun: Why do you feel so disgusted with the main road, and even think it is a hidden danger? Yang Baojun: For example, the 160-meter-wide road, in terms of function, is not as good as breaking it down into two or three roads.Why?A lane is 3.5 meters wide. Under normal circumstances, the traffic volume is 1,000 cars per hour, but with two parallel lanes, the traffic volume is reduced to 1,800 cars per hour.Why less?Because merging and overtaking have to slow down and interfere with each other.By analogy, the parallel three-lane traffic volume is even less, which is a decreasing relationship.Think about it, how much traffic will be lost with six to seven lanes in parallel?Therefore, from an international point of view, big cities generally do not do this. American highways have ten lanes, but they are not urban roads.

From the perspective of pedestrians crossing, wide roads are dangerous; from the perspective of land development, in order to increase the value of land, it is better to break down a large road into several small roads and increase the density of the road network, so that it can serve More neighbors.There is a jargon in real estate development: "Golden Horns and Silver Edges with Grass Belly".When your road network is denser, there will be more "golden corners" and "silver edges", and the "grass belly" will be smaller, the value of the land will increase, and the whole city will get more benefits.But the pattern of Damalu and Dafang is just the opposite.From the perspective of urban landscape, if the road is too wide, it will lose the human scale, and it will be difficult to coordinate with the buildings on both sides.People will feel that they are not the masters of space and that they are superfluous.The only "benefit" is the so-called grandeur. This kind of thinking has existed in history. Napoleon's era has been used to build avenues. It is usually done for the sake of praise when an empire is strong. This has nothing to do with science and democracy.

Wang Jun: Why does the central government impose repeated orders on the width of roads in local cities?Some people may say that financial power and administrative power are equal?Repairing urban roads is something that local governments spend money on, so how to repair them should be decided by them? Yang Baojun: The key point is that the prevailing trend on the main road has conflicted with our national conditions and national policies.First, if the local financial capacity is exceeded, the main road occupies land and costs money, and the effect is not good.Cultivated land protection is a basic national policy. If you do this, you will occupy more land, which conflicts with the basic national policy.Second, lead to demolition contradictions.In some places, compensation for demolition and relocation was not in place to build large roads and squares, leaving ordinary people with no place to live.High road tolls are not beneficial, and the financial efficiency is low.Some local governments do this, euphemistically calling it "improving the environment and attracting business and investment", and this is the only reason.But even if you do this, it must be based on the actual situation and you can't mess around.Generally speaking, urban construction has a tendency to be greedy and foreign. Most of the cities I have come into contact with have this situation, and the better ones are just restrained.

Wang Jun: Can this wind be stopped? Yang Baojun: To change this situation, we must adopt a multi-pronged approach, and administrative orders can only play a certain role.Everyone should have a correct understanding, from the leaders to the people, they must have the ability to tell right from wrong and distinguish between beauty and ugliness.Unfortunately, in our country, talking about architecture and art is only a matter in professional circles.What is scale, what is proportion, and what is beauty? Most people don't learn this, they don't have a concept, and they don't treat it as a basic cultural accomplishment.Developed countries attach great importance to aesthetic education and cultivate children's cultivation of beauty. The public is clear about colors and proportions. People in these countries will scold anything that is disharmonious.But it is not surprising that we lack this kind of education.Therefore, we must guide and let everyone know what is beautiful and what is ugly.

Misunderstandings of modernist planning Wang Jun: Some people may say that these phenomena have a lot to do with the urban planning profession.Why is the main road bad, and there are still people planning it? Yang Baojun: This needs to be sorted out professionally.Urban space is equivalent to a shell. This shell is used to carry the core. What is the core?are people.Cities in the past were designed on a human scale.In the medieval city, people felt like walking in it. At that time, there were horse-drawn carriages, and it was also humanized to arrange them on the scale of horse-drawn carriages.Later, when the automobile appeared, it had a great impact.After the Industrial Revolution, there has been a tendency that cities are dominated by the accumulation of wealth, and humanities have taken a back seat.In the city, there are more cheers for wealth, leaving less space for people.In the post-modern era, everyone finds that wealth has increased, but their spiritual home has been lost, and they begin to miss the cities of the past.People began to reflect, hoping to awaken the feeling of street life.

Wang Jun: What kind of concept is it to awaken the sense of street life? Yang Baojun: Think about it, after a child is born, it is first in the arms of its mother, and after being sensible, it has a sense of the family, and when it grows older, it will enter the society.This process is to step out of the house and onto the street.When he walks on the street, he will know whether this society is beautiful or ugly.If the streets are friendly and safe, he develops a healthy attitude toward society.If he goes to the street and sees that this society is messy, crowded, polluted, and even has no place to stand, then he will not be friendly to this society. Why do we go shopping?Some people may have a purpose, and some people may not have a purpose. Go shopping without a purpose, because it is a way of life.Therefore, the streets must be safe, there must be stories happening constantly, there must be ups and downs, and there must be climaxes. Only such a city can have style.I often ask everyone, where do you perceive the city?Definitely not in a hotel, but when you're walking through the city.At this time, the street is very important, it will make you feel, is this city friendly to people? Wang Jun: Some people may say that in addition to the flavor you mentioned, a city must also be efficient? Yang Baojun: As I have already said, the main road is precisely inefficient.The modernist approach to urban planning has had such a profound influence on us that it is entirely the idea of ​​a machine.Le Corbusier, the founder of modernist urban planning, said that houses are machines for living people.That's right, but people have other needs, and Corbusier didn't take into account the spiritual aspects.Therefore, he made the city extremely simple, running at high speed like a machine.Therefore, the functions are strictly divided. This place is for work, that place is for sleeping, and this place is a park. They are connected at the fastest speed, and there is no story in the middle.Later, postmodernism opposed this, thinking that cities do not have straight branches like trees, but cities should be a network, which cannot be simplified. Brasília is the epitome of modernist urban planning. It's boring, car-centric, and massive.I went there to take pictures, but I couldn't even take the whole scene. Think about the scale of this!The locals don't like the city, that's natural. And we are so influenced by this stuff.We learned from the Soviet Union. In the Soviet Union, one neighborhood is one kilometer. The roads are wide, the road network is sparse, and the branch roads are underdeveloped.And most of us planners, including government officials, are used to this.Don't make the same mistakes as others Wang Jun: But, the situation has already happened, what should we do? Yang Baojun: Of course, we must find ways to correct our mistakes, and the most important thing is to change our understanding.If you look at Europe, modernism was declared dead in the 1970s, trying to correct the mistakes of the past.Copenhagen restored the pedestrian system.It should be clear that a city cannot win by the width of the road, but must pay attention to the road network.Recently, I saw Shekou in Shenzhen. This is the only place in Shenzhen without traffic jams. The road system is a small grid with narrow streets but high density.This is the first place planned in Shenzhen, without adopting the method of big roads and big streets, and the planners did not expect the effect to be so good. The developed car traffic in the western United States has led to a decline in the quality of cities, and the loss of local cultural identity and sense of community.It is a community, a parking lot, which is very boring.Thus, New Urbanism was born.This new city is actually an old city, and it wants to get back the feeling of the old city before the modernist movement.The realization of such a regression itself shows that there has been a serious waste of social wealth, and we should be vigilant. Wang Jun: What references does this new urbanism have for the development of Chinese cities? Yang Baojun: The problems that New Urbanism wants to solve are, first, that cities should develop compactly, and that sprawling development is not good for human activities.From the perspective of ecological protection, any species must have a certain density. For example, if there are too many sheep in a flock, the grass will be eaten up at once, and they will all starve to death; but if there is only one sheep, this species will also die. .Second, attention should be paid to the mixed-use function of the city.In the cities of the era of industrialization, it is difficult to mix functions.Now, cities are dominated by the service industry, and it is possible to mix functions. Cities with diversity are the most dynamic.Third, we must respect history and culture.Through protection, cultural heritage should be organized into the city to form characteristics and enhance people's sense of cultural identity.The fourth is to regain the feeling of the street.The street is also the center of public activities and the center of leisure. The street does not have to be very large, but it must be pleasant.The public space is the main frame of the city, and the quality of the city will improve when the public space is well done. In my opinion, the development of cities in our country should most adopt this model.Our national conditions are that there are more people and less land, so energy consumption must be reduced, and land conservation is very important.Therefore, the central government recently proposed to engage in energy-saving and land-saving housing.Minister of Construction Wang Guangtao recently said that the central government pays special attention to the problem of urban scale, including land enclosure. Can urban planning solve these problems? At present, some places are blindly expanding the size of the city. Isn't there the influence of the big road?In some cities, the roads are large and the squares are wide, but they are empty.And no one is going to improve the old town.Therefore, in order to implement the scientific concept of development, it is necessary to emphasize intensive development. China's big cities must prioritize public transportation Wang Jun: Back to the issue of Damalu.Some people will say that the wider the road, the more cars can be accommodated.What do you think? Yang Baojun: I thought that wide roads would solve the problem of traffic. The traffic planning in the past was like this, but it changed later.In the 1960s and 1970s, planners in the United States discovered that no matter how fast roads were built, it would not be able to speed up the growth of traffic.After you build one road, it is full again soon after, forcing you to build another road, and a vicious circle begins. For example, when the Second Ring Road in Beijing was first built, the media reported that it used to take 45 minutes to complete a circle, but now it only takes 27 minutes, and everyone was overjoyed.But according to my observation, the 27-minute record only lasted for three months, and after half a year, this road returned to normal.Later, the third ring road was built. After the repair, the media reported that the driving time for a circle was reduced from the past one hour to 40 minutes. I went to observe again, and it was blocked again after only 4 months.So the Fourth Ring Road was built again, and it was still the same.Facts have shown that this cannot solve the problem. Transportation is a systematic project. From the perspective of major cities around the world, the strategic intention of urban transportation must be clear, that is, what kind of transportation do you want to encourage?You see, in world-famous metropolises, the subway mileage generally exceeds 300 kilometers, which can carry 30% to 40% of the passenger traffic of the city, and better ones can carry 60% to 70% of the passenger traffic.Why does London have 3 to 4 million motor vehicles, more than Beijing, but not as congested as Beijing? Wang Jun: What do you think is the ideal model? Yang Baojun: Big cities in China must give priority to public transportation.Secondly, through the rational layout of the city, minimize and reduce traffic trips.It should be noted that under a certain population and construction volume, the traffic volume generated by different modes is different.The place of work and residence should not be too far away. If the layout is unreasonable, large-scale and long-distance traffic will occur. In addition, there must be traffic policies to support it. No country in the world dares to say that it can solve traffic problems by building roads alone. It must formulate supporting traffic policies.For example, in Singapore, in response to the congestion in the central area, a car companion policy has been introduced. If you drive into the city alone, you will have to pay more. If four people drive into the city together, the fare will be much lower. This will reduce the number of vehicles entering the city.The government encourages you to take the bus, but if you want to drive into the city, the parking fee is very expensive.Of course, the premise of doing this is that you have to get the bus out of the way. Traffic is not a simple problem of building roads.It should also be noted that urban roads have multiple functions, traffic is only one of them, and each street should have its own character.Cities exist for people. If you ignore this point and only seek speed and size, the result is anti-city and anti-humanity.