Displacements

Moving in cities, moving on the ground, moving within density

Alejandro Gutiérrez
Arquitecto, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, 1996, y MsC City, Design and Social Science, London School of Economics, 1999. Hasta 2002 fue profesor y jefe del área de Ciudad, Territorio y Medio Ambiente de la Escuela de Arquitectura de la P.U.C. Actualmente trabaja en Ove Arup & Partners en Londres, Inglaterra..

The relation between the city's layout and the way we move about within it is surely one of the key aspects that we need to look at in order to understand the present crisis of our cities: the commuting movements, the subway lines, the use of land, and the use of cars are fundamental elements in order to understand the British or American models of ground use (which have served as a model for the urban planning of much of the Western world). Even though communications have evolved, and the extensive use of internet has even brought up the possibility of displacements becoming completely unnecessary as a part of the exchange processes, the need for physical contact and for certain rituals in the life of citizens seem to warrant that a certain amount of displacement will continue to be necessary. How do we look at displacements today, when the difference between traveling and pursuing paths has become more and more subtle? Four articles (two texts and two visual presentations) review the problem of movement within cities.
Keywords: Displacement, garden- city, transportation policies.

Notes

The autor was the Head of the City, Territory and Environment section of the Architecture School of the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile until June 2002.