Hendonics is the economics of happiness. Bogota is in Colombia, the Mayor used to be Enrique Peñalosa, and Charles Montgomery has written a story in the Globe and Mail about him and it.
So what makes societies happy? The past decade has seen an explosion in research aiming to answer that question, and there’s good news for people in places like Bogota: Feelings of well-being are determined as much by status and social connectedness as by income. Richer people are happier than poor people, but societies with wider income gaps are less happy on the whole. People who interact more with friends, family and neighbours are happier than those who don’t.
And what makes people most unhappy? Not work, but commuting to work.
People who read this blog are probably familiar with Penalosa’s reputation and work.
“I realized that we in the Third World are not going to catch up to the developed countries for two or three hundred years,” he recalls. “If we defined our success just in terms of income per capita, we would have to accept ourselves as second- or third-rate societies – as a bunch of losers – which is not exactly enticing for our young people. So we are forced to find another measure of success. I think the only real obvious measure of success is happiness.”
Montgomery explains in fascinating detail how Bogota was saved from freeways, what they did instead, and how it all relates to Vancouver and Canadian cities.
Check it out.
Gordon, thanks for sharing this article. It was great. It makes me think of how we could have had light rail all the way from Lougheed Mall to UBC for a lesser cost compared to the Millennium Line SkyTrain, with which we’re stuck with now.
I’m definitely going to look up more about Bogota, their walking and bicycle freeways, plus their Transmilenio bus-rapid-transit system.
As someone who has seen first-hand the changes in Bogota over the last couple of decades, I was excited to read this great article in the Globe & Mail.
I remember hearing Penalosa’s exubarant and inspirational delivery for one one of the morning plenaries at the World Urban Forum and thinking at the time “I’ll bet everyone in this room would go to Bogota this second if they could”.
What has been accomplished in Bogota is something that applies to cities in both developed and developing regions; there are lessons for all of us there.
So here is something that I would like to put out there right now to whoever is reading this: Go to Bogota.
Forget the Hollywood movies. Think Bogota, one of Latin America’s largest (7 million or so folks) most developed and cultured cities. Home and birthplace of extremes – which includes an extremely successful transportation plan. Bogota has developed in short order a multi-modal transportation system that has enough capactity that 95% of city residents still do their normal thing (work, school), during the city’s annual midweek “Day Without Cars” ……..Think about it… where in Canada could that happen?
Heck , Lonely Planet had Colombia listed as a top ten backpacker destination last year and even the New York Times Travel section featured it last February (2006).
http://travel.nytimes.com/2006/02/12/travel/12bogota.html
See the Transmilenio, see how many people use it (but keep hold of your purse). 42 pphpd. 26 kmph. It cost $5.3 million USD per km, and it boasts slick fast multi-door level boarding stations easily on par with skytrain.
http://www.gzbrt.org/images/level-1.gif
http://www.gobrt.org/Bogota2007037.jpg
Transmilenio is what BRTs around the world aspire to be (yet are rarely given the funding to replicate).
Rent a bike and explore the extensive Cycloruta bikeway network, get out on Sunday for Cyclovia most other Bogotanos (or Rolos as they are known).
Check out the high-density living, the majority of 3-6 story buildings, the difference in mentalities. Most people there prefer the apartment life, its safer, allows them to be more central. It’s a different mentality, not North American car/burb-centric, and not European – not with the extremes, but rather some hybrid grown up from circumstance and sheer Colombian ingenuity.
No, Bogota isn’t a perfect utopia, but considering the challenges in Colombia, and dramatic inprovements in the face of them, Bogota proves that where there is a will there is a way. What they have done challenges the laissez faire transportation mentality of North America. If they can do it, what excuse have we?