Planning and sustainability - good and bad practices in Rio, Sao Paulo and Lisbon F. Magalhaes', H. Gallop M. da Costa Lobo^ * Universidade Mackenzie, Sao Paulo and CESUR, IST/Lisbon, Portugal * Universidade Mackenzie, Sao Paulo. * CESUR, IST/Lisbon, Portugal. Abstract Cities are facing major challenges to become sustainable. There are a whole universe of problems pulling in opposite directions: rampant poverty, violence, lack of identity, destruction of cultural heritage and natural values, pollution, traffic, decaying of central areas, among others. Cities are also large consumers of energy and resources. Planning and zoning have an important role to play. This paper present a selection of good and bad practices in three cities of the world - Sao Paulo, Rio and Lisbon to allow lessons to be learned from the examples. It concludes by discussing possible trends towards helping cities to be more sustainable. Introduction All over the world cities seems to follow a variety of unsustainable patterns: uncontrolled population growth, consumption of natural resources and energy, mass traffic, pollution, commuting, spread of land use activities, among others. All these compromise a balance between population and the consumption of resources [1]. Uncontrolled growth has been for decades the source of many problems, but in a number of cities this is no longer a reason for concern. In Europe, on the contrary, some urban centres are now facing a decrease on population and are struggling to attract new habitants for their cities in order to keep them alive.
394 The Sustainable City In a number of cases, rapid growth was coupled with a lack of concern for environmental issues and accompanied with no planning, leaving deep consequences in the city. This is specially accute for developing countries where a lack of service, infrastructure and housing provision, has forced large part of the population to live in illegal settlements. These seldom occupy natural areas such as hills, mangroves, riverbanks and swamps, either in the periphery or in the middle of the city. On the other hand, up to the late 80's, economic development, regardless the impact on the environment and on the quality of life and consumption of resources, was the more important point on the political agenda for countries like Brazil, helping to attract big amounts of migrants to city centres, bringing industrial pollution and sewage disposal to rivers and coastal areas. Recent changes on economic activity patterns with an increasing concentration on services and commerce, whereas industrial activity is gradually loosing importance, has posed another problem to the city. Central areas are facing problems of decay. A predominance of services without resident population turns them into dead spaces outside office hours. Cities have grown without planning, especially in third world countries. Activities have developed and located with no regards for transport, distances or local natural conditions. This in many cases have resulted in very dispersed and unbalanced patterns of a highly energy consumption type. The role of Planning and Zoning Planning and zoning to a large extent are about where and how much activity should go in the city [2], This decision defines mobility patterns that should be counter posed by transport policies to avoid traffic and pollution. On the other hand, planning is also about defining the type and amount of building, and the proportions between built and unbuilt or free spaces in the city. Many of these free spaces are either green areas or public spaces. A complete fruition of activities in the city would, on the other hand, largely rely on its urban mobility conditions. If a city has severe traffic or circulation problems, its population is forced to face significant losses in their quality of life. This can be translated into stress, waste of time and energy, and consumption of scarce resources, which could otherwise, be used for leisure and pleasure. In cities where there is no current planning system is almost impossible to guarantee enough free spaces, especially those treated adequately to offer leisure and green areas to their population. Natural spaces are very important to maintain good environmental conditions and to control pollution so cities should aim to increase the proportion and number of green areas.
The Sustainable City 395 A correct transport policy should give priority to low energy consumption means of transport. Cycle routes combined to inter-modal mass transportation systems avoiding road traffic can improve mobility in the city at the same time that increases the amount of free green and user friendly spaces. The green areapopulation ratio of cities can be enlarged, for example, by the creation of linear, peripheral and pocket parks, along major routes, riverbanks, coastal areas, free infill sites and old abandoned industrial plots. Favoring road transport means more road construction, normally fast speed, designed not for people. These unfriendly roads have a negative visual and esthetical impact, causing serious problems for pedestrian mobility. They constitute real boundaries in the city, breaking it into peace. To keep a street or an area alive, accessibility to people is essential, but this in some cases will not be compatible with intensive car use. More important is the quality of land uses the area can hold to attract people, and this, to a large extent, will depend on the overall quality the streetscape. Any planning has to consider aspects of urban design. Cities have to be designed for people. This implies for instance care with the design of pavements, guardrails, street furniture and road layout. A bus lane does not need to be enclosed with boundaries impossible to overcome by the pedestrian and aggressive to human beings. Through planning a city can maintain its coherence. Normally cities are a mosaic of fabrics developed in different moments of history, with a big morphological and configurational variety. An adequate planning can make boundaries less visible, creating points of connection and integration. Lack or bad planning might otherwise emphasize boundaries, creating discontinuities and segregation. Heritage is a key component to the city identity and image. This is to give a sense of place and belonging to its inhabitants, helping the city to be unique and therefore more competitive. City marketing is increasingly aware of the relevance of the memory and history of a city as an attraction factor. Planning has to consider cultural heritage as an important asset of cities, developing renewal and refurbishing policies. The design of public spaces and of building can largely contribute towards improving local micro-climatic conditions and human comfort inside and outside spaces. Although building control is normally under a specific set of regulations and rules, more or less independent of planning instruments, there is a clear relationship between them. Planning can recommend, for example, good building practices by either suggesting a less technological dependent approach of building services, the use of recycled material, the adoption of low energy consumption schemes. On the other hand there is a set of aspects that are related to building shape that can be directly controlled through detailed planning, such as the relation between building height and depth, position on site, building
396 The Sustainable City height and street width, position in relation to sources (noise, sun, wind, and so on), building material, facade textures, amount of facade glazing, among others. Good and Bad practices in the cases of Rio, Sao Paulo and Lisbon Rio, Sao Paulo and Lisbon are cities that in many aspects share problems referred in this work, despite their obvious difference in size, geographical, economical and social characteristics. They have been chosen for the familiarity and knowledge of authors and a belief that comparisons are useful in enabling individual cities to draw lessons which could help their own situation. In the three cases population growth have been followed by lack of adequate infrastructure, service and housing provision. Illegal housing is significant. Sao Paulo and Rio, differently of Lisbon, have not managed to implement an efficient planning system, and rely solely on zoning plans. Lisbon has, partially due to outside pressure of European Union, since the early 90's, managed to implement a combination of strategic, master and detail plan system. Recognizing the importance of local authorities in managing the local environment and achieving sustainable development (Chapter 28 of Agenda 21), this work will analyze some of the current trends of local authority action in the three cities, making specific reference to bad and good practices of urban planning experiences. Sao Paulo - trying to safe downtown In Sao Paulo, one of the large cities of the world with around 10 million inhabitants, this work will concentrate in looking at the specific case of the city centre and the renewal programme launched recently by the local government. This programme, a good practice example, is anchored by the rehabilitation of public historical buildings located in this vital, yet derelict, area of Sao Paulo, given its historical and cultural importance, imagerial significance and location advantages. Particularly relevant for a city that given its dynamism has little of the past left. This central area, denominated 'Luz', has a strong European image, and houses a number of very important buildings, many built between the turn of the century and the 30s, particularly influenced by French neo-classical architecture. These include the two main train stations of the city, named Julio Prestes and da Luz, a number of museums, religious buildings such as Convento da Luz and Sao Cristovao Church, as well as important public spaces and squares. The district is part of Sao Paulo traditional centre and similarly to many other city centres of the past is facing severe urban problems. In the last decades the area has decayed, loosing its capacity to attract visitors and new establishments.
The Sustainable City 397 Marginality and segregation has increased. Residential population and more prestigious uses have moved away. The area has been turned into a poor working district. At night and during weekends is dead, and using some spaces can be dangerous because of street burglary, drugs, prostitution and violence in general. Aware of this problem the government has recently launched an urban rehabilitation program. At the moment two main works have been completed. The first is the Pinacoteca do Estado, a former Arts and Crafts School changed into a museum. The second is the Julio Prestes Train Station converted into one of the most important Concert Halls of Latin America. Pinacoteca do Estado during this century has been used as a museum, alongside with other uses. In the early 90's, Paulo Mendes da Rocha, a well known Brazilian modernist architect, was commissioned to renew the building, due to house a much larger collection of art works. The work has been completed last year with a expenditure of approximately 10 million dollars. The architect has chosen to make radical building changes, such as replacing original windows, covering the courtyard with a glass canopy, changing the internal circulation structure and access form outside. These changes have increased the need for energy consumption. In one hand the canopy has created a green house effect, at the same time that the courtyard effect of exchanging hot hair for cool air has been eliminated. Replacing the windows shutters by internal curtains also have worsen the building energy efficiency. Following an important modernist principle, the new internal circulation passing through the courtyards in metal bridges assumes a key role in the new spatial organization of the building creating direct routes, replacing a more classical circulation around the courtyards where the structure had no role at all. These changes reveal an unsustainable attitude towards the object to be restored since it compromises the capacity of present generations to pass values to future generations, a problem specially acute in cities like Sao Paulo, where little has been left from even a century ago. This example is interesting because it poses a number of questions: Can we change a building or part of a city solely based on our own present value system even when this destroys its original memory, image and characteristics? What kind of testimony and memory we would leave so to future generations? How would they be able to built identity without memory? Can we carry on disregarding resources and using energy consuming forms to control the environment inside buildings, even when uses seem to justify, like in museums? The second case took six years to take shape It has transformed a Train Station into a Concert Hall housing the State Orchestra (OSESP). The intervention concept has resulted of the articulation between the acoustic requirements established by the Acoustic project developed by Artec Consultants of New York and the architectural design by local architect Nelson Dupret, with the active participation of the government heritage board (Condephaat). It occupies the 1000 sqm original central ticket hall of the station which has 24 meters floor to
398 The Sustainable City ceiling height supported by 32 columns, unroofed and changed into a internal garden before its opening. This hall has the proportions close to a shoebox, ideal from the acoustic point of view for a Concert Hall. It has around 1500 seats and the opening session, about few months ago, was a huge success. The work is estimated to have cost 20 million dollars. The project has taken a very sensitive design attitude of respect to the original architecture, yet of great rigour from the technical and functional point of view, managing to mantain a subtle balance between the old and new and between tradition and innovation. This has resulted simultaneously in a great solution of a modern concert hall and in the preservation of the architectural image and classical compositional rules of the building, bridging past, present and future in a very sustainable attitude. A first overall evaluation of this initiative of urban rehabilitation of the city center shows that local population have clearly gained not only with buildings renewed, but also with the improvement of public spaces around those buildings, specially by the introduction of new uses and new life in the area. In the long term, if there is a continuation in the policy of improving buildings and opening new spaces in the area, this might change the decaying process. At the moment, however, it still looks like "a drop in the ocean". To be effective this policy has to go alongside with other measures of social, urban planning (transport, land use, urban design and so on) and fiscal nature, guided towards attracting private investment and new population to the area. Rio de Janeiro - recovering the lost quality In Rio we will refer to a a recent experience developed by the municipality that includes a number of programmes and planning actions that are managing to improve the quality of life in the city. Rio, a city of around 6 million inhabitants, is world-wide known by its natural beauty and fantastic scenery, but poverty, crime and violence have deteriorated living conditions of "cariocas" (this is how the local inhabitants are known). Since the early 90's the local authority has been trying to implement a more coherent planning system, that includes the development of a strategic plan, a master plan and a number of individual local projects and programmes. It is worth mentioning the Rio-Orla, Rio-Cidade, Corredor Cultural and Favela Bairro. The first of this project, Corredor Cultural, initiated in the 80's, is nowadays responsible directly for the rehabilitation of over 1500 listed buildings in the business and traditional city center of Rio. The project has gradually managed to change the image of the city center, combining the improvement of buildings and public spaces with economic and social development [3]. Rio-Orla, started in 1992 after the Earth Summit, includes o complete re-design of all pavements and coastal public pedestrian areas, changing street furniture,
The Sustainable City 399 building a complete network of cycle routes, and introducing new sports facilities and street lighting. This has allowed the introduction of well treated continues pedestrian and cycle routes connecting the city centre and all the boroughs along the coast for many quilometres with the creation of new leisure areas. In addition to that, by closing coastal streets to cars during holidays and weekends, the city has gained new leisure possibilities for walking, talking, running, seating, playing and whatever the "cariocas" could invent. Rio-Cidade, another of these local projects, constitutes an important instrument for changing the image of the city and the quality of public spaces. For many years Rio has suffered with the complete lack of investment in public spaces. Rio-Cidade is gradually re-designing a number of spaces varying in size, type and localization in something like forty different areas of the city in several boroughs. These projects are solving small circulation problems, improving infrastructure, lighting and street furniture, organizing bus stops and planting. The last Rio programme to be referred in this paper, Favela Bairro, started in 1994. This involves the upgrading of squatter settlements in the city by planting and reforest, improving infrastructure and services, paving streets and pavements, organizing the street network, correcting problems with flooding, river banks and hill slopes, installing public facilities and leisure spaces, helping the development of income generation activities and professional development [4]- An evaluation of these actions allows for some important lessons to be learned. Firstly, if in one hand city planning is required, either through strategic and master plans, to guide investments and the organization of activities, an interconnected short term action by public authorities is essential to allow a city to be changed in a horizon graspable by people. This means that actually affects the everyday life of local inhabitants and their quality of life in the city. Rio is effectively a more pleasant city to live nowadays than a 10 years ago, even if structural problems, like poverty, persist. This requires deeper action, that local government solely can not obviously resolve. Secondly, even with localised projects, provided that they are well spread covering the entire city without favouring only the best areas, a common practice of local authorities in Brazil, there is an overall positive impact on the city as a whole. Here is worth calling the attention for the multiplication effect of investing in areas of imagerial local significance. Lastly, local actions should be connected to global strategies. In other words, there has to be an underlying global aim in any local action to be pursued, and this has to be long term, therefore supported by adequate planning instruments such as master, structural or strategic plans, or any other long-term policy. In other words, what we are saying is well known -"acting locally, thinking globally". At this point it is important not to ignore the relevance of continuity of action. In Rio administrative continuity was guaranteed for the last eight years.
400 The Sustainable City Despite all these major planning contributions to Rio, it should be referred that the spread of illegal settlements over natural reserves and forest areas is a threaten to its environment and landscape. Effective policy and planning instruments have to be design to contain and organize occupation. Lisbon - towards implementing an approach integrated planning Although Portugal is an European country it shares many of the problems faced in developing countries in many parts of the world. In 1960 only 19% of the dwellings had bathroom and 38% sewage supply, and less than 50% of the population had water supply. Planning is mandatory only from 1990 through national legislation that made the introduction of Master Plan, considering explicitly the protection of environmental values, a requirement for all the 305 municipalities of the country. Nowadays over 90% of the municipalities have a master plan approved. Lisbon with about 700.000 inhabitants is much smaller than Sao Paulo and Rio, yet it faces similar challenges. During the 60's and 70's the rapid urbanization o the country has brought large amount of migrants to the city and its metropolitan area. Prime rural land at the city edge was occupied by low-density suburbs with little of the natural vegetation and landscape left. Significant part of this occupation was illegal from the urban and planning point of view. The continuous spread of those suburbs enlarged transport travel distances, and due partially to the lack of car public transport, increased car ownership. Housing has moved away from the city to the metropolitan periphery while services and employment have concentrated in the city. In parallel, traditional centres have been slowly replaced by out-of-town locations. This resulted into a separation of land uses, particularly housing, employment, services and leisure, with a significant lost in the quality of life, and at the end of the 80's Lisbon was shrinking in resident population with people moving to neighboring cities. Despite the existence of a city general plan (PGUCL approved in 1977), during the 80's the city had developed more or less without control, with a collection of small public actions following no clear long-term program. Until the early 90's the city lack an effective planning system that could face its main problems - housing decay, lost of population, gap in infrastructures, services, and public facilities. In 1990 the local authority launched the strategic plan, completed two years later. This plan, developed in parallel with the master plan, was one of the keys to the implementation of a new integrated peacemeal planning system formed by a set of instruments of different nature that operate at different scales (macro and micro). The strategic plan has identified the major development lines and translated into actions trough lower scale planning (master plan, detail plan,
The Sustainable City 401 projects and urban studies). It is worth pointing that for the first time in Portugal appears the idea of the plan as an instrument not only for the control of land uses, but also for the safeguard and improvement of the city natural and cultural values [5]. Two actions that were incorporated to this process have been selected to be presented in this paper. One is the EXPO development, and the other is the programme of rehabilitation of historical areas of the city. The EXPO development comprises the rehabilitation of an area of 330 hectares, 60 of which dedicated to the last world exhibition of the century. The project was a key opportunity to show the state of the art of Portuguese architecture and planning. The event was used to anchor the development of the whole site, and the strategy was to create a new centrality for the city and its metropolitan region, achieved through the combination of mixed use development and a well structured public inter modal transport system. Different from Seville, most of the exhibition buildings were designed to be permanent, to remain as the core of a new city. In addition to the thematic pavilions there are other built permanently to conform the area - the Olympic building, the theatre and the dock restaurants. A big shopping centre, connected to the inter-modal station, has been completed after the exhibition. The whole site development is to be completed at the year 2009, providing housing for 25.000 inhabitants and employment for 18.000 people [6], A number of environmental concerns were included in the project. There is a green tower residential building made with the concern of saving energy. All the area is served by a centralised selective garbage system individually connected to each residential unit. Is still early to fully evaluate the project, yet there is clearly a great degree of innovation in the area with good architecture and pleasant urban spaces. It has provided an opportunity for people to choose Lisbon as a place to live, work and leisure within the city and in a single space, reducing the travelling distances and the consumption of energy. It has been also a good demonstration example of mixed development and of use of public transport to structure accessibility. Above all, a polluted, abandoned and derelict part of the city has been converted into an enjoyable and attractive place. This urban conversion represented an opportunity for the city to recover its riverfront, innovating by combining public and private investment on infrastructure and building. The project represents a good practice example and an alternative for many cities around the world that have suffered changes in their industrial structure to become more service oriented, inheriting large pieces of land, often polluted, occupied by old factories or vast unused dock areas. The second project to be referred is the rehabilitation of historical areas of the city. Often these places house old population and had very poor housing conditions, but are vital for the identity and image of Lisbon. Since almost a decade the municipality is developing a programme that supports the improvement of building conditions, attempting to maintain the existing
402 The Sustainable City population in the area while attracting new people and uses. This has been very successful and in a number of boroughs like Bairro Alto and Alfama the improvements are visible and the areas have turned into very alive and nice places to live and visit. The project has effectively managed to tackle the deterioration of leaving conditions in the city core at the same time it maintained memory and identity alive. Despite of the efforts in this decade, it seems clear that the investment in green areas and public spaces has not been great. At the moment a new park at the Expo is been finalised, but a more holistic approach towards natural and cultural resources in the city is required. Conclusions Progress in implementing sustainable development in cities need to be judged on their own terms. It seems clear, however as the Lisbon case has demonstrated, that as the basic challenge of implementing a coherent and integrated planning approach is being dealt, the threshold of a new generation of problem is being approached. This new generation is about using better natural resources alongside with an understanding of the close relationship between environmental management and planning. This means also refusing any planning approach that does not goes beyond sectorial and pontual actions, or in other words that does not take a holistic view of our cities. References [1] Magalhaes, Fernanda, O Desnvolvimento Urbano e o Desnvolvimento Sustentavel, Fundagao Calouste Gulbenkian, in Contributes para o Desenvolvimento da Cidade, Revista Estudos de Engenharia Civil, Lisboa, Portugal, pp 503 to 515, 1998. [2] Magalhaes, Fernanda, Sustainability and the Environment in Cities - a case study, 43 EFHP World Congress, Gotembur, Sweden, 1998. [3] Del Rio, Vicente and Pinheiro, Augusto Ivan, Cultural Corridor: a preservation Distric in Dowtown Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Traditional dwellings and settlements Review, Berkeley, United States, vol. IV #11, 1997. [4] Del Rio, Vicente, Urn balanqo do Urbanismo Contempordneo no Brasil: de Curitiba ao Rio de Janeiro^ Paper presented at the VIII IberoAmerican Congress of Urbanism, Porto, Portugal, 1998. [5] Craveiro, Teresa, O Sistema estrategico de Lisboa, unpublished paper, Lisbon, Portugal, 1999. [6] Magalhaes, Fernanda and Serdoura, Francisco, Looking to Lisbon Environmental Quality, Design and Urban Planning, REBUILD - The Eurpean Cities of Tomorrow, 2"* European Conference, pp. 202 to 206, Florence, Itlay, 1998.