A Lesson From Urban Icons on Designing Public Space: Get Rid of Traffic
In a mayoral forum, Anne Hidalgo and Norman Foster pointed to a shared strategy behind their successful visions for transforming cities.
Former Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo speaks to a global gathering of mayors in Madrid on April 27.
Photo courtesy of Bloomberg Philanthropies
The former mayor of Paris has a message for her neighbors in Spain. Anne Hidalgo was born in Cádiz, an old Andalusian port town, and she grew up swimming on Spain’s oceanside beaches. It was there where she cultivated the love of swimming that led her to pursue making the Seine in Paris clean enough to swim, she told a rapt audience of dozens of mayors gathered in Madrid.
Her strategy for cleaning up the river was one of three success stories she shared during a closed-door mayoral forum at the Bloomberg CityLab conference, organized by Bloomberg Philanthropies and the Aspen Institute. Hidalgo and another urban visionary, British architect Norman Foster, talked about using design to improve environmental and economic outcomes in their own cities. They showcased a number of examples, with an eye toward European cities.