“The common goal is to have a better city, more livable and friendlier” said Antonio del Valle Perochena in the closing of CoRe | Foro Urbano CDMX 2016
- “We have to ensure the city works in a small scale for it to work on a bigger scale”: Riccardo Marini
- “We have to think beyond the Project and understand the variables with which we have to operate in the future”: Jose Castillo
- “The challenge is to continue and systematize the efforts for those ideas to become a reality”: Juan Pardinas
Mexico City, December 7, 2016.- “All of us, in this past days made citizenship”. With this thought, Antonio del Valle Perochena, Chairman of the Board of Grupo Empresarial Kaluz, ended CoRe Foro Urbano CDMX 2016, at Estación Indianilla. The conclusions of the two-day event of roundtables and conferences around mobility, public space, zoning and social participation were in charge of Del Valle Perochena himself, as well as Riccardo Marini, from Gehl Architects, Juan Pardinas, chairman of IMCO, and José Castillo, curator of CoRe Foro Urbano CDMX 2016.
Among the ideas that came up in this two days, Marini remembered the need to think of a city for the citizens and not for cars. “We have to ensure the city works in a small scale for it to work on a bigger scale. We have to commit with the citizens and engage everyone in the change process. Before architects, be human beings”.
Jose Castillo noted the final thoughts in the zoning roundtable. First, that the public space relies on the dynamics among three sectors: social, private and government; and that we should not allow only one of them to take over control. Second, the public space is a shared responsibility and we “must think in the public space beyond its construction. We have to think beyond the project and understand the variables with which we will have to work in the future.” Third, he stressed the importance of considering local factors: “matching the budget and the public politics: allocating according to our possibilities and depending on our ways of thought. Remember that the normativity is not all and neither is zoning”. He ended his participation emphasizing that “in order to build a community, we have to reset the citizenship logic and confidence. Let this forum be the beginning of a long conversation between all the relevant actors”.
Juan Pardinas, for his part, made a short closure raising awareness on “the good ideas highlighted in this forum; now the challenge is to continue and systematize the efforts for those ideas to become a reality. To find a consensus space that promotes the citizens’ confidence, for which we have taken one good first step”.
Finally, Antonio del Valle Perochena finished two major reflections: “the car must stop being the top priority of CDMX citizens; we have to make walking the first transportation option for them” he stated. He also said that “we need to achieve a consensus regarding the city goals. The common goal is to have a better city, more livable and friendlier”. He closed the event with one commitment: “we have talked about many ideas and proposals that pose important challenges for the following days, to digest and create a document with specific proposals, which is the main idea of this event: specific ideas for the city we want in the future”.