München, the good example
Today, Ingrid Gustavsson at the Swedish radio tells us about a new report from the European Environment Agency, EEA, which deals with urban sprawl. The main writer, Ronan Uhel, means that the city planners let the urban sprawl rule for most cities in Europe. The report establish that European cities has expended with 78 % since the 1950:s but the population has only increased with 33 %.They don’t strive for holding the cities dense, but lets the neighbourhoods, industrial areas and shopping malls just sprawl along. This means more energy consumption, greater emissions and exploitation of land, often agricultural land. In the report cities like; Madrid, Dublin, Istanbul and Luxemburg are mentioned as bad examples and München as the good example, the compact city. After the war, the city planners in München have held the city compact and not allowed city sprawl.

This reminds me off a book called “Compact cities in the world”, Ashgate, London 2000. I was one of the co-authors in the book and discussed how mobility solutions can keep cities compact. According to Ronan Uhel the city planners of today are to keen to supply instead of looking at the demands. The European Union funds, today often goes to large infrastructure projects which imply urban sprawl and more road transports. The financial tools are taken us in the wrong direction so to say. Not the first time, I think?