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Good, I would like to talk about some social issues in view of urbanism
and start with our protagonist. She’s in her mid-70s. He’s in his mid-80s.
They are enjoying a vacation in Egypt and they are part of a new demographic group
encompassing half a billion people on the globe
and this number will quadruple by the year 2050.
What we do at ETH Zurich is investigate in multi-disciplinary teams.
The impact of global challenges aging in formality,
climate change, poverty, waste management, et cetera,
on the constitution of the city.
And we investigate the effects of those challenges on certain case studies.
In this case, three developments by the real estate industries
that I would like to investigate because they were leaders in aging communities in...
located mostly in subtropical zone
and what we encounter is a migration of the elderly population to this territories
and begin with Florida.
Florida’s friendliest hometown, that’s what happened in the last two decades.
This is from a promotional video, a flyover,
and you encounter types of urbanism that we note quite well,
little family houses, tennis courts, golf courses, et cetera.
Whatever amenity you need, a shopping center, a town square,
and they even have two radio station for that aging community.
A comparison, this is the case study. I’ll show you in Florida.
This is Manhattan at the same scale.
This village has about hundred thousand inhabitants. It’s larger than Manhattan.
And the architecture veils the entire enterprise in a sense of happiness
and we need to remember that this is a lifestyle product
promoted by the real estate industry,
little houses of vast golf infrastructure with golf carts
that is the primary means of transportation
because you don’t need a license and you can go directly to a medical strip
with every possible medical facility that you need, so totally new development.
Second case study in Spain on Costa del Sol,
a new linear city emerge in the last two decades
of its European... it’s Europe’s aging community
with one million people, aging people, old people in these two location.
This had led to an entirely new type of urbanism, of vulgar form of urbanism
based on urban stroll with little island isolated to one, each other.
This is one of those gated communities based on one culture.
This is a British one and they are promoting also their own culture.
So this is entirely about segregation.
The third case study takes us to Japan.
This is a theme park built in 1992 not far away from Nagasaki
close to a Dutch straight center from the 17th century.
It’s a theme park that is five times bigger than Disneyland in Los Angeles
with two integrated communities for the elderly population
that is living there as actors.
Here the original in Gutah and here the replica in Japan made out of Dutch bricks.
The environment is entirely control and, obviously, we need to learn from it
but we have to be critical vis-א-vis these developments
that were promoted by the real estate industry.
So if we go back to our two protagonists, they have changed and adjusted their life.
They live in its regeneration household.
He’s at 84, still part of the workforce. She is doing volunteering work.
We need to build on that in a library.
And most importantly, they have learned to move away
from the car to public transportation.
So I would like to conclude,
first, transportation and accessibility is very important.
This is the portal aerial tram that was built that connects the hospital on the hill
to a new multi-generation neighborhood close to the river
and a light rail train that was built in Zurich
connecting suburbia with the center of the city.
The next recommendation I will make is we have to revisit housing. T
his is three stocked houses in Zurich
for elderly couples that decided to move back to the city
and with integrated units for assisted living in it.
And we are transferring this now to low income housing.
And to the third recommendation I would like to make is based on multiple uses.
We have to bring various uses together.
There is housing, lofts for the elderly, work spaces, office spaces, restaurants,
and all connected to each other,
and here new experiments
wherein the second floor we introduce the new layers of activities
with kindergartens where the elderly can work workshops, et cetera.
And we are now moving to the developing world.
This was going to be a great challenge for the developing countries.
This is a some upgrading project in Ethiopia that we are involved in
and we are learning that they have fantastic family structures
that, unfortunately, we have given up in the west. Environments must be enabling.
Thank you very much.