The development of a city often emphasizes the principles of transit-oriented development (TOD), in order to ensure that cities can create vibrant, people-centered communities by maximizing access to public transport and economic activities. Therefore, after decades of academic promotion, the TOD principle has been widely accepted by all countries in the world.
Yet, the TOD principle is insufficient. As a researcher of urban development thinking, Anbound's chief researcher Chan Kung has also proposed the Pedestrian Oriented Development (POD) principle, which emphasizes the priority development of the pedestrian system. Chan Kung believes that the TOD principle is a balanced trend for urban development, moving the city out of the private vehicle transportation system and rethinking the needs of people in the city. However, Chan Kung believes that such balance and reconstruction efforts are still insufficient. Although the TOD system emphasizes public transportation, not just cars, the actual development of cities around the world has overemphasized the automobile and transportation hubs while ignoring the pedestrians. Chan Kung believes that the TOD principle is actually outdated; the city's communication system is layered and the TOD cannot achieve breakthrough from the original transportation system layers of the city, nor can it reconstruct the road rights in the land economic sense, and it is unable to solve the urban economic structural issues to ensure the vitality of the city's economy and streets.
Chen Gong believes that the most fundamental vitality of a city comes from the people. A city is a system of people's living organization, not a transportation system. In the latter, people are only an appendage to the transportation system. The POD principle emphasizes that people are the primary concern in urban development, and the development of the pedestrian system at each level is the priority. The public and the private transportation systems are just a block linking system; it must be based on a complete and effective pedestrian system, and function as its extension and leap of the walking system. Therefore, the POD principle actually subverts and innovates the original urban design and development principles, but it is an effective way to solve many practical problems.
First of all, the source of the vitality of the streets in a city is the people; if the people are unable to walk seamlessly on the streets that connect them to the city, the streets are then mere façades and they are useless. There are many examples of failed commercial streets in the cities around the world, but there are also many examples of remote but lively markets. Such comparisons are all related to the flow patterns of the population.
Second, the cost of private transportation solutions is increasing. The TOD approach has made tremendous efforts, but behind every effort is a huge sum of investment and this kind of investment is insufficient for the current situation that needs to change; it cannot cope with the catastrophic development pressure of the city's current situation.
Third, urban life has become extremely dangerous. The management of modern cities is becoming more and more extensive and violent. People living in such cities often face the threat of traffic accidents and exposed to pollution problems. Living itself has become a risky matter, yet the people have no other option.
Fourth, in the current urban planning, the primary consideration is the cars, from the scale to the community, from the road to the commercial facilities, are based on the usage of the cars. In the city, there are never enough roads to accommodate the increase of the cars, while the pedestrians face disconnected roads used by the car. Expensive land resources in cities are used in large numbers as parking lots rather than generating the commercial value that they deserve.
Fifth, the urban economy lacks vitality. In all parts of the world, the failure of urban commerce has now become a complete policy disaster. The public opinion in many countries blames the internet for causing the failure of urban commerce, but in fact, the structural flaws of the city are also the culprit; people simply prefer to go online rather than going to the streets. Consumption and business are artificially and foolishly isolated; people have to overcome many traffic obstacles if they are going out to buy something, making them losing the enjoyment of shopping. So then, how can the economy be vitalized?
Chen Gong pointed out that European cities have low development intensity and are cautious in urban management, so they have maintained to be people-friendly. In addition to a few cities in the United States, such as New York, most cities have a problem of reconstruction, and the direction of reconstruction should be about the introduction and redesign of the POD principle. Otherwise, the aging society in the United States will face more problems and be more costly, while the city will be more unfriendly to the population.
Cities in China and some emerging market countries have great opportunities to design and develop using the POD principles. According to the POD principle, urban planning emphasizes that the priority is pedestrian planning, which involves the system of the pedestrian walkway, the relationship between the structure and the urban node, the organization of the land, the pedestrian landscape and facilities, the safety of walking, the construction of the relationship between the vehicle and the pedestrian, and so on. Chan Kung believes that as a city, placing pedestrian as the priority is quite normal. Just like an architect designing a house, the first thing to consider is the moving line of the space; this is how the spatial planning of a city should be.
Final analysis conclusion:
A real city should be one that values pedestrian planning. Such a city should have a community that encourages walking, and it should be cycling-friendly and has a dense network of roads for people to come and go. The city's land is used for business, and urban management should receive a huge amount of tax income and generate employment. This is how a low-carbon, truly sustainable and livable city should be.
