The Rampart, The Traffic Artery, and the Park; Designing for the city regions of Antwerp

1.3 Optimism, Realism, and Pessimism
1. Over half of the world’s population is living in cities, a percentage that is
expected to only increase in the upcoming years. This makes cities struggle
with an increasing scarcity of development space, leading to the increased
redevelopment of brown fields, industrial areas, and on top of highways.
The struggle for space, and the rise of real estate as a means of storing
capital, leads to overheated housing markets;
2. Cities increasingly feel the effect of climate change and are therefore
striving to become more climate resilient, by adding more urban green and
water storage to counter heat stress and flooding;
3. Cities are in a shift from car dominant mobility to multimodal mobility with a
focus on public transport, cycling, and walking. A trend fuelled by the drive
for more space, crippling traffic congestion, and climate and health issues;
4. Morphology and the dominant means of transport are inextricably linked to
each other; acting and reacting. The rise of the car during the 1950s and
‘60s, among other factors, allowed for unprecedented urban sprawl. Currently
with the shift to slower, more short-range modes of transport in inner
cities, we see the emergence of more high-density, polycentric urban fabric;
5. The combination of access to mobility and diverse amenities at a certain
location has effect on the location’s property value. Moving from one CBD
to multiple – to a more polycentric city model – that complement each other
to some degree has effect of the distance decay model of a city;
6. There are three types of polycentric city models; (1) the urban village, (2)
the random movement model, and (3) the mono-polycentric model. The
first one has never been realised in the real world, as it would contradict
the raison d’etre of cities. Trips in polycentric cities are often longer as they
tend to show a wider dispersion of origin and destination. The emergence
of polycentric cities is often the result of the natural evolutionary process of
a growing metropole. No city is however, ever completely mono or polycentric.
7. Many cities are relocating their highway underground and develop a park
on top of the cap. There are six motives for this: (1) reconnecting neighbourhoods;
(2) reclaiming space; (3) improving health; (4) improving
climate resilience; (5) more green recreational space; and (6) to establish
the city as a modern metropole to attract more residents;
8. Capping a highway often runs well into a billion euros or dollars. They rely
on a mix of public and private investment and funding. Profits are difficult to
measure and are often expressed in an increase in global pull and increases
in property value. With these kinds of investments, it seems doubtful that
the car will disappear any time soon.
83