TEDCity2.0
Jeff Speck: The walkable city
Filmed:
Readability: 4.5
1,217,622 views
How do we solve the problem of the suburbs? Urbanist Jeff Speck shows how we can free ourselves from dependence on the car -- which he calls "a gas-belching, time-wasting, life-threatening prosthetic device" -- by making our cities more walkable and more pleasant for more people.
Double-click the English transcript below to play the video.
00:13
So I'm a city planner, an urban designer,
0
1228
4290
00:17
former arts advocate,
1
5518
2072
00:19
trained in architecture and art history,
2
7590
3793
00:23
and I want to talk to you today not about design
3
11383
3134
00:26
but about America
4
14517
2436
00:28
and how America can be more economically resilient,
5
16953
4205
00:33
how America can be healthier,
6
21158
2325
00:35
and how America can be
7
23483
1653
00:37
more environmentally sustainable.
8
25136
2618
00:39
And I realize this is a global forum,
9
27754
2418
00:42
but I think I need to talk about America
10
30172
2069
00:44
because there is a history,
11
32241
1583
00:45
in some places, not all,
12
33824
1687
00:47
of American ideas being appropriated,
13
35511
2450
00:49
being emulated, for better or for worse,
14
37961
2532
00:52
around the world.
15
40493
1341
00:53
And the worst idea we've ever had
16
41834
2151
00:55
is suburban sprawl.
17
43985
2367
00:58
It's being emulated in many places as we speak.
18
46352
3371
01:01
By suburban sprawl, I refer to the reorganization
19
49723
2663
01:04
of the landscape and the creation of the landscape
20
52386
2404
01:06
around the requirement of automobile use,
21
54790
4336
01:11
and that the automobile that was once an instrument of freedom
22
59126
2643
01:13
has become a gas-belching,
23
61769
3751
01:17
time-wasting and life-threatening
24
65520
2600
01:20
prosthetic device
25
68120
1433
01:21
that many of us need just to,
26
69553
1636
01:23
most Americans, in fact, need,
27
71189
1588
01:24
just to live their daily lives.
28
72777
2320
01:27
And there's an alternative.
29
75097
1584
01:28
You know, we say, half the world is living in cities.
30
76681
1588
01:30
Well, in America, that living in cities,
31
78269
1941
01:32
for many of them, they're living in cities still
32
80210
1658
01:33
where they're dependent on that automobile.
33
81868
2266
01:36
And what I work for, and to do,
34
84134
2979
01:39
is to make our cities more walkable.
35
87113
2686
01:41
But I can't give design arguments for that
36
89799
2523
01:44
that will have as much impact
37
92322
1689
01:46
as the arguments that I've learned
38
94011
1916
01:47
from the economists, the epidemiologists
39
95927
3517
01:51
and the environmentalists.
40
99444
1716
01:53
So these are the three arguments that I'm going
41
101160
1261
01:54
to give you quickly today.
42
102421
3111
01:57
When I was growing up in the '70s,
43
105532
1484
01:59
the typical American spent one tenth of their income,
44
107016
3635
02:02
American family, on transportation.
45
110651
3239
02:05
Since then, we've doubled the number of roads
46
113890
2585
02:08
in America, and we now spend one fifth
47
116475
2777
02:11
of our income on transportation.
48
119252
2661
02:13
Working families, which are defined as
49
121913
2061
02:15
earning between 20,000 and 50,000 dollars
50
123974
1924
02:17
a year in America
51
125898
1959
02:19
are spending more now on transportation
52
127857
2504
02:22
than on housing, slightly more,
53
130361
2238
02:24
because of this phenomenon called "drive till you qualify,"
54
132599
3233
02:27
finding homes further and further and further
55
135832
2418
02:30
from the city centers and from their jobs,
56
138250
2927
02:33
so that they're locked in this, two, three hours,
57
141177
2525
02:35
four hours a day of commuting.
58
143702
2197
02:37
And these are the neighborhoods, for example,
59
145899
1474
02:39
in the Central Valley of California
60
147373
2422
02:41
that weren't hurt when the housing bubble burst
61
149795
3107
02:44
and when the price of gas went up;
62
152902
2222
02:47
they were decimated.
63
155124
2268
02:49
And in fact, these are many
64
157392
1266
02:50
of the half-vacant communities that you see today.
65
158658
2603
02:53
Imagine putting everything you have into your mortgage,
66
161261
3181
02:56
it goes underwater, and you have to pay
67
164442
2073
02:58
twice as much for all the driving that you're doing.
68
166515
3865
03:02
So we know what it's done to our society
69
170380
2720
03:05
and all the extra work we have to do
70
173100
2331
03:07
to support our cars.
71
175431
1769
03:09
What happens when a city decides
72
177200
1732
03:10
it's going to set other priorities?
73
178932
2274
03:13
And probably the best example we have here
74
181206
1972
03:15
in America is Portland, Oregon.
75
183178
2411
03:17
Portland made a bunch of decisions in the 1970s
76
185589
3339
03:20
that began to distinguish it
77
188928
1698
03:22
from almost every other American city.
78
190626
2536
03:25
While most other cities were growing
79
193162
2118
03:27
an undifferentiated spare tire of sprawl,
80
195280
3135
03:30
they instituted an urban growth boundary.
81
198415
2675
03:33
While most cities were reaming out their roads,
82
201090
2170
03:35
removing parallel parking and trees
83
203260
2245
03:37
in order to flow more traffic,
84
205505
2201
03:39
they instituted a skinny streets program.
85
207706
3733
03:43
And while most cities were investing in more roads
86
211439
3914
03:47
and more highways, they actually invested
87
215353
2909
03:50
in bicycling and in walking.
88
218262
2477
03:52
And they spent 60 million dollars on bike facilities,
89
220739
4065
03:56
which seems like a lot of money,
90
224804
1433
03:58
but it was spent over about 30 years,
91
226237
2516
04:00
so two million dollars a year -- not that much --
92
228753
2369
04:03
and half the price of the one cloverleaf
93
231122
2325
04:05
that they decided to rebuild in that city.
94
233447
2819
04:08
These changes and others like them changed
95
236266
1969
04:10
the way that Portlanders live,
96
238235
1962
04:12
and their vehicle-miles traveled per day,
97
240197
2161
04:14
the amount that each person drives,
98
242358
1559
04:15
actually peaked in 1996,
99
243917
2313
04:18
has been dropping ever since,
100
246230
2101
04:20
and they now drive 20 percent less
101
248331
2064
04:22
than the rest of the country.
102
250395
1433
04:23
The typical Portland citizen drives
103
251828
2756
04:26
four miles less, and 11 minutes less per day
104
254584
3968
04:30
than they did before.
105
258552
2322
04:32
The economist Joe Cortright did the math
106
260874
1987
04:34
and he found out that those four miles
107
262861
1518
04:36
plus those 11 minutes
108
264379
1432
04:37
adds up to fully three and a half percent
109
265811
1922
04:39
of all income earned in the region.
110
267733
2530
04:42
So if they're not spending that money on driving --
111
270263
1876
04:44
and by the way, 85 percent of the money
112
272139
1613
04:45
we spend on driving leaves the local economy --
113
273752
2594
04:48
if they're not spending that money on driving,
114
276346
1875
04:50
what are they spending it on?
115
278221
1771
04:51
Well, Portland is reputed to have
116
279992
1677
04:53
the most roof racks per capita,
117
281669
2922
04:56
the most independent bookstores per capita,
118
284591
2840
04:59
the most strip clubs per capita.
119
287431
3244
05:02
These are all exaggerations, slight exaggerations
120
290675
2636
05:05
of a fundamental truth, which is Portlanders
121
293311
1639
05:06
spend a lot more on recreation of all kinds
122
294950
3198
05:10
than the rest of America.
123
298148
2026
05:12
Actually, Oregonians spend more on alcohol
124
300174
2315
05:14
than most other states,
125
302489
1340
05:15
which may be a good thing or a bad thing,
126
303829
1565
05:17
but it makes you glad they're driving less.
127
305394
1999
05:19
(Laughter)
128
307393
2373
05:21
But actually, they're spending most of it in their homes,
129
309766
3336
05:25
and home investment is about as local
130
313102
2543
05:27
an investment as you can get.
131
315660
2123
05:29
But there's a whole other Portland story,
132
317783
1411
05:31
which isn't part of this calculus,
133
319194
1545
05:32
which is that young, educated people
134
320739
2887
05:35
have been moving to Portland in droves,
135
323626
2452
05:38
so that between the last two censuses,
136
326078
2518
05:40
they had a 50-percent increase
137
328596
2282
05:42
in college-educated millennials,
138
330878
1864
05:44
which is five times what you saw anywhere else
139
332742
2184
05:46
in the country, or, I should say, of the national average.
140
334926
3276
05:50
So on the one hand, a city saves money for its residents
141
338202
4313
05:54
by being more walkable and more bikeable,
142
342515
2580
05:57
but on the other hand, it also is the cool kind of city
143
345095
2835
05:59
that people want to be in these days.
144
347930
2818
06:02
So the best economic strategy
145
350748
1393
06:04
you can have as a city
146
352141
1403
06:05
is not the old way of trying to attract corporations
147
353544
3714
06:09
and trying to have a biotech cluster
148
357258
2332
06:11
or a medical cluster,
149
359590
2094
06:13
or an aerospace cluster,
150
361684
1409
06:15
but to become a place where people want to be.
151
363093
3100
06:18
And millennials, certainly, these engines of entrepreneurship,
152
366193
3478
06:21
64 percent of whom decide first
153
369671
2841
06:24
where they want to live,
154
372512
1279
06:25
then they move there, then they look for a job,
155
373791
2016
06:27
they will come to your city.
156
375807
2945
06:30
The health argument is a scary one,
157
378752
2861
06:33
and you've probably heard part of this argument before.
158
381613
2494
06:36
Again, back in the '70s, a lot's changed since then,
159
384107
2967
06:39
back in the '70s, one in 10 Americans was obese.
160
387074
3110
06:42
Now one out of three Americans is obese,
161
390184
3599
06:45
and a second third of the population is overweight.
162
393783
3867
06:49
Twenty-five percent of young men
163
397650
1879
06:51
and 40 percent of young women are too heavy
164
399529
1921
06:53
to enlist in our own military forces.
165
401450
3651
06:57
According to the Center for Disease Control,
166
405101
2378
06:59
fully one third of all children born after 2000
167
407479
3797
07:03
will get diabetes.
168
411276
1700
07:04
We have the first generation of children in America
169
412976
1973
07:06
who are predicted to live shorter lives than their parents.
170
414949
3870
07:10
I believe that this American healthcare crisis
171
418819
2211
07:13
that we've all heard about
172
421030
1438
07:14
is an urban design crisis,
173
422468
2616
07:17
and that the design of our cities lies at the cure.
174
425084
2812
07:19
Because we've talked a long time about diet,
175
427896
2565
07:22
and we know that diet impacts weight,
176
430461
2754
07:25
and weight of course impacts health.
177
433215
2312
07:27
But we've only started talking about inactivity,
178
435527
2771
07:30
and how inactivity born of our landscape,
179
438298
3192
07:33
inactivity that comes from the fact that we live
180
441490
2330
07:35
in a place where there is no longer any such thing
181
443820
1869
07:37
as a useful walk, is driving our weight up.
182
445689
3596
07:41
And we finally have the studies,
183
449285
1574
07:42
one in Britain called "Gluttony versus sloth"
184
450859
2686
07:45
that tracked weight against diet
185
453545
2701
07:48
and tracked weight against inactivity,
186
456246
1905
07:50
and found a much higher, stronger correlation
187
458151
2703
07:52
between the latter two.
188
460854
2048
07:54
Dr. James Levine at, in this case,
189
462902
2017
07:56
the aptly-named Mayo Clinic
190
464919
2193
07:59
put his test subjects in electronic underwear,
191
467112
4539
08:03
held their diet steady,
192
471651
1993
08:05
and then started pumping the calories in.
193
473644
2004
08:07
Some people gained weight,
194
475648
1497
08:09
some people didn't gain weight.
195
477145
1377
08:10
Expecting some metabolic or DNA factor at work,
196
478522
3466
08:13
they were shocked to learn that the only difference
197
481988
1704
08:15
between the subjects that they could figure out
198
483692
1882
08:17
was the amount they were moving,
199
485574
1884
08:19
and that in fact those who gained weight
200
487458
1640
08:21
were sitting, on average, two hours more per day
201
489098
3752
08:24
than those who didn't.
202
492850
1316
08:26
So we have these studies that tie
203
494166
1943
08:28
weight to inactivity, but even more,
204
496109
2314
08:30
we now have studies that tie weight to where you live.
205
498423
2515
08:32
Do you live in a more walkable city
206
500938
1633
08:34
or do you live in a less walkable city,
207
502571
1436
08:36
or where in your city do you live?
208
504007
1924
08:37
In San Diego, they used Walk Score --
209
505931
2665
08:40
Walk Score rates every address in America
210
508596
2357
08:42
and soon the world
211
510953
1639
08:44
in terms of how walkable it is --
212
512592
2389
08:46
they used Walk Score to designate more walkable neighborhoods
213
514981
2883
08:49
and less walkable neighborhoods.
214
517864
1693
08:51
Well guess what? If you lived in a more walkable neighborhood,
215
519557
2802
08:54
you were 35 percent likely to be overweight.
216
522359
2271
08:56
If you lived in a less walkable neighborhood,
217
524630
2323
08:58
you were 60 percent likely to be overweight.
218
526953
2207
09:01
So we have study after study now
219
529160
1838
09:02
that's tying where you live
220
530998
2055
09:05
to your health, particularly as in America,
221
533053
2387
09:07
the biggest health crisis we have is this one
222
535440
2130
09:09
that's stemming from environmental-induced inactivity.
223
537570
4724
09:14
And I learned a new word last week.
224
542294
1723
09:16
They call these neighborhoods "obesageneric."
225
544017
3630
09:19
I may have that wrong, but you get the idea.
226
547647
3231
09:22
Now that's one thing, of course.
227
550878
1767
09:24
Briefly mentioning, we have an asthma epidemic
228
552645
2475
09:27
in this country.
229
555120
1127
09:28
You probably haven't thought that much about it.
230
556247
1658
09:29
Fourteen Americans die each day from asthma,
231
557905
2721
09:32
three times what it was in the '90s,
232
560626
2905
09:35
and it's almost all coming from car exhaust.
233
563531
2891
09:38
American pollution does not come
234
566422
2012
09:40
from factories anymore, it comes from tailpipes,
235
568434
2308
09:42
and the amount that people are driving in your city,
236
570742
2257
09:44
your urban VMT, is a good prediction
237
572999
2448
09:47
of the asthma problems in your city.
238
575447
2502
09:49
And then finally, in terms of driving,
239
577949
2215
09:52
there's the issue of the single-largest killer
240
580164
2906
09:55
of healthy adults, and one of the largest killers
241
583070
2642
09:57
of all people, is car crashes.
242
585712
2094
09:59
And we take car crashes for granted.
243
587806
1502
10:01
We figure it's a natural risk
244
589308
1835
10:03
of being on the road.
245
591143
1582
10:04
But in fact, here in America, 12 people
246
592725
3173
10:07
out of every 100,000
247
595898
1356
10:09
die every year from car crashes.
248
597254
2098
10:11
We're pretty safe here.
249
599352
1469
10:12
Well, guess what? In England, it's seven per 100,000.
250
600821
2386
10:15
It's Japan, it's four per 100,000.
251
603207
1838
10:17
Do you know where it's three per 100,000?
252
605045
2569
10:19
New York City.
253
607614
1725
10:21
San Francisco, the same thing. Portland, the same thing.
254
609339
2656
10:23
Oh, so cities make us safer
255
611995
2060
10:26
because we're driving less?
256
614055
2169
10:28
Tulsa: 14 per 100,000.
257
616224
2419
10:30
Orlando: 20 per 100,000.
258
618643
3241
10:33
It's not whether you're in the city or not,
259
621884
1717
10:35
it's how is your city designed?
260
623601
1686
10:37
Was it designed around cars or around people?
261
625287
3832
10:41
Because if your city is designed around cars,
262
629119
1770
10:42
it's really good at smashing them into each other.
263
630889
4859
10:47
That's part of a much larger health argument.
264
635748
3735
10:51
Finally, the environmental argument is fascinating,
265
639483
2269
10:53
because the environmentalists turned on a dime
266
641752
2241
10:55
about 10 years ago.
267
643993
1519
10:57
The environmental movement in America
268
645512
1476
10:58
has historically been an anti-city movement
269
646988
3028
11:02
from Jefferson on.
270
650016
1511
11:03
"Cities are pestilential to the health,
271
651527
2355
11:05
to the liberties, to the morals of man.
272
653882
1991
11:07
If we continue to pile upon ourselves in cities,
273
655873
2110
11:09
as they do in Europe, we shall become as corrupt
274
657983
1916
11:11
as they are in Europe
275
659899
1415
11:13
and take to eating one another as they do there."
276
661314
2662
11:15
He apparently had a sense of humor.
277
663976
2731
11:18
And then the American environmental movement
278
666707
2053
11:20
has been a classically Arcadian movement.
279
668760
2110
11:22
To become more environmental, we move into the country,
280
670870
2113
11:24
we commune with nature, we build suburbs.
281
672983
2668
11:27
But, of course, we've seen what that does.
282
675651
4023
11:31
The carbon mapping of America,
283
679674
2206
11:33
where is the CO2 being emitted,
284
681880
1887
11:35
for many years only
285
683767
1929
11:37
hammered this argument in more strongly.
286
685696
2527
11:40
If you look at any carbon map, because we map it per square mile,
287
688223
2841
11:43
any carbon map of the U.S.,
288
691064
1515
11:44
it looks like a night sky satellite photo of the U.S.,
289
692579
3143
11:47
hottest in the cities, cooler in the suburbs,
290
695722
2456
11:50
dark, peaceful in the countryside.
291
698178
3568
11:53
Until some economists said, you know,
292
701746
1939
11:55
is that the right way to measure CO2?
293
703685
2446
11:58
There are only so many people in this country at any given time,
294
706131
1986
12:00
and we can choose to live where perhaps
295
708117
2087
12:02
we would have a lighter impact.
296
710204
1639
12:03
And they said, let's measure CO2 per household,
297
711843
2793
12:06
and when they did that, the maps just flipped,
298
714636
2604
12:09
coolest in the center city, warmer in the suburbs,
299
717240
3019
12:12
and red hot in these exurban
300
720259
2676
12:14
"drive till you qualify" neighborhoods.
301
722935
2772
12:17
So a fundamental shift, and now you have
302
725707
1953
12:19
environmentalists and economists like Ed Glaeser
303
727660
2764
12:22
saying we are a destructive species.
304
730424
2567
12:24
If you love nature, the best thing you can do
305
732991
2166
12:27
is stay the heck away from it,
306
735157
2268
12:29
move to a city, and the denser the better,
307
737425
2554
12:31
and the denser cities like Manhattan
308
739979
2504
12:34
are the cities that perform the best.
309
742483
2336
12:36
So the average Manhattanite is consuming gasoline
310
744819
4149
12:40
at the rate the rest of the nation hasn't seen since the '20s,
311
748968
4316
12:45
consuming half of the electricity of Dallas.
312
753284
3474
12:48
But of course, we can do better.
313
756758
2002
12:50
Canadian cities, they consume half the gasoline of American cities.
314
758760
3112
12:53
European cities consume half as much again.
315
761872
4094
12:57
So obviously, we can do better,
316
765966
2196
13:00
and we want to do better, and we're all trying to be green.
317
768162
3369
13:03
My final argument in this topic is that
318
771531
2446
13:05
I think we're trying to be green the wrong way,
319
773977
3654
13:09
and I'm one of many people who believes that
320
777631
2176
13:11
this focus on gadgets,
321
779807
3072
13:14
on accessorizing --
322
782879
2691
13:17
What can I add to my house,
323
785570
2019
13:19
what can I add to what I've already got
324
787589
2112
13:21
to make my lifestyle more sustainable? --
325
789701
2463
13:24
has kind of dominated the discussion.
326
792164
1941
13:26
So I'm not immune to this.
327
794105
1854
13:27
My wife and I built a new house
328
795959
1535
13:29
on an abandoned lot in Washington, D.C.,
329
797494
2999
13:32
and we did our best to clear the shelves
330
800493
2102
13:34
of the sustainability store.
331
802595
2055
13:36
We've got the solar photovoltaic system,
332
804650
2235
13:38
solar hot water heater, dual-flush toilets,
333
806885
2449
13:41
bamboo floors.
334
809334
1908
13:43
A log burning in my German high-tech stove
335
811242
3372
13:46
apparently, supposedly, contributes less carbon
336
814614
2689
13:49
to the atmosphere than were it left alone
337
817303
1681
13:50
to decompose in the forest.
338
818984
2112
13:53
Yet all of these innovations --
339
821096
2780
13:55
That's what they said in the brochure.
340
823876
1887
13:57
(Laughter)
341
825763
1228
13:58
All of these innovations together
342
826991
2140
14:01
contribute a fraction of what we contribute
343
829131
3084
14:04
by living in a walkable neighborhood
344
832215
1905
14:06
three blocks from a metro in the heart of a city.
345
834120
3771
14:09
We've changed all our light bulbs to energy-savers,
346
837891
2199
14:12
and you should do the same thing,
347
840090
1350
14:13
but changing all your light bulbs to energy-savers
348
841440
2380
14:15
saves as much energy in a year
349
843820
1632
14:17
as moving to a walkable city does in a week.
350
845452
2934
14:20
And we don't want to have this argument.
351
848386
1349
14:21
Politicians and marketers are afraid
352
849735
2208
14:23
of marketing green as a "lifestyle choice."
353
851943
3733
14:27
You don't want to tell Americans, God forbid,
354
855676
2917
14:30
that they have to change their lifestyle.
355
858593
1861
14:32
But what if lifestyle was really about quality of life
356
860454
3164
14:35
and about perhaps something that we would all enjoy more,
357
863618
2517
14:38
something that would be better than what we have right now?
358
866135
3331
14:41
Well, the gold standard of quality of life rankings,
359
869466
2511
14:43
it's called the Mercer Survey.
360
871977
1989
14:45
You may have heard of it.
361
873966
1200
14:47
They rank hundreds of nations worldwide
362
875166
3182
14:50
according to 10 criteria that they believe add up
363
878348
2413
14:52
to quality of life: health, economics, education,
364
880761
5099
14:57
housing, you name it.
365
885860
3302
15:01
There's six more. Short talk.
366
889162
2388
15:03
(Laughter)
367
891550
1789
15:05
And it's very interesting to see that
368
893339
2647
15:07
the highest-ranking American city, Honolulu,
369
895986
2289
15:10
number 28, is followed by kind of the usual suspects
370
898275
3762
15:14
of Seattle and Boston and all walkable cities.
371
902037
3939
15:17
The driving cities in the Sun Belt,
372
905976
1722
15:19
the Dallases and the Phoenixes and, sorry, Atlanta,
373
907698
3169
15:22
these cities are not appearing on the list.
374
910867
3152
15:26
But who's doing even better?
375
914019
1818
15:27
The Canadian cities like Vancouver,
376
915837
2336
15:30
where again, they're burning half the fuel.
377
918173
2324
15:32
And then it's usually won by cities where they speak German,
378
920497
2811
15:35
like Dusseldorf or Vienna,
379
923308
1932
15:37
where they're burning, again, half as much fuel.
380
925240
2430
15:39
And you see this alignment, this strange alignment.
381
927670
2855
15:42
Is being more sustainble
382
930525
1888
15:44
what gives you a higher quality of life?
383
932413
2428
15:46
I would argue the same thing
384
934841
2637
15:49
that makes you more sustainble
385
937478
1981
15:51
is what gives you a higher quality of life,
386
939459
2050
15:53
and that's living in a walkable neighborhood.
387
941509
2991
15:56
So sustainability, which includes our wealth
388
944500
4479
16:00
and our health
389
948979
1774
16:02
may not be a direct function of our sustainability.
390
950753
4452
16:07
But particularly here in America,
391
955205
2457
16:09
we are polluting so much
392
957662
2441
16:12
because we're throwing away our time
393
960103
2676
16:14
and our money and our lives on the highway,
394
962779
2574
16:17
then these two problems would seem to share
395
965353
2224
16:19
the same solution, which is to make our cities
396
967577
2634
16:22
more walkable.
397
970211
1343
16:23
Doing so isn't easy, but it can be done,
398
971554
2647
16:26
it has been done,
399
974201
1428
16:27
and it's being done now in more than a few cities,
400
975629
2564
16:30
around the globe and in our country.
401
978193
2536
16:32
I take some solace from Winston Churchill,
402
980729
3062
16:35
who put it this way:
403
983791
1370
16:37
"The Americans can be counted on
404
985161
1778
16:38
to do the right thing
405
986939
1275
16:40
once they have exhausted the alternatives." (Laughter)
406
988214
2749
16:42
Thank you.
407
990963
1996
16:44
(Applause)
408
992959
6358
ABOUT THE SPEAKER
Jeff Speck - Urban plannerJeff Speck is a city planner and the author of "Walkable City."
Why you should listen
Jeff Speck is a city planner and architectural designer who, through writing, lectures, and built work, advocates internationally for more walkable cities.
As Director of Design at the National Endowment for the Arts from 2003 through 2007, he oversaw the Mayors' Institute on City Design and created the Governors' Institute on Community Design, a federal program that helps state governors fight suburban sprawl. Prior to joining the Endowment, Speck spent ten years as Director of Town Planning at Duany Plater-Zyberk and Co., a leading practitioner of the New Urbanism, where he led or managed more than forty of the firm's projects.
Speck is the co-author of Suburban Nation: The Rise of Sprawl and the Decline of the American Dream as well as The Smart Growth Manual. His latest book, Walkable City -- which Christian Science Monitor calls "timely and important, a delightful, insightful, irreverent work" -- has been the best-selling city-planning title of this decade.
Jeff Speck | Speaker | TED.com