Dear Politicians, wherever you may be, Contrary to what you seem to think, building massive infrastructure projects for cars - here in 2012 - will NOT increase your penis size or your bra size. Nor will it get you laid or establish a personal legacy.
Nobody remembers politicians or planners who build motorways - or ridiculous tunnels under harbours. Oh, except for a guy named Robert Moses and some other guy named Adolf Hitler (no Wikipedia link needed). Not exactly two of the best role models, are they?
The politicians who are interesting to the world at large are the ones that change our cities for the better. For example, The Penalosa brothers travel about the world still talking about what they did in Bogota in the 1990s. The former mayor of Copenhagen, Klaus Bondam, is invited to speak about his work in 2006-2009. They, and a long line of free thinkers and agents of change, are the ones who the world listens to. The Mayor of Paris, M. Betrand Delanoe, is another who is establishing a modern legacy.Stop listening to your engineers and start listening to your people. The sum of a century of planning for automobiles is this: Create more space for cars, and more cars will come. This is no longer regarded as a good thing.
It's embarassing that you don't know this simple fact. It's embarassing that we're still having this conversation in 2012. That is all.
