Palafox bares secret formula that successful cities have

Filipinos may be resilient, but their cities are not.

This was pointed out by urban planner Felino Palafox Jr., a persistent advocate of environmental impact assessment, after enumerating the Top 10 cities in the world.

Palafox, principal architect of Palafox Associates categorized cities around the world under being green, smart, livable, sustainable and resilient. He then quipped, “The worst 10? Manila is there.”

During his presentation titled “Philippines @ 500, Manila Megalopolis 2021 and Beyond: A Vision Plan toward Safer, Smarter, Sustainable Cities of the Future” on March 16, Palafox said Filipinos may be sustainable in terms of bouncing back after disasters, but preparing for them is something that has been lacking—and it is only one of the many problems the government should attend to.

Development vision

With a foresight that the Philippines can be ranked 16th in the list of top economies in the world by 2050, Palafox believes that the changes called for should be starting now. The development vision would also be in preparation of the Philippines’ 500th anniversary in 2021.

“The Philippines in 2021, its 500th anniversary, is envisioned to be better if its pressing problems like corruption, criminality and climate change are solved through good governance, peace and order, and sustainable environment,” Palafox said. He added that among all the cities he visited, there is one success formula: “Visionary leadership [plus] strong political will [plus] good urban planning, design and architecture [plus] good governance.”

Palafox said they have been sending recommendations to the local government, especially to business districts like Makati, Taguig and Manila, where there are no affordable housing for employees. These cities, according to him, are instead surrounded by gated communities which should be in the suburbs.

Vertical urbanism

“If we have more practical pragmatic thinking like the progressive cities in the world, go to the suburbs. If your house is in the middle of the city, make it [a] multifamily [unit],” he said.

In addition, as opposed to urban sprawl, Palafox said vertical urbanism is the way to go. He said building tall infrastructure is more sustainable because garbage collection, tourism and mixed-used residency for shopping and dining would be in one point only.

“With the urban sprawl we have, there will be longer kilometers of roads, sewerage, drainage, electricity, among other things,” he added.

Palafox cited his own design in Rockwell Center in Makati City, where all is within a five-minute walk.

“We Metro Manilans walk only 400 meters [far], so if you live in Rockwell, everything is within 400 meters away… We do not like to walk [much] because we are spoiled with modes of transportation like the tricycles, buses and jeepneys,” the 65-year-old urban planner said.

Redesigning of roads

Palafox also said they have been pushing for the redesigning of roads with the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR). With green urbanism, the roads will allot one-third for trees and landscaping, one-third for pedestrians and bicycles, and the remaining third for vehicles.

“You look at Edsa—nothing for people, nothing for landscaping. Edsa has 300,000 vehicles a day and we should have three million trees along Edsa to recover the carbon monoxide per car,” Palafox said. “Those [who] have less in wheels should have more in roads.”

In some countries like South Korea and United States, skyways are removed to be redesigned as pedestrian walkways, he cited.

Palafox said: “Here, we are building more skyways. I asked an urbanist friend on what he thinks about skyways, he said ‘It’s like cheating on your diet by just loosening your belt.’”

Palafox also presented his updated ‘postcards from the future,’ showing how he sees the developments in key places in the Metro after some years. He said those are still doable, and in fact, local government units like Pasig City commissioned him to do his proposal.

“For the government, do a cost-benefit analysis and beneficiary analysis,” he said. “These plans and proposals can be done concurrently, but somebody should orchestrate the whole thing.”