Sept. 26, 2002  
Thursday Evening Discusion about:

The Future of Fort Lauderdale with a focus on Northwest Fort Lauderdale.

COMING IN OCTOBER: Symposium about Bogota


Friendly Streets

History/ART Walk

POD TAS >>>>>

Friendly Streets in
other cities
These are
PHOTOS OF BOGOTA
by Tony Abbate

How can Fort Lauderdale make its streets
more friendly or inviting to pedestrians?
Photos of
City Place
Click to see the efforts made to protect
pedestrians in cities in
Caribbean                  See Tony Abbate's Photos
Europe                              Bogota      Havana
Asia               

FRIENDLY STREETS
PHOTOS of Other Cities


These photos are presented to stimulate discussion about the future of Fort Lauderdale.  What can we bring from other cities?
What can we learn from other cities?
What can we discover locally and nurture, heighten or cultivate?
What can we adapt?  What should we reject?

What doesn't work in other cities?
What works there but would look false if we adopted it without "making it our own"?
(City Place looks like a little Venice, a little Veneto, a little Portofino, a little Nice or Cannes, a little Siena... and it appears to have rejected anything of Florida.  The "funky" art workshop east of City Place has more local character than the entire City Place plaza.)
-- opinion of web guy, not necessarily the opinion of others associated with the effrots to make Fort Lauderdlae more friendly to pedestrians


See the discussion on the pages at The Center for Creating the Future 
CCF



































REMINDER:  September 26, 2002   MARK YOUR CALENDAR

The Center for Creating the Future
www.creatingthefuture.org
E-mail:  crefut@bellsouth.net
Fort Lauderdale, FL

The Center will host an evening to discuss
The Future of Fort Lauderdale with a focus on Northwest Fort Lauderdale.

Tony Abbate has some good documentation of pedestrian/transit access in Bogota and Havana.   I’ve put some photos on the web site at
www.oocities.org/futureofparking/photoshavana.html

Tony Abbate believes that the Greenberg/Gloria Katz planning process would be a good opportunity to look at more of these issues related to walking.

Tony could bring his questions and suggestions to an evening devoted to “What is the future of downtown Fort Lauderdale?”  and “What is the future of Northwest Fort Lauderdale?”  (since the two futures are clearly linked).

Here are some items:

The power station/utility transmission place that is surrounded with chain link fencing could be plastered and encircled with large posters depicting houses and buildings from the 1930s and 1940s in Fort Lauderdale.  A public art project included gathering photos of that era and remembrances of people who lived back through those times (example:  Dizzy Gillespie stayed in a hotel in NW Ft Lauderdale).

Why not have
“talking rocks” activated by a pedestrian’s presence to turn on the voices of the past?

When we think if
Calle Ocho, we don’t think of Publix Supermarket… there’s Sedano’s supermarket.  So why not have a black-owned / Caribbean themed supermarket on Sistrunk? 

In short, Tony asked,
“What are we doing here this is right?”

Rather than look to Europe and South America for examples (
City Place is the result), why not find what is special about local arrangements and just make more of them?

Looking to Europe suggests that “we’re doing something wrong.” 
Why not look in our past and find what we did right?  SEE:  www.oldfortlauderdale.org    and   www.flhsphotos.org 

The format of the evening could include a short presentation by Tony, who has a thesis about
the role of a building or a walkway to “grab the passerby”. What can the city do to encourage the creation of such buildings?  What are we currently doing that discourages the “native creation” from occurring?

Can the Sun-Sentinel to print the results of the evening (everyone bringing in photos of old Fort Lauderdale or of features in other cities that could be adapted locally)?  Crefut (CCF) could invite people to bring items or describe suggested improvements.

Anyone with suggestions on how to improve the "life of the city" is invited to attend: 
Sept. 26


COMING IN OCTOBER:  Symposium about Bogota

Through the Arango Design Foundation and with the help of local sponsors,
including Tom Gustafson, we will be hosting a symposium and presentation of
the Bogota Project in October. The invited guest presenters include Dr.
Enrique Penalosa, Ex-Mayor of Bogota who was instrumental in getting the
project underway; Mr. Jose Salazar, Director of the "Taller de la Ciudad"
(City-Studio) who was responsible for the overall design of the
infrastructure and urban design elements; and Mr. Lorenzo Castro, Director
of Planning and Logistics for the project.  They will describe the public
process and the design process for this remarkable project which won the
Stockholm Challenge Award in 2000, being selected from among 600 cities
world-wide. More information at:
http://www.ecoplan.org/votebogota2000/general/bogotaproject.htm

We hope to confirm dates and speakers in the next few weeks.

Anthony Abbate AIA



click here for a parallel site to the Bogota Symposium
REMINDER:  September 26, 2002  
The Center for Creating the Future's Thursday Evening Discusion about:
The Future of Fort Lauderdale with a focus on Northwest Fort Lauderdale.

COMING IN OCTOBER:  Symposium about Bogota
Symposium about Bogota
Bicycle traffic light
Vehicle block (bollard) that also functions as a one-seat bench.  The short design discourages sleeping on city benches.
Bus stop.
Note the clock and street location.
Chicago has cows.  Bogota has trees.
The roof of the library is open to the public.  There is an auditorium on the right..
Bus stop.
Note the clock and street location.
In Bogota, there are 4-wheeled Korean/Japanese automobile taxis.