Millions were on the streets in Paris last weekend to show solidarity with those who lost their lives exercising their right to freedom of expression. The “Je suis Charlie” groundswell drove Parisians to gather at the Place de la Republique to start the silent march down the beautiful boulevards of Paris.
The meeting place was appropriate not only symbolically but also physically. This plaza that was built in the 19th century to honor the Third Republic had degenerated into a place for cars, taxis and other vehicles instead of a public place for people by the end of the 20th century.
The Paris government decided to remedy the situation and called for a competition for the plaza’s redesign into a pedestrian haven. A French and American urban design and landscape architectural firms collaborated in the winning entry.
The winning design recovered two of the three hectares of the plaza and turned it into a pedestrian and bike-friendly public space. The rotunda with the main landmark statue and fountain celebrating the Third Republic was maintained and surrounded now with people-friendly paving, additional water features, and café kiosks and al fresco areas.
The renovation was completed in 2013 and instantly became a hit with locals and tourists. Only cab and private drivers protested but the popularity of the place soon erased any resistance to the recovered plaza.
The papal visit and millions attending the outdoor events with the Pope call up the need for similar venues. The Rizal Park’s Burnham Green fronting the Quirino Grandstand is our only equivalent public space.
We have lost all of our public plazas to traffic and parking. Manila has about a dozen or so plazas from the Spanish colonial era. These, like the Place de la Republique, are defined by heritage buildings. Our plazas here are losing these buildings at an alarming rate. So both buildings and space here are threatened, while in Paris they are conserved and improved. Can you guess which city receives more tourists? Which city is friendlier to pedestrians? Which city is more loved by its inhabitants?
The other venue of the papal visit in Manila is the Manila Cathedral. The Plaza Roma in front of it is a great space but it is in need of renovations. The current Intramuros administration has plans for its improvements and for turning it and the surrounding roads into a wholly pedestrian space.
The two events, albeit for different reasons, highlight the need for streets , plazas and parks for people. Metro Manila has 12 million inhabitants but hardly any new parks and plazas have been built since the time when the population was only one million strong. Sidewalks have also not been built or have disappeared except in privately developed urban centers. The developers of these centers do have some open spaces for people but no activity of a civic or political nature is allowed.
The million-man marches for the Pope and the Black Nazarene bring lessons that we do have to apply in the design of public spaces, and streets. It also brings out the arching need to provide efficient mass transit systems so people have transport options other than private cars or inefficient jeepneys.
One must note that public space-rich cities like Paris and New York are serviced by efficient subways and bus systems. In both cities too, freight is transported mostly by rail to ports and do not clog up their city streets. We should learn this lesson too as the easement for our railroads still leads into the city and near the ports but no one is taking measures to use this option and save the metropolis from choking traffic every day.
I hope the papal visit is a complete success. Everyone wishes the best for Paris and the rest of France. It’s a terrible world we have now unless people can come together and unite overcoming barriers of religion, politics and class. Public space has a role to play in erasing these obstacles. Metro Manila should take measures to recover lost space and give it back to the people as Paris has done.
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