-Are you an urbanist?
-Yes, I love the city.
(from the film «The Journalist,» 1967)
Who are urbanists? And is it enough just to love the city to become one? We were looking for answers to these and other topical questions about the profession with growing popularity.
Urbanism is a kind of teaching about the processes of life of the city. This concept appeared not in itself, but in the process of urbanization: the movement of people from rural to urban areas. In 1800, no more than 2% of the population lived in cities. More than 200 years later, in 2008, the United Nations announced that the world had established urban domination for the first time.
Perhaps, it is worth starting with the fact that the urbanist is not a profession and not a occupation, but a sphere of competence. This is the foundation that is needed by a sociologist, geographer, architect and any other modern resident of the city.
And you need to understand that urbanism is not just parks, benches, sidewalks and trams. Urbanism is about life and connections in the city, it's about people.
The current phenomenon has not spared us. The first Urban Center in Kazakhstan appeared at the Almaty City Development Center. The main task of the Urbanism Center is to develop proposals for the development of a comfortable city, through the creation of a dialogue between the citizens and the city administration.
One of the first and most significant projects of the Center was the competition for the best concept of public space on the territory of the tram depot. Another major project is a large-scale survey of city parks, squares, boulevards, alleys and groves. According to the results of the survey, sketch projects were created for the reconstruction of 22 parks, alleys and boulevards. In the future, it is planned to continue the development of sketches of other parks in order to create an urban green corridor with networks of bicycle and treadmills.
The Center for Urban Studies conducts urban research, supports community initiatives, organizes open workshops and master classes, and exchanges experiences with professional communities in order to develop urban spaces and comfortable life in the city.
If you love the city and urban life, you have interesting ideas and projects on how to change the city for the better - write to the urban@almatydc.kz
