When I arrived in Bogotá and started my search for a place to live, an essential element of any candidate apartment was a balcony with plenty of sunshine.  I once lived without outdoor space in Manhattan.  As much as I loved my neighborhood and apartment, with no place to recline in the sun and tend some plants I felt confined.  City life by its nature separates us from the natural world, but even a small balcony or veranda can bring a substantive experience of nature back into one's life.  I have covered my Bogotá balcony with flowering plants, adding color and a refuge for wildlife to a previously barren space, and to my delight it's become a regular stop for green violet-ear hummingbirds, black flowerpiercers, and rufous-collared sparrows - who are at this very moment nibbling on some seeds I left out this morning.  
Balcony biodiversity is one new emphasis of urban environmentalists and it is gaining traction in some cities.  The Royal Horticultural Society in the UK held a competition on balcony biodiversity last year and there are a few British bloggers who cover balcony gardening.  It's not surprising that the UK leads in this (there are few countries as addicted to gardening), but what is encouraging to me is evidence of serious balcony gardening in cities all over the world - and its potential for supporting and increasing biodiversity.    

Last Friday I returned to Bogotá from Santiago, Chile, where I'd spent 10 days on holiday.  Santiago has many faces.   It has a European-style city center, areas more typically Latin American, and a wealthy east that looks much like northern California.  Santiago isn't as fashionable as Buenos Aires, but it does have a sense of order and functionality that makes it seem like many cities in the developed world.  But what most engaged my green eyes was the remarkably verdant balconies throughout the city.  The variety and exuberance of vegetation on these Santiago verandas is really unusual.  In Santiago I don't see much of the highly formal planting style that is more common here in Bogotá.  Instead it's a wild mish-mosh of plants that are allowed to grow and spill out over the edges with seemingly little attempt at reining it all in.

This penchant for green extends to professional buildings, as well.  On the left is the business school of the prestigious Catholic University, which has flowering vines (I don't know the species) as a built-in architectural feature.  Some decorative columns in the plaza in front of this building have small trees growing out of the top of them.  
The city of Santiago has a green plan, Santiago Verde, which nicely complements Santiago's green balconies.  The city is planting 250,000 new trees every year and designing new thematic plazas which will be named after the types of trees planted.  There will be, for example, literary plazas, gastronomic plazas and medicinal plazas, each harboring on average 50 species of trees famous in literature, food and medicine, respectively.  This program is part of Chile's national Proyecto Forestación Urbana, wherein 17 million trees will be planted in Chile's cities.  I saw a lot of progress within the city and in Santiago's outlying areas.    

Some may ask if maintaining and increasing biodiversity in cities really matters.  Wouldn't it be wiser to instead focus on protecting biodiversity in natural areas, such as national parks?  The answer is becoming clear.  As urban areas relentlessly expand into agricultural, forest and natural areas, regional biodiversity is threatened.  Threats - including extinction - to many species are accelerating globally.  There is no denying the trends.  Building urban environments with habitats and sources of food for wildlife helps compensate for the loss of other habitat.  It can also create bridges between areas of remaining natural habitat now separated by human settlements, allowing for safe movement between populations of wildlife.  And as the biggest impediment to changing our destructive environmental trajectory is a lack of awareness and understanding, an urban commitment to maintaining biodiversity helps reconnect city dwellers (the majority of humanity) to the natural world making them feel they have a stake and a role in its future.

As I'm writing about biodiversity I couldn't resist including a  picture of one of Santiago's most unforgettable species:  its street dogs. There are a large number of dogs living on the streets in Santiago, but it's not at all as you would find in a typical developing-world city.  These dogs generally look very healthy and clean, are well behaved, and just seem to be equals among the human pedestrians of the city.  I see this as just another sign of Santiago's civility.   

Santiago is a city nearing its destiny as the first developed-world capital in Latin America.  You can see it in the faces of the people, in the over one-hundred kilometers of shiny metro lines, and in the general sense of civility and calm.  Santiago may not be the most glamorous or exciting city in South America, but it does offer something rather unique in the region:  predictability and confidence in the future.  The green balconies of Santiago announce a city that has come of age.  .  

A holistic city vision and plan for streets, green spaces and green transport is a foundation for high-quality city life.  But what exactly is it that makes for an urban landscape that supports the good life?  In this posting I focus on mobility, a critical key to urban health.  Mobility in a sophisticated urban life is the ability for anyone to get around a city safely, quickly, and with little or no stress.       
In most cities today, a minority has a stranglehold on the space allocated to transport.  This minority (and it is a minority in most cities of the world) is city dwellers who use cars.  Big-city space is scarce, and with one person in a car taking up an area that could accommodate dozens in a bus or streetcar, or maybe 6 on bicycles, cars tend to overwhelm urban infrastructure and rob everyone of quality mobility.
Large cities around the world are looking for solutions to the mobility problem, and those that have succeeded have almost invariably placed limits on the automobile.  These successful cities have built accessible and efficient public transport systems.  Some have gone a step further, making bicycling a safe and viable option for all urban residents, revolutionizing urban life in unexpectedly nice ways.  Innovative street design, incorporating bicycle paths, is central to the plans of any city aiming for the highest quality of urban life.

Bicycle paths take many forms, but can simply be defined as designated lanes for bicycle use.  Ideally, these paths are segregated from automobile and other traffic, although the reality in dense urban areas is that bicycle lanes are often shared and/or just added as an afterthought to existing streets with no separation from vehicular traffic.  
The development of bicycle infrastructure (but not bicycle usage) tends to closely follow socioeconomic indicators such as high income and high education.  The countries best known for providing excellent paths for bicyclists include the Netherlands, Denmark, and Germany.  Cities with a similar reputation include Montreal, Portland, Perth, Barcelona, and even New York as of late.  But one city ranked near the top for its biking infrastructure is a bit out of place in this elite group of wealthy countries and cities:  Bogotá, the capital of Colombia.  Bogotá consistently ranks among the top ten cities globally for biking, and it provides a model for many other cities in the developing world.  There's a fascinating history behind Bogotá's unlikely rise, and I recommend you take a look at Martin Herrndorf's blog on this topic here.

Bogotá, although nestled in the high Andes and with an impressive mountain backdrop, is generally a flat city that is ideal for bicycle transport.  The planners of the cicloruta (Spanish for bike path) system in Bogotá have used this flatness, and the city's grid pattern, to make for an extensive system (over 300km) of separated bike paths that efficiently take you just about anywhere in the city. I have ridden across nearly half the system in my five months in Bogotá, and generally the experience has been excellent.  The system is well-maintained, and despite the rainy climate and sometimes bad air pollution along major roads, it's a wonderful way to get around the city.  
The paths here are used for leisure and exercise, general transport, and have a surprising number of people delivering goods of great variety - from hot meals to metal piping.  I could just as easily exchange the word 'people' with 'men', however, when describing users of the ciclorutas.  My impression is that male bikers greatly outnumber female bikers, especially on weekdays.  I can only speculate as to why (maybe security concerns or an idea that it's not a feminine way to get around).  A recent article in Transportation Alternatives gives some answers to a similar question in New York City. 
Finally let me clarify that despite its extensiveness the cicloruta system in Bogotá is not, in my observations, used like systems in Amsterdam and Copenhagen as a primary mode of transport for office workers.  But this is a topic for another posting.    

Despite my optimism about biking in  Bogotá, it does present certain  challenges and frustrations.  In cities such as Amsterdam, with a long history of urban bicycling, a common culture of biking has developed wherein every Dutch person seems to  instinctively know the basic rules.  Pedestrians and vehicles usually stay out of bike lanes, bicyclists signal to each other to indicate turns, and a general level of biking civility is maintained.  In Bogotá its more of a free-for-all.  Pedestrians routinely walk in bike lanes, cars and other vehicles (and vendor carts) block the routes, and in any situation where a bicyclist needs to enter a proper street, it can be dangerous.  There is a general lack of respect for bicyclists (and pedestrians) by drivers in this city.  Cars do not tend to slow down and yield to bicycles - even if there is a stop sign demanding this.  What's needed here is more verkehrsberuhigung, a wonderful compound German word for traffic calming, a concept the embraces the view that streets are public spaces that should be shared equally by all users.  Typical traffic calming strategies include speed bumps, curb extensions, and signs indicating pedestrian/bicycle crossing areas.  

In addition to its ciclorutas, there are additional opportunities for bicyclists in this huge metropolis.  Every Sunday and national holiday Bogotá closes over 120km of city streets to traffic and from 7 a.m. to 2 p.m. the streets are the domain of bicyclists, pedestrians, rollerbladers and others luxuriating in the usually off-limits expanses of space devoted to the automobile.  This practice is called ciclovia and the city estimates it provides exhaust-free exercise space for over 1 million people and it is hugely popular here.  There are few better ways to get in touch with the local scene in Bogotá than to ride or stroll down one of the closed streets on a Sunday morning.   It's a festive occasion and a whole industry has arisen to cater to the needs of those out on the streets.  There are well-organized vendors selling drinks, fruit and other snacks and bicycle repair stands lining the streets.  Ciclovia is a practice that should be adopted by cities all over the world, and it's not isolated to Bogotá.  I've seen a similar, if less well-organized, program in Guadalajara, Mexico.   

For my work with CitiNature, the ciclorutas of Bogotá provide a natural space for projects, as they are inconsistently greened.  Biking under a green canopy adds visual pleasure to a ride.  Trees give a fresh smell to the air, provide protection from the tropical sun and act as a buffer with traffic.  In some areas, the vegetation along the paths is lush, in others patchy or nonexistent.  There are many spaces that may have once been planted with trees and bushes that today are empty - easy targets for a greening project.  .  
There are also many un-pruned trees that  obstruct bicyclists.  It's not uncommon to have to duck as you ride to pass through some areas.  I envision a project wherein CitiNature will help train volunteer pruners to do this job, as is done in New York City.     

The opportunities open to bicyclists in Bogotá add to the quality of life in this city and with increased cycling - especially for commuting to work - the physical environment of Bogotá can further improve.  
To purchase a bike in Bogotá and start making a difference, check out Martin's excellent recommendations.  

Announcements of trips to Colombia, and Bogotá its capital, are generally followed by quizzical glances, questions about safety (and sanity), and repetitions of well-worn cliches about the drug trade.  People are skeptical about Colombia.  After more than three months of living here, I must say that Bogotá is one of the most misunderstood and underrated capitals in the world.  It has a dramatic setting high in the Andes, with a lush range of the mountains running right alongside.  It's a city of grand scale moving rapidly away from a past of violence and urban chaos into a period of greater safety and urban renewal.  And there's an infectious energy in the air that's hard not to succumb to.  

I came to Bogotá to consider it as a site for future projects with CitiNature and soon after arrival I was convinced that this was a place with which I wanted to engage and put down some roots.  In this blog posting I'll give a general overview of the city's allure to an urban greening activist.    

Three things sum up my excitement about Bogotá: 1) its positive trajectory; 2) an ideal climate; 
3) its expansive scale.    

Bogotá is not an ancient colonial city (although it does have a beautiful historic center), but instead a modern city with an orientation towards the future.  In many parts you could easily mistake yourself for being in newer districts of a European city.  And the similarities are not skin deep.  Bogotá has one of the most extensive systems of bicycle paths in the world (over 300km of paths and growing), a rapidly expanding express bus system (almost like a metro) called the Transmilenio, a government  intent on improving the infrastructure for pedestrians (there are carefully laid brick pedestrian pavements in many areas of the city now), and a cafe culture unlike I've seen anywhere else in the western hemisphere. It's not a city looking back.  

The climate in Bogotá is reminiscent of a Scandinavian summer - and this climate is year-round, shifting only through periods of more or less rain.  Nights are quite cool, but the strong sun warms the city quickly in the mornings.  With abundant rainfall and mild temperatures, Bogotá should be a mecca for gardeners.  This is a city of lush green lawns, blossoming flowers, and hundreds of parks.  Gardening in the nicer parts of town tends to be done by professional gardeners and they do beautiful work with an incredible range of plants that this permanently temperate climate allows.  

For people in search of a project, Bogotá is a city of enticing opportunities.  As might be expected in the 4th largest city in Latin America, Bogotá boasts vast areas of impressive wealth shadowed by neighborhoods less opulent, and large areas of real and relative poverty.  Some 30% of the population officially live below the poverty line.  The city epitomizes the global correlation between wealth and "green."  The wealthier neighborhoods of Bogotá are generously supplied with parks and the streets lined with trees and bushes.  They are wrapped in green, from gardens spilling over high-rise terraces to meticulously manicured landscapes.  The rich in Bogotá know what they've got: the perfect climate for exuberant vegetation.  And it is stunningly beautiful.  

Move a bit to the west from the wealth along the base of the mountains (or south from the newer districts in the north), however, and things start to change, sometimes abruptly.  Areas that previously were solidly middle class or wealthy have obviously been in decline for some time, I imagine due to the violence this city experienced in the not too distant past.  Single homes are much harder to protect than high-rises with doormen and the population with money may have largely migrated to new areas of high density.    Once charming neighborhoods are slowly crumbling through benign neglect, and previously elegant parks and streets are losing their trees and bushes.  Few seem to care about maintaining them.  Some streets have entirely lost their trees.  In the poorer neighborhoods there may never have been trees in the first place.  

But as security has increased, the possibilities for urban renewal are endless.  There are a surprising number of streets lined with architecture that might be right at home in the hearts of European cities.  Older neighborhoods surrounding parks seem only to need the right spark for rejuvenation efforts to begin.  I'm of the opinion that this is the time to be in Bogotá and be one of those sparks that brings this city closer to reaching its potential as the most lovely and livable in South America.  And as an urban greening advocate, the low-hanging fruit are in abundance.  Streets and parks that have lost their trees could rapidly be replanted.  As the climate is so benign here, with ample rainfall, the typical losses associated with urban tree planting would be minimized.  A green revolution is in the offing, and I want to be a part of it. 

Below are a few more pictures of the characteristic brick architecture in neglected areas of Bogotá, something I hadn't expected to find in South America.  

This initial snapshot of Bogotá wouldn't be complete without a few pictures of the beautiful historic center, which follow below.  

In the following weeks and months I will be reporting more on Bogotá and CitiNature's plans here.  I recommend to anyone who hasn't been to Colombia to consider putting it on your agenda.  It is a rare jewel of a country generally uncrowded by tourists.   

Tel Aviv, and Israel as a whole, is a destination that makes you feel at home and want to return.  On my next visit I hope to visit more green projects, such as the old garbage dump in the east of Tel Aviv that is being transformed into a park.  The city has a long way to go to be at the top of heap of green cities – for example it’s missing an easy-to-use and comprehensive public transportation system and a usable web of bike paths – but from what I see, it’s definitely moving in the right direction. 

 

With a spring-like climate year round, and a setting of rare natural beauty, Santa Cruz de Tenerife was a unexpectedly pleasant discovery for me.  I came to visit my friend Hiromi Hayashi, a Japanese food journalist who I co-wrote a book with in 1991.  She lives in Santa Cruz de Tenerife half the year - just off the pedestrian street you see above.  In no way did I expect to find the lavish attention on greenery in city planning.  Not only are most streets lined with trees, bushes and flowers, but even some buildings spill green off their sides, as you see below. 

In the crowded center, with its narrow streets, a transformation has come about...there are trees, quality paving stones, planters everywhere, and benches for people to enjoy their beautiful city.  My impression is that much of the beautification and greening has occurred in the last decade or so.  This is Spain at its best.