- 理论探讨
- 作者简介：作者：理查德·雷吉斯特，国际生态城市学会主席，美国生态城市建设者股份有限公司总裁。
翻译：林光奕，中国科学院、建设部山地城镇与区域环境研究中心副教授，资讯部主任。邮编：重庆，400045。
翻译稿审阅：黄光宇，重庆大学教授，博导，中国科学院、建设部山地城镇与区域环境研究中心主任。
- 实验城市与政府投资
- Experimental Cities and Government Investment
- 浏览量：
- 理查德·雷吉斯特 翻译：林光奕
- Richard Register Translator: Lin Guangyi
- 关键词：
； - If we are to build ecologically healthy cities we will have to become very honest about government investments. In the United States most people say we 搃nvest?in freeways and give 搒ubsidies?to transit. The implication is that lesser citizens are supported by the public charity when they use transit, but that wealthier people who can afford to buy their own transportation vehicles and generally pay higher taxes are somehow not the recipients of government 揼iveaways? In reality both expenditures for transit and for freeways is a use of the same government funds for various sectors of the population. But there is a profound difference in the damage that is caused to nature, resources and social opportunity of various classes of people that results from investment/subsidy to freeways rather than transit. Cars, freeways, sprawl development and extreme dependence upon petroleum (or electricity should electric cars become numerous) has a gigantic negative impact that we will not, for lack of space, quantify here. Instead I will give only one example of its results. According to a report issued earlier this year by the National Wildlife Federation of the United States, the country抯 largest environmental organization, sprawl alone is responsible for 66% of all species endangered or threatened in California. 揚aving Paradise? as the paper is called, points out that 188 of the 286 listed species are facing likely extinction because of habitat displacement by development alone. They don抰 even factor in poisonous water runoff, toxic air pollution and climate change caused by the automobile, sprawl, freeway, oil infrastructure. Imagine the United States following California抯 lead it is! And imagine developing countries following America抯 lead in building this way they are! We need to be clear that we can invest in something far healthier.
If there is a big difference between investing in the auto/sprawl infrastructure and investing in transit and more compact development, there is even a greater difference between investing in auto/sprawl infrastructure and investing in urban infrastructure that allows people to walk or bicycle to where they need to be. That we call designing for 揳ccess by proximity?in my organization, Ecocity Builders. Transportation is supposed to deliver access for the people to jobs, goods, services, education, recreation, friends everything normal to a happy, productive, healthy life. Access by proximity means providing access to what people need by designing our cities, towns and villages so that most activities are provided for at close proximity. To spend public funds on developing buildings in an integral relationship to one another is equivalent, in terms of access, to providing access by investment/subsidy to cars and freeways, but with a far healthier result for nature, resources and future generations and their natural world.
About one in six people in the United States is employed in the automobile, oil or related work, from car mechanics and sales people to insurance agents and car factory workers, from oil company geologists and office workers to car wash employees and ambulance drivers who spend a fair fraction of their time pulling people out of car wrecks. Add to that the similar fraction of the population building freeways, selling asphalt and constructing new subdivisions so far from town that the only reasonably speedy way of getting there is by car -until the traffic clogs and you see it is no wonder people in America don抰 want to be honest about government support (investment/subsidy) to highways and oil companies. They feel their jobs would be threatened in a shift to another way of building and providing access. In fact, in reshaping cities, jobs should shift from building one kind of infrastructure to another, but government should generously support (investment/subsidy again) in helping to retool industry and retrain workers. By the way, developing countries like China have an advantage over already developed countries that have built up auto/sprawl infrastructure in that they can invest in tooling up for industry right in the first place and training workers in building ecologically healthy cities now, rather than retraining them later for the inevitable shift, a shift that will be made necessary by collapsing resources and unraveling of the life systems of Earth抯 biosphere.
We will return to these thoughts about investment/subsidies and designing for 揳ccess by proximity?momentarily, but now is a good time to mention an idea that occurred to me while sitting in the audience at the International Forum on Capacity Building for China Sustainable Development in Guangzhou, November, 2000. I noticed a few things in my brief experience of China to that point, a quick impression that may not be completely accurate but generally correct and worth considering seriously.
Idea:
(1) China has no fear of high density (America extremely dependent on cars and sprawl development does).
(2) China also is developing very rapidly.
(3) China has a fascinating, very possibly promising 搒ystem of two systems? a communistic, centrally planned nation state yet with large, very active and prospering enclaves of capitalism a major experiment on Earth today and one very interested in sustainability and innovation.
Therefore:
China should build three experimental cities, each of them for approximately 100,000 people large enough to learn a great deal about urban organization and sustainability on an urban scale. For purposes of bringing human economy and civilization into balance with nature, no more important experiment can be conceived.
City number one: for pedestrians
City number two: for pedestrians and bicyclists
City number three: for pedestrians, bicyclists and public transit
Pedestrian City Number One
This city is extremely compact and tall, something like a large single building and three-dimensional, not two-dimensional like sprawl or one dimensional like a tower or strip development stretching for miles along a highway. The Pedestrian City is open to air and light with large interiors. Sun angles, climate factors, local biodiversity, thorough recycling etc. are highly respected. This looks something like a combination of Italian/American architect Paolo Soleri抯 揂rcology?work and Kuala Lumpur architect Ken Yeang抯 揃ioclimatic Architecture? They should be involved in any project to build City One. This city stands on a quarter to a tenth of the land occupied by typical conventional cities, saving enormous amounts of agricultural and natural land. Energy is provided mainly by solar or other renewables that do not destroy at one use (burning) the fossil chemicals called 揻ossil fuels? do not massively pollute air, water and land and do not draw down soil fertility or excessively impede natural watercourses. Transportation is largely a by-product of 揳ccess by proximity?designing the structure for enormous diversity at close proximity. Therefore people can walk everywhere. Horizontal linkages occur on bridges, terraces, rooftops and at ground level as streets, interior passageways and conveyor belts. Vertical connections are made by stairs, ramps, escalators and elevators. Warehousing is in the basement, not in the suburbs. Hand carts, pedal vehicles and fork lifts deal with heavy loads at short distances, not trucks traveling long distances. Trains and airlines connect the city to other cities. Large freeways do not connect this city with the outside world, though small and medium sized highways do and even these are not numerous because the trains work so well. City-connecting rails and highways pass over or under migratory routes of natural animals and continuous belts of natural vegetation that maintain corridors of natural integrity.
Pedestrian and Bicycle City Number Two
This city is about one third as compact as the pedestrian city with much larger 搃nterior?plazas and open spaces. Not quite as high, or three-dimensional, it supports similar biodiversity and runs on renewable energy in the manner of City Number One. Bridges, terraces, rooftops, streets and interior passageways are also featured here but the whole is somewhat more open than in the strictly pedestrian city. This would look similar to some of my own drawings. As in the Pedestrian City, City Two has warehousing in lower areas and is connected to the outside world mainly by train and with minimal impact on bioregional and large scale natural environments. The Pedestrian Bicycle City has a cluster of compact ecovillages and small towns around its cluster of major centers and downtown, these centers usually separated by fairly narrow belts of agricultural and natural land and waters. Every place from outlying ecovillage to downtown is at most a fifteen minute bicycle ride from each other. Fancy and sleek bicycles and three- and four-wheeled pedal vehicles are used for recreation and visiting friends along with the more utilitarian pedal vehicles for commuting and work.
Pedestrian, Bicycle and Transit City Number Three
This city is something like a more dense version of Curitiba, Brazil but of smaller population and without the glut of cars that city is now beginning to suffer. The pedestrian centers are large and linked with a few 搒atellite centers?that are something like compact towns a short distance away by rail, but farther than the ecovillages adjacent major town centers in City Number Two. This city still appears to be compact and highly organized in its physical structure compared to today抯 conventional cities, but features nature reaching in and through the city. It is more porous than cities Number One and Number Two but to function efficiently and pleasantly, it also runs on renewable energy and uses the vertical dimension and 揳ccess by proximity? rather than long distance trucking and commuting. Its transit is light rail or streetcar and not based on busses that, in the United States for example, wander around almost empty attempting very inefficiently to fill in for cars on a large, flat landscape of development.
It struck me at the time, sitting there in the audience at the Guangzhou conference, that building these three cities would give us the clarity about urban form and transport or urban form and the role of access by proximity that we now lack. All our experiments on a larger scale to date are contaminated by private motorized vehicles. The mixing of cars into cities that are testing density and access/transport relationships, as is Curitiba, Brazil, is like pouring concentrated acid into laboratory test tubes in the middle of a what might be a very subtle reaction. Cars we have experimented with in a gigantic, unsystematic, highly unscientific way in almost all cities on Earth by now and we still have yet to learn the lessons of good urban design for the human being, natural environment, health of agricultural soils and stability of vibrant biodiversity into the deep future. To gain that kind of knowledge we need something akin to an uncontaminated laboratory experiment and the three experimental cities I just described could provide precisely that. The discipline of staying within each city抯 design constraint pedestrian transport only in, pedestrian and pedal vehicles in the second, and pedestrian, pedal vehicles and streetcars in the third and thinking through the massing, sun angles, air flow, local recycling of organic nutrients and so on would produce information of the most important kind for future decisions about the design of cities, and considering the size and impact of cities, the health of the planet.
The full richness of traditional cities would take some time in coming to these experimental cities since time itself and the slow creation of old town districts means a great deal to the fullness of urban life. Suburban sprawl suffers this problem permanently, as does higher density areas of cities built for enormous single-uses, as does new areas that later become warmly human and urban at the same time. Like other new larger districts, these three experimental cities would have this limitation for many years, though they could grow out of it, yet the knowledge we could gain in studying ourselves living in these intentionally humanized and de-mechanized built environments, I am convinced, would be a long step toward the design wisdom humanity now lacks. And this knowledge could be gained relatively quickly in the sheer clarity of functioning within the design constraints defined by the different means of access created. We lack the wisdom that could evolve from this knowledge because we have been designing cities for the things we accumulate more so than the life those things redesigned could support. The transportation devices, the buildings, the layout of the whole city needs to be rethought on that very different basis.
In this the United States is way behind many other countries where automobiles have not yet completely banished the awareness that life is social, cultural, biological, natural not consumer goods, cars or scattered private houses to accumulate the goods, is the best reason for city-building. Again, the developing countries are in a better position than the developed in the sense of not having to retool and retrain for healthy cities; they can directly tool up and train for the ecologically healthy city.
After I left China last November, my colleague Rusong Wang took the three experimental cities idea to academic, government and development circles. He reported that there was some real enthusiasm among the first two, but that developers were doubtful that they could make money on such cities in a relatively short period of time. Yet these cities should be built.
That\'s when I started thinking about the subsidy to drivers in America called an \"investment\" and the investment in transit called a \"subsidy\". What we need, I concluded, is more thorough-going planning that realizes we can invest in \"access\"? not just transportation either for car or transit. We need to see investment in the basic physical structure of the city as well as the highway and transport system as a legitimate investment for the sake of the people and nature both.
Governments could build or pay for basic concrete and steel structures for -larger building skeletons, with mixed-uses and balanced development determined as part of the plan rather than build or pay for highways connecting far-flung areas of single-uses. I saw a small version of this in Berlin in 1988: three large slabs of concrete and steel hovering on walls and posts with twenty feet between. Stairs, pipes and wires connected through the slabs and out through the water, sewer, gas, electricity, and phone lines. This structure was paid for by the developers with a government investment/subsidy for experimental buildings in a program called the Berlin Building Exhibition, and space between and above the top slab was sold to other owner/developers as one might sell land with streets and utility hook ups provided. Then the new owners of each floor built differing versions of what they wanted, without having to build the basic support system. The owner or developer who bought the \"space\" between the slabs then built non-bearing divider walls, mezzanines, windows and finished detailing.
If on a city-scale governments invested in the future by constructing those structural slabs and supports and provided them at very low cost or free to developers they would be using tax money to deliver the services of earlier profits to developers and access to whatever all the citizens need in a city by providing proximity to it. The investment in this case would be in the buildings and their arrangement rather than the freeways and their scatterization of the community.
As capitalism sweeps the planet something is being swept under the rug and that is that government is still all there is that is purposefully and primarily dedicated to the common good. Companies do serve their customers, but even in theory they\'d just assume take advantage of them, convince them through advertising to buy what they don\'t need, charge as much as possible and maximize profits for owners and investors. Government has traditionally served other values as well, supporting arts, creative invention, protection of nature, education of the children and so on. Often government has allied itself with the wealthiest or most powerful, become self-serving and corrupt or taxed excessively those that couldn\'t afford it to benefit particular groups or individuals as political favors. But such conduct has been universally seen as a distortion of the proper role of government.
If the proper role of government includes providing for a healthy future for its citizens?children and their world, then one of the most important roles it can play is to invest in restructuring the city for people on foot, bicycle and rail. For the long term health of everyone, the age of cars, sprawl, freeways and burning oil as fast as we can has to come to an end and that will happen when governments begin investing in a very different kind of urban structure of the sort described as our three experimental cities.
A last note on the role of mountain settlements since this paper is being written for a conference on that subject in relation to sustainability. It is with great regret that I can not attend the conference but I would like to comment that I use photographs of mountain settlements in my slide presentations all over the world. That is because in these settlements, often small towns or villages, one can see all the important parts of the community arranged in close proximity with natural landscapes near by, and often those are the most beautiful landscapes on Earth. I have noticed in Nepal and the Indian Himalayas, for example, that these communities are invariably relatively compact and that they utilize rooftops for utility, spiritual reasons and views to the natural countryside. Because the land is steep, any built flat surfaces are particularly appreciated and well used. In addition, the people are used to the vertical dimension and practiced at walking up and down as well as horizontally. Many of these villages and towns are ancient and remote from more modern cities with their mechanized transportation systems and thus they were built in the first place for people, not machines. The result is that we have in mountainous settlements among the best examples for thinking through what we need in the larger scale cities everywhere. The quiet of these settlements and the million stars at night are not just because of energy saving, pollution reducing \"access by proximity\" but have the effect of bringing wonder and poetry into the lives of mountain people everywhere. We need to understand these settlements and how they could help us rethink future cities.
如果我们要建设生态健康的城市，我们就必须在政府投资方面做出正当的决策。在美国，大多数人说我们“投资”于高速公路而对公共交通给予“补贴”。这里面的含义包括经济上不那么宽裕的公民要靠公共慈善资助，但能买得起自己的运输车辆并通常交纳较高税金的较富有的人，却也不能成为政府“赠品”的受益者。事实上，公共交通和高速公路的开支，均是使用政府用于各种成分人口的同一笔资金。但对高速公路而不是对公共交通的投资与补贴，造成了对自然、对资源的破坏，和对各阶层人民的社会机遇的破坏，这些破坏自身有着深刻的差异。汽车、高速公路、城市的无序蔓延发展及对石油（或在电动汽车数量太多时对电力）的极端依赖，产生了巨大的负面效应，对这种负面效应，本文由于篇幅所限而不作量化分析。取而代之的是，我将对诸多不良后果提出一个实例：根据国家最大的环境保护组织美国全国野生生命基金会于今年早期时候发布的一份报告，单单蔓延开发一项，就造成了加利福尼亚州全部物种的66%处于濒危状态或遭受威胁。如报刊所说的那种“通向天国之路”的行为，使得有记录的286种物种中，188种因栖息地被开发而面临着可能的灭绝。 这还没有计入有毒废水的排放、空气的污染，以及由于汽车、蔓延开发、高速公路、供油基础设施等因素所造成的气候变化。想象一下步加利福尼亚后尘的整个美国吧！想象一下仍以这种方式建设而自身却在步美国后尘的发展中国家吧！需要认清：我们是有可能在有益于健康得多的方面进行投资的。
如果在投资于汽车及基础设施蔓延开发和投资于公共交通及更加密集的开发之间存在着巨额差别的话，那么在汽车及高速公路蔓延设施的投资和让人们步行或骑自行车的城市基础设施的投资之间，就存在着甚至更大的差额。我所在的组织“生态城市建设者”称这种为人们步行或骑自行车而做出的设计为“邻近相通”。交通运输本当为人民上班、购物、服务、教育、访友探亲等一切正常活动提供方便，使其过上快乐、健康、富有价值的生活。邻近相通意味着通过把我们的城市与乡镇设计成大多数活动都在咫尺间便可实现，从而为人们的所需所求提供方便之路。把公共基金用于开发彼此间有着完整关系的建筑群，就通路而言，与投资和补贴汽车及高速公路意义等同，但对自然、对资源、和对未来的一代代后人及他们的自然世界，却能产生健康得多的结果。
在美国，大约1/6的人从业于汽车、汽油或与其相关的工作：从汽车机修工、到销售人员、到保险代理人、到汽车制造厂工人，从石油公司的地质勘探人员、到办公室文职人员、到洗车工、到花费短促时间把人从车难残堆中拖走的救护车司机，等等，不一而足。再加上同样1/6的人口在修筑高速公路、销售沥青、建筑新的支线公路，他们把业务做到离开城市那样远的地方，以至于只有在快速道路上开车行驶很远才能到达，而当你遇上交通路障时，你才会豁然明白，为什么美国人对待政府支持公路和石油公司（投资或补贴）等问题，表现并不直率。如果改变为另一种建设与提供通路的方式，他们又感到他们的工作会受到威胁。事实上，在城市的重新布局中，人们的工作应当从建设一种类型的基础设施改变成建设另一种基础设施，但政府应当在帮助产业重组和工人的再训练方面予以慷慨支持（仍以投资或补贴方式）。顺便说，像中国这样的发展中国家，有着发达国家无可比拟的优势，因为发达国家已经基本普及了小汽车及道路蔓延的基础设施，而发展中国家的优势是可能投资，可能将产业重组放在首位并使工人获得再培训，立即开始建设生态健康的城市；而毋需等到资源崩溃、地球的生物圈给拆解得七零八落的时候，才势不可免地感到需要改变。
我们稍后还将返回到关于投资补贴及“邻近相通”设计等理念，但现在先得提提2000年11月我参加中国广州可持续发展能力建设国际论坛，坐在听众中脑子里所产生的想法。当时我在中国的短短考察中注意到几件正好符合本课题的事情，于是迅速产生了一个或许还不完全准确但却总体正确并值得严肃考虑的印象。
想法：
(1) 中国不担心高密度(格外依赖于汽车且道路蔓延开发的美国却很担心）。
(2) 中国的开发速度也很快。
(3) 中国有一个令人入迷，很可能是前途无量的“双重体制”：即共产主义的中央计划式的国家体制，然而又有着一片片宽广的、非常活跃非常繁荣的市场经济飞地——当今地球上的一个主要实验场，一个对可持续性和创新性非常感兴趣的国家。
因此：
中国应当建设三种实验性的城市，每一种容纳大约100000人口，这样，就足可以以城市的规模，提供关于城市组织及可持续性方面的知识。为了使人类经济和人类文明获得同自然的平衡，很难想象还有什么实验比这样的实验更加重要。即：
第一类型城市：步行城市
第二类型城市：步行者及自行车城市
第三类型城市：步行者、自行车及公共交通城市
1 第一类型城市：步行城市
这种城市建筑格外密集、高层，有点像一座巨大的单一楼房，但却是三维性的，不像那种蔓延扩张的两维性城市，也不像高塔或沿公路伸展的一维性城市。步行城市设置大的室内空间，空气流通阳光充足。高度重视日照角度、气候因素、地方生物多样性、资源的充分循环利用等因素。这看起来有点像美籍意大利建筑师保罗·索莱里（Paolo Soleri）的设计作品“生态建筑”和吉隆坡建筑师杨经文（Ken Yeang）的“生态气象建筑”。这种城市的占地面积为普通城市的1/4到1/10：节约了大量的农业用地和自然土地。能量供给主要是太阳能和其它可再生能源，它们不像所谓的“化石燃料”那样一次使用（或燃烧）就毁掉其化石化合物，不会大规模污染空气、水和土地，不会使土地的肥效降低，也不会过分地阻碍自然水道。人们因此能步行到各处。水平层面上的连接通过桥梁、露台、房顶和诸如街道、内部通道、传送带等设施而实现。立体连接则由楼梯、斜坡、自动扶梯和电梯来完成。仓库利用地下室，而不是建在市郊。手推车、脚踏车和叉式升降机搬运近距离货物，不是使用卡车作长途运输。火车和飞机将城市和其他城市连接。不用大型的高速公路来把城市和外部世界连通，虽然还有小型和中型公路通往外地，但数量不多，因为火车的效率极高。连接城市的铁路和公路跨越或从地下越过野生动物的迁徙线路和天然植被的接续带，从而保持住维持自然完整性的通道。
2 第二类型城市：步行者及自行车城市
这类城市的建筑密度大约为步行城市的1/3，有大得多的“内部”广场和开放空间。虽然不那么高，也不那么三维性，但它同样支持生物多样化，也和步行城市一样靠可再生能源运行。这里的桥梁、露台、房顶、街道、内部通道等也颇具特色，但整体上比严格的步行城市更开放。这种城市很近似我自己的某些想象。同在步行城市里一样，第二类型城市的仓库也建在低处，与外部的连接也主要靠火车，与多样性的生物区域和大面积自然环境的冲突也降低到了最低限度。步行及自行车城市由一个个简单紧凑的生态村和小镇环绕在其主城区兼商业区周围，这些社区组团通常由农用地带、自然地带和水体隔开。从边远的生态村到商业区，每一处地方骑自行车最多只需15分钟即可到达。款式别致，漂亮流畅的自行车和三轮、四轮脚踏车供人们娱乐、访友，同时更加实用的脚踏车则供人们上下班和工作。
3 第三类型城市：步行者、自行车及公共交通城市
这种城市有点像是一座更为密集的巴西城市库里提巴，但城市人口更少（库里提巴人口100万），没有使库里提巴开始感觉窘迫的车辆拥塞。行人活动的市中心面积大，毗连着几个“卫星中心”，从不远处的火车上看去，这些卫星中心仿佛是密实紧凑的小镇，但比起第二类型城市的主城区外的生态村，这些卫星中心离开市中心的距离却更远。与今天的常规城市相比，这类城市仍然显得密集，但其特征是接近自然并渗透全城。它比第一类型和第二类型城市更具渗透性，但城市功效高，舒适宜人，靠可再生能源运行，使用垂直维度和“邻近相通”原理，而不搞长途运输和远途往返上班。城市交通为轻轨或电车，不能沿袭美国那样的榜样，让公共汽车几乎徒劳无功地徘徊在外围，非常无效地堵塞在轿车海洋里，这皆因平面场地开发过度所致。
坐在广州会议的与会群体中，我突然想到建设这三种城市可使我们清晰地认识到城市和交通的形态，认识到我们现在所缺乏的城市形态和邻近相通的功效。我们迄今为止进行大规模开发的全部实践都受到了私人机动车辆的污染。就像在巴西库里提巴进行的密度和可达性关系试验那样，控制进入城市的汽车数量，否则无异于将浓酸倒进正在发生所谓微妙反应的实验室试管里。我们迄今为止在全世界几乎所有城市用汽车做实验，做得规模浩大，系统紊乱，极不科学；而且我们还得付出学费，还须学习才能做出优秀的城市设计，为人类的健康、为自然环境、为良田美土、为稳定岌岌可危的多样化生物并将其引入遥远的未来。为了获得那样的知识，我们需要某种类似于未受污染的实验室来做试验，而上面描述的三种实验性城市就正好能确切地实现这种需求。住在每一类设计城市中均须自控：步行城市交通只限于行人；第二类城市只限于行人及自行车；第三类城市中只允许骑脚踏车和乘街道电车代步。仔细想想大众利益、多角度的阳光、流动的空气、有机营养物质的就地回收，等等，因为在为未来城市的设计方面作决策时，在为城市的规模和冲突进行考虑时，在为地球的健康着想时，这些东西均可提供最重要的信息。
假以时日，传统城市的全部丰富内容将会体现在这些实验城市中，因为时间和旧城区的缓慢生成对城市生活的完美性有着极其重大的涵义。郊区的无序扩展永远受这一问题之累，势在难免的还有为巨大的单一功能而修建的高密度城区、一些后来一并变得富于人情温馨和城市色彩的新区，等等，都受这一问题之累。像其他新建的较大地区一样，这三类实验性城市也会在多年内受到这方面的局限，虽然它们能够逐渐摆脱掉这一困扰，但我确信，我们能够从自身的研究中获得知识，而这种知识毕竟就留存在这些着意人性化而非机械化的人造环境之中。从城市设计方面来说，在城市功能全然清楚的情况下，采用不同设计手段，能很快获得相关知识。我们缺乏可能从这种知识中进化出来的智慧，因为我们一直对城市进行着的设计都更多地靠我们积累的东西，而交通的设计、房屋的建造、整个城市的总体规划等，都需要在这个非常不同的基础上重新整合思想。
这方面，美国比其他许多国家都要落后得多。许多国家中，汽车文化还没有完全排斥这样的一个认识：生活是社会性的、文化的、生态的、自然的，而不是消费商品、不是汽车、也不是旨在堆砌商品的东一处西一处的住宅，生活本身才是建筑城市的最充分理由。再者，在不需要为健康城市而进行产业重组和再教育这个层面上，发展中国家比发达国家处在更加有利的地位上；它们可以直接地配置装备、培训人员，以建设生态健康的城市。
2000年11月离开中国之后，我的同仁王如松将三种实验城市的想法带到了学术界、政府及开发界。他的报道表明在学术界和政府领域内显现出了真正的热情，但开发商们却怀疑是否能在较短的时期内从这类实验城市上赚钱。但这些城市是应当建设的。
时值我正开始考虑在美国被称之为“投资”的对驾车人的补贴以及被称之为“补贴”的对公共交通的投资。我的结论是：我们需要的是更加全面深入地规划，提出可以实现我们在“通路”方面进行投资的方案来，这种通路并不单单是为轿车或为公共交通而定义的运输。我们需要看到，在城市基础设施以及在公路和运输体系上的投资，应当看作是既为人民又符合自然规律的合理合法的投资。
政府可以为大型建筑物框架支付基本所需的水泥与钢筋，条件是：该建筑应是作为规划的一部分而进行的混合使用与平衡的开发，而不是在为广泛蔓延的、功能单一的建房修路而付钱。1988年我在柏林见到了一个小小的这种类型：三块大型的钢筋混凝土面板悬撑在墙壁和支柱上，相互间距为6.1米。实现的功能有楼梯、穿越面板并连通到水滨的管线、下水道、天然气、供电线、电话线等。这一构建是用政府投资或补贴通过开发商支付的，修建的是一个项目名称为柏林建筑展览会的建筑群，三大钢筋混凝土面板上的空间则以当街土地加连接功能的方式卖给了其他的户主或开发商。随后，每层楼的新楼主都按他们自己的愿望建成了各自不同的类型，避免了迫不得已的支撑体系的建设。购得面板上的“空间”后，户主或开发商便建造和完成了非承压分隔墙、中层楼、窗户和完美的细部设计。
如果城市级别的政府通过建设诸如此类的结构面板和支撑物，再以低价或免费的方式提供给开发商，这些政府就可以使用税款向开发商提供先期利润服务，并以提供邻近相通的手法，向所有市内公民提供他们所需要的无论何种的实施途径。这种情况的投资可以在建筑物上、也可以在房屋布局上，而不是在高速公路上，不是在社区的分散化上。
随着市场经济席卷全球，一些东西也给扫到了地毯之下，但政府依旧存在，其职责仍在有意而且主要是维护公共利益。公司则要为它们的顾客服务，但即或从理论上说，公司也是必定要利用其顾客，要通过广告说服顾客购买他们并不需要的东西，要索取尽量高的价钱，最大限度地为自己和投资商谋求利益。政府则还要传统性地服务于其他价值利益，要支持艺术、支持创造性的发明、要保护自然、教育孩子，等等。政府常常与最富有的或最强大的人结盟，从而变成为服务自我的或腐败的政府，抑或向不能承担税务的人过量课税并以政治关切的方式授惠于特定的团体或个人。但这些行径均普遍地被认为是对政府的正当行为的歪曲。
如果政府的正当行为包括为其公民的孩子或孩子们的世界提供一个健康的未来，那么它能起到的最重要作用之一，就是为步行的、骑自行车的和乘坐轨道电车的人而投资再建城市。为了每个人的长期健康，汽车、无序扩展、高速公路和尽快燃烧油料的时代就必须结束，而只有在政府开始投资于一种非常不同的城市模式，即投资于我们的三类实验城市时，这个结果才会到来。
最后，请注意山地人居的作用。本文正是为了一次主题与可持续发展相关的山地人居学术研讨会而写的（即中国科学院、建设部山地城镇与区域研究中心和云南省城市科学研究会，2001年11月在昆明主办的第二届“山地人居生态环境可持续发展国际学术研讨会”——译者）。我非常遗憾不能出席这次会议，但我愿意解释一下，我在全世界宣读论文时都演示自己拍下的关于山地人居环境的幻灯片。那是因为在这些人居环境中，常常出现一些小小的城镇或村庄，它们让人看见：在布局得紧密亲切的社区内，容纳了全部的重要功能，而自然景观就紧靠其周边，而这些村镇又常常形成地球上最美丽的景观。例如在尼泊尔和位于印度的喜马拉雅山南麓，我注意到人居社区都一概地相对密集，房顶被用作某些功能，抑或为了精神的原因，抑或为了融洽自然景观。因为地面是陡峭的，所以任何建成的平坦表面都特别受人赏识并得到充分利用。再者，人们还使用垂直维度，进行水平运动之外的上下走动。许多这样的村镇都很古老，远离现代化的都市及其机械化运输体系，这些村镇首先是为人而不是为机器而建成的。在最美好的范例中，就包括了山地人居环境，它们供我们思考与借鉴，考虑我们在各地建设的大规模城市究竟需要什么。这些山地人居环境的宁静和夜间的璀璨星空，不仅仅是因为节约能源，减少污染的“邻近相通”，还因为它们将神奇和诗情画意带到了处处皆有的山地人民的生活之中。我们需要懂得这些山地人居环境，使它们能够帮助我们重新整合我们对未来城市的构思。
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