Speaker: David Gurin, City Planner
The conflict between the city and the car became an issue much earlier in history than is generally known and remains mostly unresolved today. The domination of the city by the private car has lowered urban standards of beauty, safety, health, quiet and equity. But this domination has had a long history of opponents and they have achieved a degree of success in some cities, where policies and programs have been introduced to overcome automotive damage. In other parts of the world large-scale ownership of private cars is just beginning, but very few policies have been adopted to prevent the harm this will inflict on urban form and citizen health and opportunities.
The seminar will discuss the essence of the conflict between car and city and what measures can be taken to achieve transportation that is democratic, aesthetic and safe.
David Gurin, a graduate of Cornell University and of the Harvard Graduate School of Design, is a city planner with wide experience in land use and transportation planning. He was an activist on transportation issues who was one of the founders of the New York group, Transportation Alternatives. He wrote about the auto and the city for popular and professional journals.
In 1978, Mr. Gurin was appointed Deputy Commissioner for Planning and Research of the New York City Department of Transportation. He oversaw the implementation of bus and bicycle lanes and compiled City Streets, a master plan for transportation in the city. In 1991, he moved to Toronto, where, he became Metropolitan Toronto Planning Commissioner until 1998. He is currently a planning consultant and an adjunct professor of urban planning at Ryerson University in Toronto. He recently wrote "Driven to Action: Stopping Sprawl in Your Community" a citizen's guide to the urban environment, published by the David Suzuki Foundation, a leading Canadian environmental advocacy group.