Human beings are, increasingly, urban beings. Seven out of every ten Spaniards already live in cities with more than 50,000 inhabitants and the trend is increasing. The lives of the next generations will take place between asphalt and buildings, also in the rest of the world. To imagine the sustainable city of the future, Eugenia del Río, secretary of the Official College of Architects of Madrid (COAM), took a look at the past. “If we review the historical layers that our cities have, we see that we already had mixed uses,” he noted about an approach that integrates residential, leisure, work or administrative spaces in the same block or area and that contrasts with more recent trends such as the one that began to flood the outskirts with dormitory developments in the late 1990s. “It is the model that already existed and that we lost because of the automobile,” he said. “I think that the concept of mixed use helps you have different ways of life and can reduce the time you spend traveling,” agreed Alejandro Miguel, manager of Sustainability, Innovation and Technology for Acciona’s real estate business. Continue reading
