Press Release
Plenary session: Megacity Infrastructure and Redevelopment: New Technologies and Approaches
What kinds of infrastructure can meet the needs of both residents and developers? The East is pushing for
the departure from “nature-consuming” thinking; the West – for the well-balanced development of all aspects
of city residents’ life and collective discussion of initiatives. During the plenary session “Megacity Infrastructure
and Redevelopment: New Generation Technologies and Approaches”, experts from all over the world
presented their vision on the future of urban infrastructure.
Dan Hill, Executive Director for Urban Innovations, Future Cities Catapult (United Kingdom) named four types
of urban infrastructure. According to Hill, “heavy” infrastructure includes various utilities. This kind of
infrastructure typically needs long-term investments, but they are always repaid well: these objects sometimes
serve the city for hundreds of years. “Soft” infrastructure is an urban digital environment: mobile applications,
electronic payments, Internet accessibility, and many other things. In addition, Hill distinguishes “mobile”
infrastructure: ramps, elevators, convenient passageways – all these should make urban life more
comfortable. “Green” and “social” infrastructure, according to the expert, are the most important. The former
affects the overall urban health, the latter contains fundamental values (economics, politics, and culture) that
impact everyone.
According to Paola Vigano, Head of the PhD program in Urbanism at Università IUAV, an expert in land
integrated development, new urban types are now emerging – horizontal megacities. Having studied the
development of many megacities, Paola Vigano came to the conclusion that income differentiation is no
longer important for major cities. For instance, both, affluent and poor urban residents use public
transportation. Vigano presented her view of the future of Brussels that is already a center of public
transportation for the entire country. But by 2040, its residents will not need personal cars. Cars pollute the air
and consume too many resources. Paola Vigano believes that the new spaces that are being added to the
city, can become its environmental islands. Another way to revive the infrastructure is to redevelop areas that
originally were not suitable for residential living. For instance, in Antwerp, former industrial areas were
redeveloped into a totally new social infrastructure.
Moscow is in line with global trends
Deputy of the Moscow Mayor on matters of utilities and urban improvements, Petr Biryukov, presented
Moscow experience and stressed that improved, well-developed areas give cities the competitive edge. Since
2011, the municipal government has focused all efforts on the infrastructure development. The results speak
for themselves: 20,000 yards and 90,000 entrance halls are renovated; 700,000 parking places are created in
the yards; 4,000 buildings have got a new image through façade renovation; 100 km of pedestrian areas, 200
km of bicycle lanes, 10,500 of bicycle parking places are created, 130 parks are established. In addition,
under a special project, more street roads will be repaired, new bicycle lanes will be created, and even more
facades will be renovated.
Vadim Yuryev, the head of the Mocow Traffic Control Center talked about the specifics of the Moscow
transport system and pointed out five major elements of the structure that they are proud of. First, the system
of traffic lights control that makes decision based on the overall city picture, instead of a local one. Second,
the teleview system helps to promptly communicate the latest traffic information to all agencies involved. The
third element is communication with drivers. According to Yuryev, the traffic control system can re-route
vehicle traffic, if needed. The fifth, and the most important element, in the expert’s view, is a well-functioning
system of video cameras. As statistics shows, the presence of a camera reduces the number of traffic
accidents by 25% and the number of injured people by 17%.
Environmental threats
In the city of Shenzhen (China), the topic of environmental threats has been considered for quite a while.
According to Weiwen Huang, Director of the Shenzhen Center for Design (SCD), the rapid increase in
financial well-being of the city has caused the dramatic 40x growth of its population within 30 years. To
improve housing conditions, it was decided to develop areas seemingly not suitable for residential living. As it
turned out, such intervention with nature does not always benefit the city. Today, according to Weiwen Huang,
in order to improve the situation, the city administration develops parks and plant trees. Special “green” traffic
lanes for pedestrians and bicycles are created; suspended railway lines will be built. In addition, novel highrise buildings, already integrated into the road network, are now built in Shenzhen. As a rule, they are multistory buildings. The expert is positive, that “A future city will be grounded on a system that will unify the
nature, the men and his creations. We became enslaved by machines. How can we free ourselves from this
dependence? First, we need to change our ideology, our way of thinking, we need to disrupt it and make a
breakthrough”, stressed Weiwen Huang.
About the Moscow Urban Forum
The Moscow Urban Forum has been held annually since 2011. It is an international conference dedicated to
city development, architecture, economics and strategic planning of the cities.
The Forum is held under the auspices of the Moscow Government, with the participation of Sergey Sobyanin,
the Mayor of Moscow. The Urban Land Institute is the International Partner of the Forum. The Programme
Directorate of the Forum is represented by Strelka Institute for Media, Architecture and Design.
The Moscow Urban Forum is a platform for sharing experiences, where leaders of the largest cities in Russia
and the world have an opportunity to discuss pressing issues and projects with representatives of the
international expert community.
Be the first to hear the news from the Forum:
Forum website: http://mosurbanforum.ru/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/mosurbanforum
Twitter: https://twitter.com/mosurbanforum
Instagram: http://instagram.com/mosurbanforum
Press Service Contact:
+7 (495) 795-06-23
press@mosurbanforum.ru