Why doesn't a city move alone?

On Wednesday, September 12 in the University the launch was made of the book "The city does not move alone" by the professor of the Faculty of Design, Architecture and Art, Carla Hermida. 

Campus interviewed the teacher and began by asking how the idea of ​​the book came about.

"When I had 8 or 9, my parents gave me a toy chalk blackboard. Since then I knew that I wanted to be a teacher, what I did not know was that I was going to be a researcher.

That came after, when we founded the Architecture career almost 10 years ago, I realized that academic life was my passion, that it was going to be my life, and that therefore I had to do a PhD.

It was clear then that he was going to continue studying for several more years, but what was not yet sure was the subject. The people I turned to for advice told me that it had to be something that I'm passionate about, so much so that I do not mind being in the same thing for 4-5 for years.

That confused me even more but the circumstances of life told me where to go.

I had the opportunity to collaborate during the years 2009-2011 in the Municipality of Cuenca, in management positions that had to do with two fundamental areas of the city: urban planning and mobility planning and management.

There I realized that you could not work integrally and in coordination between the two areas; that urban planning and mobility went independently and sometimes even contradictory.

And it was there when the question arose that constitutes the essence of the research project that today is transformed into a book: taking into account that in recent decades there has been a process of theoretical renewal with respect to planning that is reflected at an international and national level How is the relationship between the planning and management of mobility and urban planning presented in the case of the study between 1999 and 2014 and what are the main factors that determine this relationship? ".

How was the elaboration process?

That question, which at that time included some frustration, because I felt somewhat impotent, was channeled into a positive search for answers that were the basis of my doctoral thesis. That adapted thesis is now this book.

Obviously, to make it a book, numerous adjustments were necessary; and above all, it was necessary to make many cuts. And trimming is not easy.

When I did it, I remembered my sister who makes movies, and when she edits her films she suffers because she has to remove parts that cost her a lot of effort and work.

Keeping proportions, the same thing happened to me when I made this book, because there were parts in the thesis that cost me many hours of work but it did not make sense to include them in a book, because the public is not the same.

The public is not the same because a doctoral thesis is read only by your court, that is 4 people, the book I hope it can reach more.

What are the main characteristics of the work?

The text talks about the relationship between urban planning and management and mobility, and how they dialogue or not dialogue, and in this process convergences, divergences, dependencies and independence are generated, which have an impact on practices, instruments and in the public policies of the city.

It was taken as a study period from 1999 to 2014. 1999 because it was the year in which the Municipality began to plan the transit and transport, and the 2014 because it was when the tram began to be built and it seemed appropriate to operationally set that date as the limit.

I will not comment in detail on the content of the book or the conclusions, it would not make sense, but I do want to tell you that in a general way in the text I conclude that the steps are being taken to achieve a better coordination between the urban theme and the theme of mobility , but we are just in a few decades of transition, we are in adolescence, and like all adolescents, it costs and generates problems.

I also conclude that convergences are greater at a political and strategic level; that is, similar discourses are handled on the need to target more sustainable cities, to more compact cities, but it is at the operational level that it is difficult to capture the general objectives.

Several people told me why I did not get several articles indexed instead of a book. But I think that in this era in which academics are immersed in a wave of "publications", "exclusivity", "rankings", I think we have forgotten to contribute to society, even if that means not improving our publication rates.