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In this second of his three-part interview
with ecoTECTURE, EcoCity designer and builder Richard Register relates
his experiences as the founder and a principal organizer of the
International Ecocity Conference series. The previous conferences
in Berkeley, California, Adelaide, Australia, and Yoff, Senegal,
have spanned a decade and involved hundreds of speakers on ecocity
design and related topics from around the world. The fourth International
Ecocity Conference will convene on April 3, 2000, in what Richard
tells us is a very special city- Curitiba, Brazil.
(To learn more about Richard Register and
his work in EcoCity design, see Part One
of his three-part interview with ecoTECTURE in our January /
February, 2000 issue.)
-PSW
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ECOTECTURE: Are you, once again, playing a central role in getting
the conference off the ground?
RR: More so than I had hoped for! (laughs)
The hosts down are people at the Open University for the Environment.
For the last two years, they said they would host the conference.
I'm actually going down there next week (in November, 1999) for
two weeks, to see whether I can help on the spot a little bit. I've
been sending them suggestions. I'm not actually sure if I am seen
as someone who is imposing from the outside and pushing a little
too hard. I will ask them that directly.
Curitiba's Mayor Cassio Taniguchi and State Governor, former Mayor
Jaime Lerner will be the main speakers. At this point, the conveners
are negotiating with a long list of potential speakers from around
the world, but mostly from Brazil. Visit their web page to
see what they've decided.
This is the first Ecocity Conference that has been based in an
institution of some scale, which is the Open University of the Environment.
Plus, Curatiba is in the city for wonderful ecological policies.
ECOTECTURE: Say more about Curatiba.
RR: In the 1960s, they started integrating their land planning
with the transit system in a strong way. There is very high density
along the transit corridors. There are five transit corridors leading
to the center.
When they were looking at the possibility of putting in an underground
transit system, they decided to put in a surface transit system
instead because it was much, much cheaper- they claim one three-hundreth
of the expense of building a subway. I can see how that could be
true because the are simply using the surfaces of the streets with
minimal redesign.
They added interesting innovations. Jamie Lariner, the former
mayor, who is an architect, by the way, designed "tube" stations
that are like big glass bottles open at the end with a door on one
side facing the busses. You enter from the ends through turnstiles
that are slightly elevated. The bus pulls up and big, wide doors
open. You've gone through a turnstile as you would in a subway so
you don't have to worry about giving change to the bus driver. You
just walk on, four abreast, then you walk off a little later, so
the buses load and unload very rapidly. It is very convenient. The
whole system runs very quickly and smoothly because of the arterials
dedicated to the bus that go down the middle of the cores of development.
They have excellent recycling. They have restored the sides of
the rivers throughout the city. They have much larger park area
that then had before the redesign, 26 blocks of pedestrian streets,
and 120 kilometers of bicycle paths. The place cooks.
ECOTECTURE: If someone wanted to go the conference,
how would they go about it? How much would it cost to get there?
How long would it take?
RR: The answer is about $880 round trip from San Francisco, though
you might be able to get a better deal. You can extrapolate from
that. Fairly nice hotels close to the conference cost about $30
per night if you share a room, about $60 if you don't. The conference
will be $300 for people from the first world- considerably less
for people from the lower income world. I don't know those prices
yet.
Ecocity Builders has a volunteer, our treasured business manager
Kirstin Miller,
who is gathering this sort of logistical information for group travel
from the San Francisco Area.
CONTACT:
Kirstin Miller
510.465.0226
You can find out about the conference itself at the Open University
for the Environment. Visit their web site at www.unilivre.org.br.
ECOTECTURE: That web announcement will get to many people and be
a lot less expensive than announcing the conference in other ways.
RR: It is less costly to announce it on the web, I suppose, but
it could leave many people out.
ECOTECTURE: Right. There are a lot of people who wouldn't see a
web announcement. One suggestion is that on their web site the conference
organizers could encourage people to print the announcement web
page and give it to people who aren't on the web. People could circulate
and post it. Facilities such as universities have web access world
wide, of course. There just might be individuals who don't have
access or would overlook the conference's site. If people around
the world pitched in and printed a few copies for posting, it could
give the conference the benefit of web and print media announcements,
without the expense.
RR: Right. News of the conference could
spread very quickly.
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ECOTECTURE: You were involved
in the formation of the original International Ecocity Conference.
What was that and where was it held?
RR: I was the convener. It was my idea to do it, and I worked like
a dog getting it done. I had much support from quite a few people
in Urban Ecology at the time. It looked like an exciting project.
We all agreed that it was, and many people worked on it.
That was in 1990, here in Berkeley. It was pretty spectacular,
really. We had almost 800 people, almost 500 conferees and 153 speakers
which is an awesome thing. (Laughs) We couldn't turn speakers down
because so many people had something important to say. We'd find
a place to put them, we'd rent another room.
ECOTECTURE: Where did they come from?
RR: They came from 12 different countries,
though most of them were local. The resource base in the Bay Area
is pretty great. There are many really good thinkers here in kindred
fields. Not all of them are directly in the middle of ecocity building.
Some of them are philosophy people, novelists, architects who are
only partially involved, gardners- just a wide variety of people
would fit. When you talk about ecologically healthy cities, all
sorts of things fit in. One of the things that's fun about this
whole area of involvement is its richness. 
ECOTECTURE: There were two other International Ecocity Conferences?
RR: Right. The second conference was held in Adelaide, Australia,
sponsored by Urban Ecology Australia. A fellow named Paul Daunton,
and Cherie Hoyle were the co-conveners there. That one had, I think,
around 300 people.
ECOTECTURE: And you were, again, instrumental in creating it?
RR: Actually, that one ran itself pretty well. I simply downloaded
my experience in a few days- I sent them about 20 pages of what
I thought I'd learned from Ecocity 1. They just ran with it. They
did a really great job of putting the conference together. I went
there as a speaker.
The third International Ecocity Conference was in Senegal, in
a traditional village called Yoff. I had been involved in "Ecovillage
at Ithaca," in New York, at several points. A friend of mine founded
it. Her name is Joan Bokear. I had been on their mailing list for
years, since their founding. I received a newsletter from them that
said they had a sister village in Africa, called Yoff, just outside
Dakar. It suddenly occurred to me that that would be an incredible
place to have a conference, that if the two villages-the "ecovillage"
of Ithica and the traditional village of Yoff- co sponsored a conference
at Yoff it would be a very interesting event. I asked Joan if she
would like to do that. Seriene Mbaye Diene, the village leader,
happened to be getting his doctorate at the University of Ithica
then, which is how the sister village relationship came about in
the first place: he had met Joan at a party and started talking
about whether villages could become more ecologically healthy. I
suggested (the conference) to Joan and Seriene and they immediately
decided they wanted to do it. Three years later, in 1996, it actually
happened. It was pretty amazing.
It was amazing largely because the people who went there actually
lived in a traditional village. It is a black village- actually
a town of about 30,000. They speak French. They are Muslim. They
are polygamist. They have just a whole different perspective on
life, different history and everything.
So, they had a conference in that setting, and several of the
people who live there gave presentations about their history and
their perspectives and how their city in Dakar and the villages
in that region work. Also, many people came from around the world.
(EDITOR'S NOTE: For a review and ordering
information, visit our review
section or bookstore.)
ECOTECTURE: When, and where is the upcoming Ecocity Conference.
RR: The fourth International Ecocity Conference will be Curatiba, Brazil,
on April 3 through 6, 2000. Curatiba, as you have heard, is probably
the city in the world with the largest collection of ecologically
oriented policies and projects.
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