An initial cost of 16 million, and yearly maintenance of 600,000, for a city of 2.5 million? Per person, $5 initially and $0.25 per year.
That seems incredibly cheap for the benefits. Colombia looks to have a GDP per capita about 1/10th of the US, so if we scale it up 10X...
I live in a relatively cold climate, and I would still be delighted to pay $2.50 a year for this kind of infrastructure development. Heck, even scaling it up 100X seems like it would be worth considering.
Maybe there's a cost I'm missing here, but for a hot city, the AC savings alone seem like they would be worth it, not to mention the 40% reduction in respiratory infections through increased air quality.
You have to keep PPP in mind when you look at numbers like this. In San Francisco, for example, the park and recs dept gets the budget in the tune of hundreds of millions. Does it mean they are wasting the money? Absolutely not. Land acquisition, construction, hourly wages (with minimum wage at $36000/year excluding benefits) etc. are all very expensive in absolute dollars in some parts of the world, while in others, it is very cheap. You simply cannot compare the two.
Colombia is equatorial. It rains a lot; the green spaces probably don't need irrigation. It might not be so easy or cheap to pull this off in places like Los Angeles, Los Vegas, or Phoenix.
To pull off a rain forest yes, but to get green is not impossible.
The problem for LA is that most of the drainage is there to move storm water away as quick as possible, which means that local water is hard to come by.
Yep exactly. I decided to look up the local flora for Los Angeles and found this nice article. It notes that Los Angeles has a Mediterranean style climate, and there certainly are plenty of local flora options to choose from:
I'm in year two of turning the front yard (half-acre) in to prairie. I'm _mostly_ using local flora but the climate is changing so there are more options. More challenging is that I had started with drought resistant indigenous stuff but the predictions are that anticipating the coming years weather is "unpossible" and that even the local stuff is going to fail half the time.
I grew up in LA and still spend a lot of time camping in the southwest. I think I'm pretty familiar with what the natural environment would look like without cities. It's not green. It's mostly dirt, peppered with scrub plants.
You can get a pretty good idea what "LA or Vegas with natural green belts" would look like just by going outside the metro areas. I'm not saying it's bad - I love southwest desert - but natural desert "greenbelts" are probably not what you're picturing if you think "why don't we do Medellín here?"
Truly they don't, but even inside Medellin the precipitation rates are not as great as the lands around...
...because of the deforestation that /already/ happened, say, 50 years ago...
Ain't no commercial high rise neighborhood (semi-common in Medellin) that can "pull in" as much precipitation as a virgin forest no way, and you can see this if you visit there and then you visit an actual virgin rain-forest...
...but of course, this is what they are trying to alleviate and if the outskirts of the city are super-green it can help...
Btw all of the outskirts aren't super green but a lot of them are...
Unless you’re in tech or a few other sectors (eg: long tail exports such the company that manufactures transistors for Tesla, which is near here) the local job market is very bad. Particularly with new prices, in the wealthy areas it’s comparable to a city like Lisbon now.
If you have a remote job however, it’s a no brainer. For example, renting a 3 bedroom in a wealthy area (through the local route, not Airbnb) within a gated community that has a pool, a gym, etc = $1,000. A private maid/chef once per week = $80. Normal Uber ride = $4-$6. Meal for 2 in a very fancy restaurant = $50 - $75.
Regarding the crimes against some foreigners:
- It shouldn’t happen. That’s why we elected a new major with a very different philosophy from the previous one.
- 1,8M foreigners came here in 2023 and 35 got killed. Again, the number should be 0, but once you see it as a statistic it feels improbable.
- If you don’t do ilegal stupid stuff you shouldn’t be doing in the first place (you know what I’m talking about) you’ll be fine.
I dunno man, I'm a nomad, I looked long and hard at where to spend a few months this winter and Medellin sounded attractive...until I read more about it.
No thank you. 35 deaths is the worst possible outcome. I don't want to leave the house in fear of getting mugged at knife/gun point and I'm sure those stats aren't even remote to being listed/accurate anywhere.
A significant portion of deaths resulted from drug overdose, and there was also a notable absence of acknowledgment regarding criminal activities perpetrated by migrants/tourists who arrived last year, despite numerous reported cases.
I live here as a nomad. Job market is pretty bad. Haven't seen any official statistics but I've heard many locals anecdotally say that the pay even for people with econ / engineering degrees is pretty bad.
Lots of young people with advanced degrees just end up working in call centres, or onlyfans.
Acknowledging the general ickyness of prison labor, I'd be curious what the overall effect on wellbeing and recidivism among prisoners would be of spending time working outside planting trees to make the local community a better, more beautiful place.
It was pointed out to me awhile back that the 'slave states' that utilize this kind of labor need all sorts of low-level nonviolent crimes to lock people up with.
Why, you may ask? It turns out giving violent offenders (murderers, wife beaters, gang bangers) tools like shovels in an open environment can be pretty dangerous. Guards would rather have some pothead teenager to order around.
> It was pointed out to me awhile back that the 'slave states' that utilize this kind of labor need all sorts of low-level nonviolent crimes to lock people up with.
Arguably a continuation of their post-civil-war Black Codes [0], where--if you had a certain skin color--it was effectively a crime to ever leave/lose your abusive "employment", then that crime led to fines, then the fines led to more fines from compounding court costs, and once you were in prison, you were forced to labor for private interests. Perhaps even the same "employer" you tried to leave.
In a cold climate, these wide boulevards lose their leaves in the autumn and the turn into enormous ducts for cold wind to traverse freely. You freeze just while crossing it.
In cold climate, you definitely do not want tall buildings with space between them, or straight roads. Unfortunately that's what gets built.
Particularly good: Central St. Petersburg, especially Petrograd island[1] and other districts with smaller streets such as Peski/Kolomna. Smaller streets, slightly broken grid and uniform height 5-storey buildings lead to never experiencing serious wind. It has a different pest that is ice on the sidewalks, though. Vasilievsky island is slightly worse as there's wider streets and more regular grid.
Particularly bad: The same St. Petersburg but now Brezhnevist and contemporary built up districts such as Murino[2] or Veteranov[3] (but any of these, actually). Even the pompious Stalinist Moscow avenue[4] would be quite uncomfortable in chilly wind and -15C. Wide streets mean faster winds and more walking. St. Petersburg is very transit oriented so most people do walk.
The newly build Vostochnyi Cosmodrome Tsiolkovsky town[5] seems super chilly as it is the same pattern of high-rises separated by a long nothing. And it's located way north. You would need a space suit just to get groceries.
Medellin is bursting with greenery! Everywhere I look, trees stand tall, and many of the newer buildings boast impressive vertical gardens. This not only creates a visually stunning cityscape but also sparks my imagination, making me dream of a future where other cities around the world embrace a similar level of environmental integration.
I would say that beyond the green corridors, the main difference is how global it feels now. Lots of international cuisine, international DJs playing here, foreigners around, real estate ads in English, etc.
But the prices of "nationally-distributed" "things" (e.g. laundry detergent right?) pretty much adheres to the national trend...
...however rent in Medellín has gone up in these past 2 years too, like in some places it has gone up to double, gotta account for inflation (in USD terms you know) too but still...
We were there in January. There are some amazing, modern, clean and green parts of the city. The botanic gardens (Jardín Botánico de Medellín) are beautiful and considerably cooler than the surrounding parts of town. The metro - with cable cars linking off to the hillside neighborhoods - is very clean, modern, and efficient.
We saw the city hall vertical garden - pretty neat.
An immense amount of effort has gone into revitalizing the city in recent years.
One thing that struck me though, is that the rising tide hasn't quite lifted all boats - or people to be more precise. I saw a lot more beggars, people living on the streets, and homeless encampments than in Bogotá, or Cali or other cities. It feels like a disconnection from community and family that is still present in other places - especially smaller cities and towns. I hope they can figure out ways to help the bottom 1%. (Realizing that is a common refrain worldwide.)
One possibility is that some homeless may move to the city in hopes of either finding work or catching a break to get out of the homelessness.
We see that a lot in Seattle, that people who became homeless out in Enumclaw or Goldbar or wherever slowly get drawn towards the city because the systems that support the homeless are there, whether it be infrastructure that can be used for shelter or soup kitchens or day labor or even just a good corner to beg from.
Its not the only source of the homeless by any stretch of the imagination, but it is a source.
It really does make sense. If you have no job and are at risk of homelessness why would you hang around some small town with no jobs and no services instead of going to the economic centre of your region? The odds of both getting support and work are highest in the cities.
It turns out that, in spite of what libertarians might like to tell everyone, people and societies aren't actually boats and marinas. Who would've thought?
I hate when writers describe plants as an ongoing carbon sink. They are a one-time carbon sink. So using "cars" as a comparison to carbon volumes is confusing, because cars will keep emitting after a plant is full grown and starts shedding leaves and wood that turn back into methane or carbon dioxide.
The key benefit of the plants is cooling the city without electricity, which is an ongoing effect.
Similarly, we can't plant enough trees to offset our total carbon emission because we've released SOOO much carbon that was previously just buried underground as oil. We would need to plant more trees than we have ever seen.
Of course. But for the most part it's beautiful. My best friend used to drive taxi and when I had nothing to do I would go with him in the car while he was working, so I've been around. I like the architecture in the barrios.
I'm really interested in the geotextile pavements that were mentioned at the end of the article. As someone who lives where it can get pretty rainy, having a cheap yet effective geotextile driveway would be great.
It is impressive, sure, but it also seems prone to clogging, and if it clogs just a bit under the surface, how can you clean it? A pressure washer will be no use, since it only cleans the surface, right?
I don’t know much about that. I do see some other options, like stabilized gravel where a hexagonal grid form is installed and then filled with gravel so that the gravel doesn’t move around.
This is what I'm afraid of. We already have too much microplstics in our environment, and is it worth reducing water runoff when the solution involves even more microplastics?
I love Medellin and lived there for many years, but the air quality is terrible and getting worse. You can talk with any locals and they say that the climate is noticeably different than it was in the past.
Medellin is surrounded by mountains and the contaminated air cannot escape. There didn't used to be a lot of cars, but now there is financing so the number of cars is growing significantly.
The hills are steep and old busses spew black smoke.
Saying Medellin's temp decreased by 2 degrees Celsius based on "Mejorar el microclima hasta 2°C" is a misinterpretation. I think this article is quite misleading.
> I love Medellin and lived there for many years, but the air quality is terrible and getting worse
The good thing about hill cities such as Medellin (sadly not a format available for big cities say in Europe or the US) is that you can choose your altitude, and at around 2000 thousand meters (the city starts at ~1500m) the air quality is not so bad, used to be worse years ago (maybe you lived there 2 or 3 years ago), but now it's much better.
> You can talk with any locals and they say that the climate is noticeably different than it was in the past.
Yeah, the city is much warmer compared to say 10 years ago, whether this is due to the city growing into previously-forest areas or /global/ warming I don't know... but yeah, locals agree it was MUCH colder 10 years ago...
> Medellin is surrounded by mountains and the contaminated air cannot escape.
See comments above about living at 2000m altitude (up in the mountains a bit away from the high-rise buildings and such, think of Beverly Hills or something like that.).
> The hills are steep and old busses spew black smoke.
As of now, there's almost no remaining old busses spewing black smoke anymore, but there's some cargo trucks still doing it.
> Saying Medellin's temp decreased by 2 degrees Celsius based on "Mejorar el microclima hasta 2°C" is a misinterpretation. I think this article is quite misleading.
I wouldn't know, but locals do say that it was a much more colder city in the past...
Medellin is a fascinating city and over the years had leadership that really cared about how to most effectively help throe citizens and not being afraid to make radical chandes and big investments.
E. G. They build the metro cable essentially a "ski lift" public transport system up the steep slopes of the hills surrounding the city. It's a great example how to transform communities by giving people access to transport and thus economic opportunities (the metro cable changed a 2h walk to the metro station at the base of the valley into a 15min gondola ride). It wrestled the slums from the control of the gangs and massively reduced crime in the areas.
It's not by design, but one thing I loved about living in Raleigh, NC is how many of the trees were preserved as it developed. It's quite nice (except during pollen season if you have allergies) and the shade is pretty valuable when dealing with those summers. It's especially noticable compared to Durham, which was not able to preserve as many trees close to it's downtown core and some big roads. Though Durham still has something like 52% tree coverage? The housing development craze in that area is definitely making a dent in the the coverage for the region as a whole though.
The SF moma has a living wall on the patio. It is refreshing.
The new transit center has a park on the roof. One of the most calming and comfortable public spaces in SF.
> We built and built and built. There wasn’t a lot of thought about the impact on the climate. It became obvious that had to change.
That feels like a quote out of a novel or a Hollywood movie. Absolutely thrilled for Medellin to be able to enact this kind of change. It's a huge struggle in the US and extremely dispiriting.
I wonder what the options are for cities in arid climates, which are only becoming more so due to climate change. The few trees in this area are already threatened by droughts, so it seems like planting more greenery would just increase the burden on a water system that's already at breaking point.
Indeed, there is an abundance of butterflies, bees, and other such creatures amidst the urban area —a surprising sight for a densely populated city. However, it's not to the extent that it becomes bothersome.
I just checked and the pm2 levels are as bad as they were when I visited pre Covid (50 μg/m^3). I was there for 3 months, in El Poblado neighborhood and the air quality was horrendous, I would never go back. The depression in which the city lays also keeps all the pollution in place for longer.
Any links to how to build these at home? Like a 10 to 15 foot version? It'd be really interesting to find out how to keep the plants' roots from clogging the water supply.
Looks beautiful. I assume our hockey stick temperature charts capture this urban heat island effect of between two and five degrees, right? Anybody know?
Temperature inside one of these green corridors is, say, 24 Celsius when outside of these corridors it can reach up to 30 at the same time of the same day.
I do think that's like the most extreme difference you could find in any given day.
That seems incredibly cheap for the benefits. Colombia looks to have a GDP per capita about 1/10th of the US, so if we scale it up 10X...
I live in a relatively cold climate, and I would still be delighted to pay $2.50 a year for this kind of infrastructure development. Heck, even scaling it up 100X seems like it would be worth considering.
Maybe there's a cost I'm missing here, but for a hot city, the AC savings alone seem like they would be worth it, not to mention the 40% reduction in respiratory infections through increased air quality.