We listened to the birds. ‘Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo How Lockdown offers a glimpse of a greener city

Cyclists on a cobbled square in Paris’ Left Bank pedaling looked like a Sunday afternoon trip to enjoy the end of June, like any group of friends. But this was not a casual outing. For them it was a revolution in the making. From a bicycle blew a slight dark-haired woman in a windbreaker Chicago Cubs: Anne Hidalgo, the mayor of Paris. her bicycle helmet hanging out, reporters said there that the French capital has had to drastically cut car use is the central message of the campaign for re-election on June 28 gathered: “We’re getting there,” he said “but we have a long way to go.” Hidalgo is certainly not just among the city leaders in an attempt to transform the urban life. In the US and in Europe and even in the megacity of Istanbul mayor promised to create millions of acres of new park, financial companies move to solar powered electricity, retrofit buildings and private car ban from urban districts, all in an effort for carbon footprints and cutting pollution. Your efforts can not be more urgent. They were national leaders who signed the Paris Agreement, a pact of 2015 global climate on carbon emissions. But there are cities in which most of the population lives around the world to find out how the need to achieve these goals. While cities only 2% of the Earth are taking, they consume 78% of world’s energy and produce more than 60% of its total carbon dioxide emissions according to UN statistics. “Cities a relic of the industrial age,” says Richard Florida, one urban specialist at the University of Toronto. “You have to be redesigned healthier and safer.” The eerie silence that has been helping cities across the world during the months Lockdown fell to reinforce this message, says Hidalgo, in their large office with wood paneling in Paris sits Town Hall two days after clinching a second term six years. “We were able to breathe. We hear the birds,” he says. “It was not real life. People were scared,” he adds, was killed in a nod to nearly 30,000 French through the crown. “But still, we thought. If you could be as pleasant will be ” The years since Hidalgo came to power in 2014 were anything but pleasant to Paris, from the devastating terrorist attacks from 2015 to disastrous fire last year Notre Dame. but it has also been suggested as a tragedy, she continued to roll out plans to turn their city into a greener and more humane place. his ambition won plaudits from the green lobby, but also the ire of the drivers and other Parisian. Hidalgo most controversial act was to create about 870 miles of bike paths that today are crossing Paris, a plan wants to expand significantly. in Hidalgo process thousands of other main roads parking and closed completely eliminated for car traffic. This includes the road on the north bank of the Seine, the hinge allows pilots for years all over the city in a few minutes; now it is reserved for pedestrians. since 2024 diesel cars will year banned from Paris. Since then, the historic buildings engineers displayed according to their energy efficiency, says the mayor, and have so far adapted more than 50,000 of them with better insulation and ventilation. Hidalgo, so that residents, for example, to plant trees in their neighborhood Act, which previously required to overcome bureaucratic obstacles steep relaxed and rigid building codes. All over the world Hidalgo was one of the greatest leaders of the cities leading on climate change since their city to the COP-21 summit held when the Paris Agreement, was signed by the end of last year, in 2015 , was the swivel chair of C40, in the big cities an organization set up to coordinate the local climate policy in 2005. the group has become crucial to the network roll-out city guide environmental initiatives seeking in particular in countries like the federal civil service of the United States that offer little help. “We are more or less alone,” said the mayor of Philadelphia Jim Kenney time in a C40 meeting in Copenhagen in October of last year, closer to American mayor. “We can have a big impact, but we can not do everything.” To share the sense of a hole in the green land is a bond forged by mayors who held by the pandemic. One of the first invitations Hidalgo received after winning re-election, was Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti, who succeeded as head of the C40. Group convened to discuss the on-line in May how to make their cities under the mayors crown new pandemic, and many already starting to take action. Giuseppe Sala, Mayor of Milan, has proposed, 22 miles of new bike lanes to tell a reporter: “People are willing to change their attitude,” London Mayor Sadiq Khan has raised taxes for driving in the city center. Hidalgo also seized the moment. Like millions languishing inside of Parisians, the city quietly shot another 31 miles of road bike paths and called Crown slopes, or “traces the Crown.” By the time the city has reopened in mid-May, it found residents that cars were no longer allowed on the main east-west artery, Rue de Rivoli. Now you can cycle or scoot through the center of the Paris business can, from the Louvre to the Place de la Bastille, in a few minutes. Handy movement of love for the mayor, the town hall of the bike path cuts straight. “I often go by bike from my house to the town hall, and there are no cars, only bicycles and pedestrians,” said Hidalgo. “All of a sudden there is this silent room.” Now that he has won re-election, he is thinking of new ways to transform the urban environment. A key concept is “15 minutes of the city”, undertaken by a consultant Hidalgo, Carlos Moreno, Professor of Innovation at the University of Sorbonne in Paris. The idea is to allow the residents infrastructure, such as public transport for access to develop services, shops and schools, all within a fifteen minute walk from home. “We have seen through the COVID pandemic that you can work in different ways to create new hubs,” says Moreno. “I am optimistic.” Not all Parisian feel so optimistic about the changes. The next morning I met Hidalgo in his office, thousands of drivers for Uber and other private taxi companies operate converged on Paris Boulevard Raspail, a major road cutting through the left bank, in an angry demonstration against the anti-car program of the Mayor , For hours they parked their car two lanes along the miles of four-lane avenue, honk. “We have to show 2,500 drivers, all because Ms. Hidalgo” Complained Anthony, 53, on postelection protests against Hidalgo; He runs his own taxi service and declined to give his last name. “This is not to be a thing for the environment or the environment. Look, electric cars we drive,” he said, showing some of the vehicles. And voters are still on the side of environmentalists. The elections of June 28 saw the French Green Party, called EELV win unions in major cities like Lyon, Bordeaux and Strasbourg. Hidalgo also because their victory to some extent an electoral alliance with the Greens. Green parties won nearly 10% of the seats in the European Parliament last year and about 20% of the vote in local elections in Germany, with many voters saying that climate change is now their main concern. Hidalgo, she says not surprised. “I saw it coming this for a long time,” he says. “The use throughout the environment among residents is very, very strong in all major cities in the world. It ‘s really the number one problem.” Beyond the current crisis Hidalgo has his eye on in the month of July 2024 they are considered the Olympic Games in Paris the scheduled departure time. Hidalgo says he sees finally transformed by the Olympics to a city. A number of banks pools, especially for the Summer Games will be permanent fixtures are cleaned with the Seine and swimming. The city immigrant-heavy Seine-Saint-Denis, north-east of Paris, one of the poorest neighborhoods in France-a construction boom, the view with an environmentally friendly Olympic Village and Media City and Olympic Aquatic Center all there set in . electrified suburban railway will be extended throughout the capital. And it is determined despite the steep Olympic budget for the city of about $8000000000, Hidalgo environmental principles continue; have rejected one with the French oil giant Total € 100 million ($112 million), sponsorship and has the front of the fossil fuel industry involved prohibited. “The one to be very important to turn, engine around the city games,” he says. If their prediction proves correct, to protest Paris soon in a lot of green, living city, and much more quiet even with the Hidalgo ideas driver horns. With reporting by Ciara Nugent / Copenhagen and Mélissa Godin / London This 2020 edition of Time seems in July 20.
Picture copyright by Samuel Boivin-NurPhoto / Getty Images