Show Us Your City: Neo-Urban Planner

http://www.creativecities.org.uk/show-us-your-city-neo-urban-planner/
Accord­ing to artist Mark Salvatus, Manila is a bust­ling city cry­ing out for rein­ven­tion at a town-planning level — a rein­ven­tion which is too import­ant to leave to the plan­ners — and which requires input from all it’s residents.


“We are affected by these prob­lems in the Metro Manila; why don’t we cure these prob­lems ourselves?” Asks Salvatus | Image cour­tesy of Mark Salvatus

For his Show Us Your City entry Mark sub­mit­ted Neo-Urban Plan­ner, a call for dis­cus­sion into the ways Manila can be reshaped, and an “online sug­ges­tion box” and start­ing point for engaged urb­an­ism. Rather than pon­der­ing the pos­sib­il­it­ies all on his own Mark sent a call out to fel­low city dwell­ers, while in res­id­ency at the Green Papaya Art Pro­jects, to get their input and solutions.

The sug­ges­ted solu­tions been thought­ful and play­ful, respond­ing to local chal­lenges — from sea­sonal flood­ing to trans­port issues to the spread­ing con­crete grey of a rap­idly grow­ing city — in invent­ive ways, and have come from sources as diverse as local artists, chil­dren and the Mayor of Bogota, Colombia.

“These are sug­ges­tions from the cit­izens and for the bene­fit of the cit­izens,” Mark told Varsit­arian. “We are affected by these prob­lems in the Metro Manila; why don’t we cure these prob­lems ourselves?”

“I’ve lived in the city most of my life,” Salvatus told the pub­lic­a­tion. “I have exper­i­enced the chaos of Metro Manila, and as an artist, I want to improve city life.”

“Neo-urban plan­ning some­what became a plat­form to present the people’s cre­at­ive ideas for change in their cit­ies, and even­tu­ally present these ideas to local officials.”

The pro­ject gets us all think­ing: how would you re-shape your city?

Mark Salvatus is one of the short­l­is­ted entrants in our Show Us Your City com­pet­i­tion. Explore per­sonal jour­neys through the most cre­at­ive cit­ies in East Asia with a walk in Seoul, a trib­ute to the sub­urbs of Sydney, a peek into the cre­at­ive spaces of Manila, or, in Sin­g­apore, through a photo diary or a study of con­tested spaces. Stay tuned for more!