Step Reflection
Javier Melendez-Galinsky
I used my STEP money last spring to travel to Europe on a study abroad trip with Dr. Jesus Lara of the City and Regional Planning program. I am a City and Regional so this trip was very informative and exciting to me. The purpose of the trip was to explore sustainable urbanism in various European cities. The main cities that we visited on our trip were Copenhagen (Denmark), Hamburg and Berlin (Germany), and Amsterdam (Holland). While traveling it was our job to critically analyze certain locations within each city and evaluate them based on our understandings of the various principles of sustainable urbanism.
Seeing these countries and cities helped me better understand some really important principles of urban planning that we are lacking in The United States. What makes cities like the ones listed above so great is in large part due to their density. In the United States, many of our cities and communities are built up in a way that planning theorists like to call “leapfrog development”. This is a pattern of sprawling development where some lots are developed and others nearby remain undeveloped while speculators wait until the perfect time to develop them. This further enhances the problems of urban sprawl, which are so familiar to us in the U.S. The key to healthy urban areas is Density and traveling to these cities really allowed me to see this. Density is viewed as a benefit in these cities. It allows residents to interact with neighbors, local business owners and many other aspects of their neighborhoods in much healthier ways. I was also struck by how convenient bicycling is in many of these cities. Copenhagen and Amsterdam are two cities in particular where it is extremely useful to have a bike. The amount of bicycle traffic is higher than amount of automobile traffic in many of these cities, which is amazing; especially considering how cold most of these places get during the year. But even in the dead of winter, it is normal to see people opting to bike around the city rather than drive. I believe that interacting and exploring these cities has made me better able to grasp the concepts of healthy urban planning methods and has made me even more excited about my career path.
There were many interactions and relationships that I built on my trip that helped me grow and learn. First of all, I felt that I really got to know my professor, Dr. Lara, a lot better because of this trip. Dr. Lara has been to the cities we visited many times and has even lived and studied in some of them. He had many connections throughout the cities and we were lucky enough to be introduced to some of his professional connections in these cities as well.
Secondly, we were lucky enough to have two professionals in the planning field that accompanied us on the trip. One was from OHM advisors and the other was from MKSK, two planning, architecture and engineering firms in Columbus. Traveling with them was great because they helped us understand what was really at the heart of successes for these cities. In addition, going on this trip was a great opportunity for me to invest in getting to know my fellow planning classmates on a more personal level.
In almost every city we visited, our professor Dr. Lara knew architecture and urban planning professionals who we were lucky enough to meet with. This gave us as students the opportunity to learn about current initiatives that were going on in the different European cities we were visiting firsthand from the planners and architects who were actually overseeing and responsible for designing them. Since many of these cities were very easy to bike through, these planning professionals also led us on bicycle tours of some cities like Copenhagen, Berlin and Amsterdam. This allowed us to experience the cities from the perspective of their residents. It also gave us a local perspective to these cities and we were able to see many different neighborhoods and hidden gems that we may have never seen if it weren’t for them.
I feel that participating and traveling in this trip also allowed me to continue to grow on a personal level. Traveling is always a learning and growing experience and this trip allowed me to grow on a personal level as I traveled. Once on Europe, I traveled around the continent with people who I did not know before the trip began. There were also assumptions I had made about some of these cities that were challenged and proved wrong when I visited these cities in person. Berlin for example was a very interesting city to me in many different ways. One of the first things I noticed about Berlin when we arrived was how diverse of a city it is. You can see the diversity of Berlin almost immediately because of how frequent and popular Middle Eastern food is in the city. As soon as we stepped off the high-speed train in Berlin’s Hauptbanhof (central station) I knew we were in a different kind of European city. There is a pretty large population of Turkish people who immigrated to Germany that live in Berlin. There are also decent numbers of African people who live in Berlin and Americans who migrated from the U.S to this city. This came as a surprise to me. Before traveling to Berlin, I didn’t really know anything about the city besides its history pertaining to the Berlin Wall and its destruction during World War Two. Something else I saw and experienced in Berlin was how the old divisions that used to exist between the eastern and western portion of Berlin are still visible in many ways. Although the wall once divided the city between east and west is no longer standing, the influences that shaped the two sections of the city in terms of architecture and urban fabric can still be seen quite easily. Berlin is also a young city with neighborhoods made vibrant by young people and immigrants. Some of the most memorable neighborhoods we visited in Berlin were also the most diverse neighborhoods, filled with young working people, immigrants and delicious foods.
In these ways Berlin challenged my assumptions of what European cities are or can be. Before visiting Berlin, I had the idea in my head that all European cities were built up of ancient, renascence and Victorian era buildings following winding narrow cobble stone streets and roads. However, Berlin is not this at all. It is a city that in many ways is still being reconstructed from the rubble that it was after world war two and the rigid division that partitioned it during the cold war era. Because of this, the urban fabric of Berlin is closer in appearance to that of a Midwestern American city than to that of a historic European city. This is most noticeable because it has wide roads oriented for automobile instead of pedestrians in many parts of the city (particularly the former soviet controlled part of the city). Despite the tumultuous history of Berlin, it is nonetheless a diverse and cosmopolitan city with young working professionals, vibrant diverse communities and distinct neighborhoods. Berlin challenged my assumptions of what a European city is and can be and is a city I hope to return to in the near future for these reasons.
Taking this trip also allowed me to grow on an academic and professional level. By traveling through these European cities I realized that our field of urban planning really is a profession that must be viewed as a tool and method to improve, shape and analyze the delicate complexities of our urban communities, social and physical environments. Urban planning in Europe seems to be broader focused and projects that are undertaken in European cities seem to be aimed at improving peoples lives in a multitude of ways. So much thought is put into the designs of parks, for example, whom they serve and how they will benefit the communities they are targeting.
In summary, the opportunity that was given to me in traveling to these various European countries and cities was one that I was extremely grateful to be a part of. I learned a lot about sustainable urban planning practices and came away from the trip with a better understanding of how I may be able to one day improve the health and vitality of many American cities and communities through work as an urban planner. I’ve always been fascinated by the problems our cities have experienced because of decades of poor urban planning practices and thanks to my STEP experience I feel well set to help make a difference in how our cities work for everyone when I finally make it into the career field.
