far as I know, the story is more or less like this:
A couple of members of the group for all City of Guadalajara, motivated and enthusiastic types like few others, attended the tenth version of the Carfree Cities conference (city without cars), recently held in the city of York, England. Taking advantage of the great amount of urban transport experts gathered here, the Guadalajara group decided to show them a video released by the Government of Jalisco where touting the benefits of the new Express Track state authority intends to build in Guadalajara, a second floor with all the law sold as the panacea to solve the traffic problems of the city, improve the quality of life of its inhabitants, and incidentally help out the environment.
As expected, prominent experts with cool face smashed the proposal, using essentially the same arguments used in this space when referring to projects of this nature, as the infamous Supervía Poniente DF: only encourage more car traffic, which solve the traffic problems only for a short period of time to then experience a rapid obsolescence, which impose a fractured urban landscape, to shift resources that can be used in a better way in improving public transport in the developed world and no one builds them, that ...
Anyway, the boys decided to record City for all these views and upload the video Youtube, where four days was seen by nearly 15 thousand people, until he was pulled unexpectedly air. YouTube said it was at the express request of the Government of Jalisco, who had argued the unauthorized use of images of promotional spot Express Way, video incidentally was funded with money from all taxpayers Jalisco, although that is another matter (for details, I recommend reading this statement City for All).
As often happens in these cases, the critical video was released again into the air by its promoters, to be lowered and raised again in a classic fight that so far is being won by opponents of Way Express, that at the time of writing have several versions available on YouTube, a triumph of perseverance has been rewarded with thousands of hits in recent days.
As already said enough about the issue in the urban blogosphere, I will not dwell on the technical characteristics of the project, other specific aberration that can not withstand further analysis, but rather on why all the controversy of video and impact. In this regard, three ideas come to mind.
First, it is worth asking why the powerful government of a powerful state as Jalisco takes the trouble to get into a controversy where possible wins are few or nonexistent. Perhaps the answer lies in the video itself, extremely simple and straightforward, which raises the issues very clearly and without recourse to sophisticated animation and spectacular images. If it's even fun, and that it makes it dangerous: their target audience are not experts in transport and urban activists, but the ordinary citizen, who walks by public transport but also a motorist, who may discover that the panacea of the expressway is not. And that is very risky, that popular pressure can finally jettison an initiative where there are too many political and economic interests at stake.
Secondly, I am of those who believes that silence, gives. The subsequent silence and censorship of the authorities once again convinces me that the arguments of experts with cool side is correct, and what point in the video are true the size of a cathedral that would not otherwise be explained such urgency of getting the network views that someone convinced of the benefits of their proposals do not take more than a couple of minutes to rebut.
Finally, and related to the above, I think the big losers of history are the people of Guadalajara, not by lack of access to video of yore, is finally available in several versions, but because it has lost the opportunity to have a serious discussion and high-mindedness on a project that directly affects their quality of life. In this sense, it would have been interesting if the state government will bring its experts to the scene (I guess they have any) to challenge each and every one of the statements made by the specialists face cool, and incidentally show that all oppose such initiatives are but a band of hysterical bitter that we like to do a storm in a glass of water, and we download all our complex life jodiéndole others. A pity that nothing is more interesting be discussed in the realm of ideas and technical concepts about the best way to city.
What would have happened if the video is not censored? Would he have had the resonance and diffusion that has gained in recent days? Who knows one, but what I have clear is that the action of the Governor and his people did more than provide an attractive air of illegality to a manifesto that under normal conditions would probably only been echoed in the small community of people involved with urban development and transport.
Already congratulations go to the people of the City for All for their perseverance, His love for the cause, and his demonstration that a little ingenuity, commitment and good will can shake the strongest of powers.
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