Axel Towers, København

Central København has an amazing set of Towers with offices, restaurants, shops and gardens.  The city has a strong tradition of urban landscape planning that puts people at the centre of things.

“The Human Scale” is a wonderful 2012 film that features 5 cities from around the world https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2414454/ .  The philosophy is inspired by the work of Jan Gehl, a pioneering urban landscape ecologist from Copenhagen.  One of the opening statements by Jan is that we know more about the habitat requirements of Mountain Gorillas in Uganda than we truly know about the habitat requirements of humans in modern cities – to me it’s an exaggeration, but the point is more about lack of realisation of the deeper human needs of people living in big cities, and the way many current urban planners ignore these human needs.  One of the cities featured in the film is New Zealand’s Christchurch as it started to rebuild after a devastating earthquake in 2011.

Copenhagen has a current aspirational goal to have all people living within 5 minutes of essential services.