Our series on the future of Toronto returns with this stunning survey of the world's megacities and the efforts of revolutionary Danish city planner Jan Gehl to re-think and re-design them on a smaller scale: the human scale. Around 1950, Gehl argues, city planning took on a very specific direction: "bird shit architecture." Driven by the rapid influx of cars, cities were designed to look good from a plane, ignoring the needs of humans below. The Human Scale explores how Gehl’s vision of a human megacity—intimate, lively, safe, sustainable and healthy—is being implemented in places like New York, Chongqing, Copenhagen and Melbourne.
Join us for a post-screening discussion with Amanda O'Rourke, the Executive Director of 8 80 Cities, a Toronto-based non-profit working to create healthier, happier and more equitable cities around the world.