Infrastructure and the Future
It’s been driven by the private sector in this country and you have the mayor who has to kind of follow along, who doesn’t have any money. Then the partnership is unbalanced on the other side. One thing you didn’t have in Chicago is a Mayor with a strong vision… Sarah Williams Goldhagen Do you think that it’s an issue of education or an issue of leadership? Marcel Smets We have formed our architects to become members of the star system, as you call it, and not to become civic people. We are forming our youngsters toward an ambition which is not the ambition of becoming civic leaders or inventors of a new system. Sarah Williams Goldhagen I do think its beginning to change— Marcel Smets Absolutely. Sarah Williams Goldhagen But that has been the case for the last hundreds of years and it’s an enormous problem. Marcel Smets I absolutely agree. I know education is changing and it’s absolutely an important element that architects need to be working towards. Then going back to the local basis… The fact is that the mayors are the only power structure today that is not sectorial. The mayor, or let’s say the local basis, has to think in different ways because they are completely confronted with the result of what they are doing professionally. We have to be more hopeful in a way. It’s a fantastic dawn that is coming in the long-term.
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