During his three-year term, Mayor Peñalosa of Bogotá, Colómbia implemented profound changes which transformed the capital and changed the attitude of its 7 million inhabitants.  He massively improved slums, built formidable schools and nurseries, beautiful libraries and hundreds of parks and other pedestrian spaces. He was a leading innovator in America in creating a bicycle path network, restricting car use and radically improving pedestrian facilities, building more than a hundred kilometres of pedestrian streets and greenways. Inspired by the Curitiba model, he created the TransMilenio bus transit system which has been a role model to many cities.  As a result, Enrique Peñalosa has become an international star of sorts among green urban designers.  Yet, he arrived at these ideas from a completely different direction. “My focus has always been social—how you can help the most people for the greater public good.”

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