"Do not look at how many people are walking in the city, but look at how many people have stopped walking to stay and enjoy what is there" - Jan Gehl
Urbanized was very much entertaining and surprisingly turn out to be my favorite among Hustwit's documentary trilogy, Helvetica and Objectified. It might received some heavy critics from urban planners but I think it served its purpose for the non professionals and infuses new spirit and knowledge for those who's already familiar with architecture and urban design.
The film exposed cities from different kind of angles with cases from the slums in Mumbai, the TransMilenio in Bogota, the bike lane in Copenhagen, the public protest of Stuttgart 21 project, the High Line in New York City, the population decline of Detroit, the urban sprawl in Phoenix, and a lot others. The least attractive part of architecture / urban design in comparison to other design disciplines has always been the politics related to the government and bureaucracy and all that and to me it shows also in the film, how the politicians look pretentious and always seems like having an agenda.
Despite a lot of mockery over how this documentary trilogy was so hipsterish-ly packaged, I think Hustwit had pushed through another level of documentary films while at the same time raised more public awareness to the design industry.
