New book: Social Urbanism in Latin America. Cases and Instruments of Planning, Land Policy and Financing the City Transformation with Social Inclusion.

Tal vez podría ser de su interés.

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Carlos Leite I Urbanist I Ph.D.
Professor, School of Architecture and Urbanism, Mackenzie Presbyterian University, Sao Paulo

Nuestro nuevo libro:

Social Urbanism in Latin America.

Cases and Instruments of Planning, Land Policy and Financing the City Transformation with Social Inclusion.

Authors:

Carlos Leite, Professor School of Architecture and Urbanism, Mackenzie Presbyterian University; Collaborator PPG-CIS Uninove; Visiting Researcher Institute of Advanced Studies, University of Sao Paulo.

Claudia Acosta, Professor Lincoln Institute of Land Policy (Latin American program); Researcher Fundacao Getulio Vargas, Sao Paulo and Colombia.

Fernanda Miltelli, Professor Paulista University; Researcher School of Architecture and Urbanism, Mackenzie Presbyterian University, Sao Paulo.

Guillermo Jajamovich, Researcher Nacional Council of Scientific and Technical Research - Latin American and the Caribbean Studies Institute, University of Buenos Aires (UBA); Visiting professor Universidad Torcuato Di Tella, Universidad Nacional de General Sarmiento, Universidad de Tres de Febrero, UBA. 

Mariana Wilderom, Researcher School of Architecture and Urbanism, University of Sao Paulo.

Nabil Bonduki, Professor School of Architecture and Urbanism, University of Sao Paulo;  Fulbright Visiting Scholar University of California, Berkeley.

Nadia Somekh, Professor School of Architecture and Urbanism Mackenzie Presbyterian University, Sao Paulo; Visiting Professor Cergy Pontoise University and Institut d'Urbanisme de Paris.

Tereza Herling, Professor School of Architecture and Urbanism, Mackenzie Presbyterian University; Sao Judas University, Sao Paulo.

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Springer Nature, 2019.

ISSN: 978-3-030-16011-1

DOI: 10.1007/978-3-030-16012-8

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‣ Table of contents:

Part I: Concepts and Context

+ Chapter 1 – Social Urbanism in Latin America (Carlos Leite)

Part II: Cases

+ Chapter 2 – Medellin (Mariana Wilderom)

+ Chapter 3 – Bogota (Fernanda Amorim Militelli)

+ Chapter 4 – Sao Paulo: Land policies and urban instruments developed in the period 2013-16 (Carlos Leite and Tereza Herling)

+ Chapter 5 – Sao Paulo: Participation and Social Inclusion on Cultural Heritage (Nadia Somekh)

+ Chapter 6 – Buenos Aires and Rosario: Large-scale Urban Projects and the Just City (Guillermo Jajamovich)

Part III: Instruments of Planning, Land Policy and Financing

+ Chapter 7 – Tools Experiences in Latin America (Claudia Acosta)

+ Chapter 8 – Lessons and Challenges (Carlos Leite and Nabil Bonduki)

Forewords:

+ Brian McGrath, Constructed Environments, Parsons The New School for Design, New York, USA.

+ Edésio Fernandes, DPU Associates, University College London, UK.

+ Marta Lora-Tamayo Vallvé, UNED, Madrid, Spain.

+ Martim Smolka, Lincoln Institute of Land Police, Cambridge, MA, USA.

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‣ Book Abstract:

This book highlights current concepts of Social Urbanism, the contemporary set of multiple and interdisciplinary urban studies that have emerged mainly from the complex realities of Latin American cities. The discussion that follows places special emphasis on public land policy and the innovative urban instruments developed in that region to promote social and territorial inclusion.

Critical reflections throughout the pages of this book shed light into the local context of each case-study in order to understand their specific set of challenges and opportunities. Relevant lessons are extracted from the three cities here analyzed, the medium-scale city of Medellin, the large-scale city of Bogota, and the megacity of Sao Paulo, as well as from local innovative experiences in Argentina and Uruguay.

These cities underwent promising transformation processes over two decades, applying planning and financing instruments of land policy which have produced significant shifts in the urban development paradigm in the region. The quest for social inclusion has emerged as the common denominator in these cities, awakening growing interest across several fields of urban studies, from public policies and city management to urban law, city financing, urban development, and innovative community participation processes. The book brings implications on urban land policy for transition cities in the Global South.

The question of social inclusion in Global South cities is however far from being solved; the analysis presented in this book shows advances and hope, besides a long path still ahead, which can only be faced through a continuous and challenging incremental process. 

May this book be an incremental step.

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‣ Chapters Abstracts:

CHAPTER 1 – Social Urbanism in Latin America (Carlos Leite)

The chapter introduces some current concepts and its historical precedents in regard to Social Urbanism, a contemporary strand of multidisciplinary studies about cities that emerge from the complex reality of Latin America, the most urbanized of the continents, and other transition cities from the Global South.

In these terms, Social Urbanism aims to promote the improvement of urban quality of life and social territorial inclusion, especially by directing investments towards socially vulnerable areas and integrated solutions of social housing and urban infrastructure of support. In that sense, social urbanism is explained to be a relevant part of the new Urban Agenda when it is contemplated as a city science of the 21st century, with emphasis on social inclusion.

The text contextualizes the historical social demands of Latin American cities, the urgent demand for urban public policies, as well as present some local innovative experiences in different countries on land policy, its instruments of urban planning and financing, local integral urban projects, social housing and neighborhood upgrading programs, city management, urban law, and new forms of  community participation processes

The "cities for all" and "sustainable city" demands are approached as an integrated agenda for the Global South.

CHAPTER 2 – Medellin (Mariana Wilderom)

Social Urbanism, an ideology underlying the urban transformations of Medellin in the last 15 years, refers to an intervention methodology within the urban fabric that associates public policies, urban planning and design through a participatory process. Its main objective would be to transform the city's social and spatial dynamics by improving the infrastructural and morphological reality of urban space, thereby increasing the quality of life of citizens. 

This process is linked to Mayor Sergio Fajardo's term (2004-2007) but several strategies were also carried out by his successors Alonso Salazar (2008-2011), Aníbal Gaviria (2012-2015) and Federico Gutierrez (2016-2019). Analyses on this political and urban process has led to judgments of convictions or of unrestricted success. After 15 years of this pioneering experience, a more detailed evaluation of the urban reality of Medellin is needed. 

Thus, this chapter intends to carry out this task on three fronts: the first two parts present the two main elements of the equation of the Medellin phenomenon, that is, the worsening of a the historical, social and spatial problem (1) and the development of management and intervention instruments in the urban space as strategic tools for social cohesion (2). The reflection ends with a look at the resulting urban environment (3).

CHAPTER 3 – Bogota (Fernanda Amorim Militelli)

Bogota in the early 1990s was recognized internationally as one of the most violent cities in the world, plagued by drug trafficking and urban chaos. Ten years later, the city received the Golden Lion award at the X Architecture Exhibition of the Venice Biennale.

This chapter addresses the phenomena that took place in the Colombian capital between 1995 and 2003, which provided the urban transformation, understood as a grouping of complementary and successive actions, of diverse nature: from politics to the implantation of grandiose and articulated urban projects.

Political actions combine several laws and public policies, which have allowed urban interventions to be implemented, articulated and continued, and social programs for the construction of "citizen culture", responsible for the public appropriation of the major interventions implemented.

 The changes in the territory were materialized by adding three axes of articulated urban interventions. The determinant axl was the restructuring of the collective transportation systems, since the implementation of the Transmilenio BRT system, linked to other modes of transportation such as bike paths, providing intermodality and, above all, integration with other actions, such as construction and improvement of public spaces and collective facilities, library-parks, and promotion of social housing integrated to urbanity and urban expansion process control policy.

CHAPTER 4 – Sao Paulo: Land policies and urban instruments developed in the period 2013-16 (Carlos Leite and Tereza Herling)

About Sao Paulo, the second largest city in Latin America with more than eleven million people, the chapter discusses the strategy implemented by the 2013-2016 administration in the city of Sao Paulo to orient the city towards social urbanism. The city placed the land issue in the center of the formulation and implementation of its urban policy, with clear guidelines for social and environmental re-balancing through the replacement of the existing model. 

A new urban agenda was achieved in Sao Paulo and the robust and dynamic participation of society in the construction of the new regulatory framework and urban plans was fundamental, along with the strengthening of technical urban planning institutions. A set of urban policies, such as land use regulation, programs, local projects and integrated plans and actions, was developed and directed the city on the way to the promotion of social-territorial inclusion.

The incremental advances in recent urban public policies in Sao Paulo, including the effective implementations of the urban instruments capable of guaranteeing the social function of the city, are now recognized as paradigmatic in the country, demonstrating that it is possible to advance towards the desirable promotion of social urbanism despite enormous difficulties.

CHAPTER 5 – Sao Paulo: Participation and Social Inclusion on Cultural Heritage (Nadia Somekh)

Based on elitist social representation in the restoration of historical monuments, the cultural heritage policy in Sao Paulo is scarcely linked to the preservation of urban settings and to social inclusion practices. Scarcity of resources and lack of public interest, added to a scenario of social inequality, have not favored the allocation of resources towards preservation. Considering this framework of limitations, it is possible to argue that the priority of policies related to cultural assets should lie on the protection of low-income urban settlements, associated to social housing, and within a community-based perspective.

This text aims to introduce potential instruments within the perspective of a social urban Policy, as well as practices related to financing and inclusion which can be replicated in different places and circumstances. They represent the result of a critical analysis of the evolution of cultural heritage preservation practices in Brazil and in Sao Paulo, as well as the debate on patrimonial charters, especially the "Recommendations of Sao Paulo", recently approved by Icomos (International Council of Monuments and Sites). They are also based on the experience accumulated by the Fábrica de Restauro (Restoration Factory) in the lower part of Bixiga, a neighborhood located in the central region of Sao Paulo.

CHAPTER 6 – Buenos Aires and Rosario: Large-scale Urban Projects and the Just City (Guillermo Jajamovich)

The chapter addresses the experience of large-scale urban projects (GPUs) in Argentina from the concept of just city as developed by the urban planning theorist Susan Faintein. Although initially it may seem that the orientations of large urban projects and the references to just city are antithetical, Fainstei's contributions expose the complexity of the issue, transcending the dichotomy between uncritical acceptance and full rejection, as well as clarifying differences between various megaprojects. 

Based on previous approaches on GPUs and secondary literature, the experiences of Puerto Norte (Rosario) and Puerto Madero (Buenos Aires) are approached and compared from the just city perspective. The conclusion is that, despite its distance from the public components incorporated in initiatives addressed by Fainstein in cities of the global north, the Rosario case contemplates more aspects of equity than the case of Buenos Aires.

CHAPTER 7 – Tools Experiences in Latin America (Claudia Acosta)

The 1990s brought urban planning and management tools for justice and social transformation to local governments in Latin America. Two countries led this movement: Brazil and Colombia; and progressively other countries as Uruguay, Argentina, and Ecuador. However, two decades have passed, and cities continue to reflect the enormous inequality in the use of land, land access conditions, housing, public space, infrastructure and public services. Cities represent prosperity and a lack of opportunities, but there is also hope. 

Social urbanism experiences with the implementation of urban planning and land base tools and market-driven regulations are analyzed. With an emphasis on the pioneering countries of Brazil and Colombia, this chapter deals with the historical struggles, advances and implementation of land base tools that aim for better cities for everyone, in terms of support infrastructure, cultural heritage protection, and adequate housing conditions. 

In a very positive way, other Latin American cities and countries also moving towards social urbanism though land base tools. They are local initiatives, which include social pressures for inclusive urban policies, responsible municipal fiscal policies, territorial equity plus, legislative changes and in this sense the chapter also presents the cases of Uruguay and Ecuador.

CHAPTER 8 – Lessons and Challenges (Carlos Leite and Nabil Bonduki)

The final chapter of Social Urbanism in Latin America - Cases and Instruments of Planning, Land Policy and Financing the City Transformation with Social Inclusion presents the main lessons and challenges analyzed in the seven chapters of the book. The case studies of Medellin, Bogota and Sao Paulo, discussed in more detail, along with other local innovative experiences of social and territorial inclusion, through land policy tools, in Latin American cities in Uruguay, Ecuador and Argentina, show that there is a set of urban, environmental and cultural initiatives that place social inclusion and reduction of urban inequality at the forefront of municipal governments' agendas in this century on the most urbanized of the continents.

Social urbanism is approached through a national and, above all, a municipal urban agenda that has been implemented with the goals of tackling social and territorial inequalities while promoting social justice in these cities. The topics are presented in three complementary components of analysis - institutional, financial and urban aspects - highlighting innovative land policy tools, financing instruments and planning tools and processes that integrate technical competence with local community participation in the decision-making processes of urban transformation and public policies. 

The chapter brings implications on urban land policy for transition cities in the Global South.