Who’s Afraid of the Informal?: slum as an analytical category
Photo montage by Dionsio Gonzales
Following Lubiana’s post about urban informality as a form of protesting economic inequality and my own post praising the social relations engendered by informal spaces both in Occupied space and favelas, Sylvia Soonets, from Proyectos Arqui 5 in Caracas, passionately cautioned against romanticizing informal housing settlements based on political sympathizes or allegiances to various local–global Occupy protest movements. She is right to critique discourses that seem to characterize slums as sanitized bastions of the creative and resourceful human spirit. A romantic portrayal of poverty manifested as slum was not my intention. Instead I voiced enthusiasm for resistance to the hegemonic ordering of the city in forms that benefits the few at the expense of the many. A healthy debate concerning the doubts raised by Soonets is productive, for it touches on current debates and critiques in urbanist literature questioning the trendiness of slum studies as well as sensationalism in popular media.
The encampments of Occupiers (turned squatters?) in cities across Europe and North America (inspired by movements in Latin America and North Africa) make visible, in a purposefully spatial manner, economic inequality in the ‘Global North.’ Unplanned slum settlements that are ubiquitous to the cityscapes of many ‘Global South’ cities are a continual reminder of unwarranted inequality in the world over. In fact the persistence of the dichotomous socio-spatial categories city/slum–formal/informal signifies a codependent relationship; that one does not exist without the other.
Prominent Latin Americanist Alan Gilbert has long been critical of development discourse and recently has questioned the continued use of the slum as an analytical category from which to study urban poverty [1]. The danger of validating the slum as a legitimate object of study and policy risks essentializing the urban poor as well as encouraging the modern developmentalist idea of a city without slums. The idea of a city without slums fortunately has not taken center stage in Latin America, but it Read More…
Why Design?
I’d like to take as my starting point the blog entries posted here by Proyectos Arqui5 about their experiences designing upgrading projects in barrios in Caracas, Venezuela. I’m struck by the sense of frustration and urgency in Ms. Soonets’ and Ms. Pocaterra’s writing. We in the US can only imagine the strange reverses they are witnessing which are, in their view, resulting in the downgrading of the planned city. They describe a professional context in which laws and sources of political support are frequently turned upside down, and projects that have been in planning for years are inexplicably stonewalled.
In thinking about the challenges of practicing architecture in such a context I thought back to my own education at UC Berkeley and my architectural research in favelas in Sao Paulo in the mid-1990s, when the idea of architects designing projects in squatter settlements would have sounded quite bizarre to most people. At that time, studying community design had gone out of style. Computer-generated rendering was beginning to be taught, so that a student could put a glittering skin over any form and present it as a building. Most students’ focus was on the building as an object, not on design in the service of users (in spite of the best efforts of the faculty) and the real estate boom of the last fifteen years saw many of us working on large, costly buildings.
The knowledge that we spend so much of our time mastering – complex planning and building codes, sophisticated materials, structural, lighting, HVAC, and LEED requirements – is specific to the formal context and has little to no relevancy in a less formal setting. Instead, relevant areas of knowledge might include participatory design, local social, political, and commercial practices, health, violence, sanitation, transportation and water issues, local land use policy, tenure and access to credit, sustainability in the context of the local geography, the socio-economic programs Read More…
Favela and futebol: the not so belle époque
Leonidas da Silva, 1940s.
In the first decades of the twentieth century the capital city of Rio de Janeiro went through drastic transformations. Appointed mayor in 1902, Pereira Passos got absolute powers to literally “sanitize” downtown Rio. Inspired by Hausmman Parisian reforms, Passos opened a series of new avenues downtown, helping connect the port and the commercial center with the bourgeoning zona-sul, the ocean front areas of Rio being occupied by the wealthier. In the process, thousands of humble structures (cortiços) were demolished, its inhabitants simply pushed out.
A significant portion of the 5,000 people displaced, having nowhere else to go, got their few belongings and moved up the hills helping fuel the growth of the favelas. The “sanitation” project used real public health concerns to push forward another kind of “cleaning”: to eradicate the mostly black and mulatto poor population from downtown Rio and make it look as European (meaning white) as possible. The belle-époque was not so belle after all.
Racial undertones were so pervasive in Brazil that even a modernist prophet like Lucio Costa wrote in 1928 about “this anonymous crowd that take the trains (…) making us ashamed everywhere. What can we expect from such population? All is a result of race. The race being good the government will be good and good will be the architecture. Say what you may, our basic problem is selective migration, the rest is secondary, will happen by itself.” (Costa in O Pais, July 1st, 1928).
No wonder that dark skinned athletes had to powder their faces and make their skin lighter-colored in order to play. Fluminense, one of the great soccer teams of Rio is still called Read More…
2011 Leftovers :: Floods + Stairs – Part 1
With the New Year picking up speed and the passed year quickly dissolving in our memory, I want to take this opportunity to recap on a couple of remnants from 2011. In the following 2 posts, focusing on Colombia, the home country of our widely discussed Medellin, I want to share a quick glimpse on 2 specific leftovers from 2011.
1- Going up!!! –Electric stairs
Source:http://actualidad.orange.es/internacional/medellin-tiene-primeras-escaleras-electricas-del-mundo-para-movilidad-urbana.html
Yes, 2011 culminated with yet another mobility innovation in Medellin. Adding to the existing list of Metrocable (in Medellin; Caracas and now Rio), elevators, and monorails, we have now a new mechanical tool for pedestrian circulation: exterior electric staircases. Although not the first exterior electric staircases(see: Honk Kong), this is he first of its kind being located in one of Medellin’s most difficult informal settlements.
- Electric Stairs: Medellin and HK. Sources (left to right): Monica Guerra; Chirstopher DeWolf (www.urbanphoto.net)
The stairs are being built in the informal settlement Las Independencies (12 000 residents), located in the Comuna 13 as part of the Comuna’s PUI (part of a group of interventions including a Library Park: Parque Biblioteca San Javier , and the city’s second Metrocable).
The electric staircases, imported from Japan, were inaugurated in December 2011, costing 13500 million Colombian Pesos (approximately 74 million USD). With 130 linear meters, covering an area of 2000 sqm and replacing over 200 steps, the mechanical staircases climb- through 6 separate segments- 38 m in height.
Although the staircases were inaugurated in December, only 2 segments are functioning during restricted hours: Monday through Saturday they operate from 2-5 PM, 12-3 PM on Sundays. In this regard, one resident Read More…
Prepping for the New Year
On behalf of the FAVELissues team, we want to wish you happy holidays and a very prosperous new year!
Thank you for your support, comments and contributions. We look forward to continue sharing, challenging and building around concepts and discussions of urban informality, seeking a more equitable and sustainable city development.
Best regards,
Street Vending and Public Market Typologies in Santiago, Chile
A colero's "stand" compressed into a bike carrier in Huechuraba, Santiago, Chile. (Credit: Jennifer Renteria)
Building on my previous post and given that my research’s intent was to observe and document public market and street vending typologies in Latin America, what follows is a generalized and brief summary of what I have identified as Santiago, Chile’s four primary kinds of vendors. Of course, the lines between these is at times blurred, yet, at other times, there is a clear distinction between each and this often characterized the relationship I observed between these different entities.
Metro or neighborhood scale markets or mercados
These are legal venues where, in addition to the average local, feriantes or coleros may buy their goods for resale. Vendors here have city issued permits and may have connections with national and international wholesale vendors. An example of this is the recently opened Mercado Tirso de Molina, which houses 100 plus vendors on its two floors.
Stands in the Mercado Tirso de Molina. (Credit: Jennifer Renteria)
Bazaars or persas
Here, what may be taking place may be illegal just as easily as it may be legal. Within the persas walls are permitted vendors who may sell anything from used books and magazines to bundles of imported Chinese goods. Just as easily and with a quick turn of the body, one could find piles of stolen goods within those same walls. (I was told to visit the enormous Persa Bio Bio were I ever to have anything stolen during my stay in Santiago and were interested in buying it back.) Typically, these persas would be retrofitted warehouses or held within corner shopping malls. The Persa Bio Bio covered approximately four blocks along a former lumber and train yard and took a whole day of wandering to cover. Along the persa itself and within and along the narrow streets that run through it were several vendors or coleros whose wares were placed on thin sheets, ready to be lifted and taken away at the sight of a carabinero or police officer. However, the weak carabinero to colero ratio seemed to pose little to no threat to the coleros.
Setting up in the Persa Bio Bio. (Credit: Jennifer Renteria)
Street markets or ferias
Permitted feriantes or street market vendors, likely having bought their goods from mercados early in the day or week, sell their goods in these ferias, two or three of which are located within Santiago’s many comunas. Ferias libres are open only one or two days a week, given their ephemeral nature as quickly assembled stands along temporarily closed streets. Others are open more often and are recognized as ferias modelos given their more stable state under permanent canopies Read More…
Incremental housing or Sites&Services Reloaded?
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Quinta Monroy, housing project in Iquique (Chile) by Elemental; Image taken from Eduardo Rojas presentation at the IADB
Most of the cities in developing countries have been constructed using incremental housing techniques. This form of urbanization – generally used by low income households to access land and housing – involves the incremental improvement of housing, passing from very basic constructions -that are usually sub-standard and have little access to basic services- to more consolidated structures with higher density.
During the past couple of years NGOs and international organizations have started thinking of using incremental housing - that low income household have used for decades- as a methodology for reconstruction following natural disasters and, more recently, as a new way of producing affordable housing. The use of incremental housing techniques for reconstruction of houses after Natural Disasters has already been experimented in a number of countries (Sri Lanka, the Philippines, Pakistan…), has proven to be more efficient than standardized top-down approaches and to lead to higher levels of satisfaction, as households rebuild according to their preferences. I will discuss incremental housing for reconstruction in another post and will concentrate on incremental housing as a source for affordable housing.
According to Eduardo Rojas from the IADB around 60% of the population builds their own home through incremental improvements that generally last around 12-15 years. But why does it take so long for households to improve and consolidate their homes? Basically there are a number of steps in the improvement process that can rarely be led by an individual household and require either the involvement of public authorities or an organized community. Providing access roads, potable water, drainage and higher security of tenure are among the incremental improvements that fall under the previous category. So how can governments use incremental housing to create more affordable housing?
In a first stage governments can coordinate the provision of components that need require the involvement of public authorities such as access roads, tenure and basic services, and leave to households Read More…
Falling in Love with the “Barrio,” the risk of toying with informality
Post by Silvia Soonets [Proyectos Arqui 5] on Caracas
This week, the Venezuelan Supreme Court declared land invasions legal in rural, agricultural land.
Based on the right peasants should have to the land, an unprecedented sentence made it illegal to apply any sanctions against those who use private land to develop agricultural activities (read more). Of course, this news have generated a huge national polemic, mostly dealing with the implications on private property and legal security, as well as with the fear that this type of regulation could soon by applied to urban areas. Even before the sentence, some figures suggested that in 2011 the number of invasions were 750% superior to those which happened in the previous year.
Immersed in such grave problems, few have stopped to think about the impact that massive invasions could have on our already complicated cities. Because beyond the growing difficulties individual owners are facing, all inhabitants will be impacted and will suffer a city without rules.
Could we even begin to conceive of a city where everyone can build anything anywhere? Does it make any sense to even use Planning in that city? When rules disappear not only is the built environment affected, but it also has a direct implication on the manner in which people relate with each other and with the public spaces, thus generating a perverse process that feeds on informality and generates more informality.
Like a monster, cute and interesting when little, it might end up destroying everything around. It is that little cute monster, the one we should fear.
Most interventions addressing informal settlements fall grossly in two categories: those proposing visible and impacting new structures, infrastructure or art work, and those that work deeply inside the settlement, in small scale, aiming to preserve its lifestyle and communitarian sense.
Different in their formal character, both share the appreciation of the settlement as something worth preserving, as a source of valuable lessons and a representation of legitimate life style. Nevertheless, from these different points of view, there is an important dose of romanticism -in both approaches- that is increasingly worrisome.
People living in the slums deserve all our respect, and they should receive all the available support to improve their living conditions (Kirsten Larson touched on an interesting point in this regard). Nevertheless, at the same time, I am convinced this way of living is not sustainable, and that there is no reason why some should be permitted to live without rules or restrictions. No part of the city should be allowed to have a different set of laws.
This is not a local forum, and I’m sure that for many readers, it is impossible to imagine what is happening today in Venezuela. We are a strange spectacle that is difficult to believe, and very likely, our experience is not directly applicable to other realities… However, this is why, from a different perspective and urban environment, we shout out in caution that recent manifestations of the occupying movements, openly supporting-or perhaps even imitating- concepts of informality and invasion, can very easily be feeding the monster.
The Olympic Juggernaut Hits Rio de Janeiro: Is there a compelling new story? [2]
PART 2: Olympics and Vila Autodromo [Guest Post by Maulik Bansal]
CLICK TO SEE previous posts: Intro and Part 1
Vila Autodromo – a favela on the western edge of the proposed Olympic Park. Source: ‘Brazil Olympics may send poor families packing’ – Alison Coffey. www.globalpost.com
AECOM’s original masterplan almost deliberately overlooks the favela Vila Autodromo. Although the four major components of Barra da Tijuca’s Olympic proposal have pivoted around this crucial land parcel, its current inhabitation has not seemed worthy of consideration. In fact, the fragmentation of the masterplan into four components and their subsequent planning by independent agencies has made the existing community of Vila Autodromo ‘peripheral’. Interestingly, the AECOM proposal places the overhead connection between the Olympic Park and the Convention Center along the southern edge of the community. If one pays closer to attention to this peripheral element, it appears as though AECOM proposes to restructure the existing road network of this area without affecting this favela.
Nevertheless, AECOM does not have the last word in the overall masterplan. The municipal authorities have ignored AECOM’s approach, and have continued to find ways to evict residents of the small favela. Indeed, Vila Autodromo would probably be too visible and stand out in a shiny new Olympic masterplan. How can Rio de Janeiro afford to showcase its not-so-bright reality to the world? The new image of the bright new future has no room for these unplanned, spontaneous and illegal developments that pock-mark Rio’s urban landscape.
But, Vila Autodromo is not a new neighborhood. It started out as a fishermen community, and has been there for nearly 40 years. It is a low- and middle-income community of about 2,000 people that is five times older than the Convention Center. It has residents rather than the transient population of the Convention Center, and is built with the idea of permanence unlike the pre-fabricated and assembled steel frame of the Convention Center that has been generously integrated into the masterplan. Moreover, this community has legal rights to be there, on land leased to them by the government in 1994 for 40 years. Yet, the Olympic Bid chose to retain the Convention Center over a living community. In fact, the Bid Document does not even acknowledge the existence of this community.
Over the last few years local authorities have made repeated attempts at notifying “obstructing” communities on their imminent relocation. However, these authorities and their top-down approaches to planning have obviously overlooked Read More…
The Olympic Juggernaut Hits Rio de Janeiro: Is there a compelling new story? [1]
PART 1: Background [Guest Post by Maulik Bansal]
On October 1, 2009, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) announced that the Summer Olympic Games 2016 will be hosted by Rio de Janeiro. The Bid Document submitted by Rio de Janeiro was an extensively detailed and thorough proposal consisting of a three-volume document explaining all administrative, financial, social and technical aspects.
Accompanying traditional concerns of transportation, sport, health, education and environment, the bid reflected an elaborate narrative on an urgent need for the ‘new’ and for ‘transformation’.
“The Rio Games will also celebrate and showcase sport thanks to the city’s stunning setting and a desire to lift event presentation to new heights. Rio 2016 will excel in meeting all the needs of the Games Family…. At the same time, Rio 2016 will be an opportunity to deliver the broader aspirations for the long-term future of the city, region and country – an opportunity to hasten the transformation of Rio de Janeiro into an even greater global city.” “For the people of Rio, the Games will transform their city with new infrastructure, new environmental, physical and social initiatives and new benefits and opportunities for all…. They will bring a new level of global recognition for Brazil. Superb Games and stunning broadcast imagery will provide a long-term boost to tourism and Brazil’s growing reputation as an exciting and rewarding place to live, do business and visit….History’s first Games in a new continent, in a city with unique global image, will open new horizons, building interest and enthusiasm over the full four years of the Olympiad. The media and sponsors will be excited by a new destination, bringing new value to the Olympic and Paralympic brands. A compelling new story is ready to be told.”
(Extracts from Vol.1 of Candidature File for Rio de Janeiro to host the 2016 Olympic and Paralympic Games)
Indeed, a very well written and compelling story. A story that –although at present fictional-has the potential to manifest itself into reality with the right political will and public sacrifice.. A work of fiction so intent on its manifestation, that it inspires political will and social sacrifice. After all, would questioning such narratives not constitute a regressive, even unpatriotic attitude? Who wants to become a stumbling block in the city’s and the country’s path towards a new future?
In order to ensure that all development with regard to the Summer Olympics and other mega-events, such as the FIFA World Cup 2014, are beneficial to Read More…
Adriana Navarro Sertich
Lubaina Rangwala
Jennifer Renteria
Kirsten Larson
Proyectos Arqui5
Tucker Landesman
Namrata Kapoor
Paula Restrepo-Cadavid
Andrew Carman
Jose Antonio Ramirez
Fernando Luiz Lara
Bethany Opalach
