Sur-Urbano (Latin American Cities Working Group )

What is a fair transportation system? What does it mean to say that a particular place is a transportation desert? Are measure of transportation poverty and equity absolute or relative? How do you define a poverty line in terms of accessibility? In this episode, co-host Gregorio Luz and host Flávia Leite speak with Brazilian researcher Rafael Pereira of the Institute for Applied Economic Research (IPEA), a reference in urban analytics, spatial data science and transportation studies. Based on a recent paper by him and professors Alex Karner and Steven Farber, "Advances and pitfalls in measuring transportation equity," our interviewee answers these and other questions, and also delves into more philosophical questions about what fairness and equity are in urban studies.

Welcome to Sur-Urbano! Our guest today, Raquel Rolnik, may be known to many of you for her critical scholarship and prominent defense of the right to house and the city: Raquel Rolnick. Based out of Sao Paulo, Raquel is professor at the Architecture and Urbanism Department at the University of São Paulo. She has held various government positions including Director of the Planning Department of São Paulo and National Secretary for Urban Programs of the Brazilian Ministry of Cities, and between 2008 and 2014, she was the UN Special Rapporteur on adequate housing. 

On this episode, we discussed one of her papers which we translated to rent-seeking landscapes, and landscapes for life: https://periodicos.ufmg.br/index.php/indisciplinar/article/view/32741

She described how new financial instruments and technologies have transformed the way we produce or relate to housing.

We discussed her views about  land value capture instruments 

And she ended by talking about how creativity, and resistance, rather than planning, can create new possibilities and change reality

This episode is about planning in Palestine, and especially Gaza. As you all know, this is a podcast about Latin American Cities. However, right now it seems difficult to talk or think about anything other than the genocide unfolding in Palestine. Many of those of us who think critically about Latin American cities find so many connections between our histories and struggles and the settler-colonial project of Israel and its occupation of Palestine. This is particularly true when we reflect on the role of planning and architecture in cementing the occupation, dispossession and violence upon Palestinian people, and particularly Gazans. This is the focus of today’s episode. 

To discuss this, it is truly my privilege to host cohost, Mekarem Eljamal and our two guests, Dana Erekat and Eyal Weizman. 

Dana is a Palestinian architect and planner, with a BA in architecture from UC Berkeley and an Masters in City Planing from MIT. The list of positions she has held is as impressive at it is long. Among these, she has worked with the UNDP, with the World Bank, the Kenyon Institute, and more. From 2013-2012, she was Head of Aid Management and Coordination Directorate/ Special Advisor to the Minister at the Palestinian Ministry of Planning and Administrative Development, during which she led the technical committee for the 2014 Gaza Reconstruction plan. She is currently the CEO of the data analytic company Whyise. 

Eyal Weizman is Professor of Spatial and Visual Cultures and founding director of the Centre for Research Architecture at Goldsmiths, University of London. He is perhaps most known as the founder and director of Forensic Architecture,  a multidisciplinary research group based at Goldsmiths, University of London that uses architectural techniques and technologies to investigate cases of state violence and violations of human rights around the world. 

Welcome back everyone to our first episode in English of Sur-Urbano’s season 3. Today we ask, what is the role of architecture and planning in creating the future? And if you could design a city that was just, and equitable, and otherwise reflected your values, what would it look like? Do we even remember how to imagine better futures?

The city we are discussing today is one that was never built, but that was imagined in the hearts and minds of a group of Mexican socialist architects in the 1930s.  We talk to Alfonso Fierro about his article on the Proyecto de Ciudad Obrera, a project designed in 1938 by the Unión de Arquitectos Socialistas – the Socialist Architecture Union, or UAS. We discuss the context and development of Ciudad Obrera, and how it imagined a different kind of collective life that was in turn linked to a national industrialization and development policy.

But beyond that, we talk about the importance of Urban Utopias – of why imagining different futures critiques the present by denaturalizing it as the only way to be. In doing so, utopias strengthen our ability to bring other kinds of reality into being.

Alfonso Fierro is Assistant Professor of Mexican and Latin American literature at Northwestern University. His work, as we will see, explore the place of utopian and speculative fabulation practices in Latin American urban landscapes.

Are judges the new planners? In our first episode of "Sur-Urbano", we discuss Sergio Montero, Luisa Sotomayor and Natalia Ángel Cabo's recent article “Mobilizing Legal Expertise In and Against Cities: Urban Planning Amidst Increased Legal Action in Bogotá”. The authors note that there has been a rise in legal action around urban policy and planning in Colombia, which means that legal experts and judges often end up dictating things that used to be within the realm of planners – social housing, transport corridors, and public space. 

We talk to Sergio Montero, an Associate Professor of Urban and Regional Planning and Development at the Universidad de Los Andes in Bogotá, Colombia, associate editor of the journal Regional Studies and director of LabNa (Laboratorio de Narrativas Urbanas).

Check out the article here: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/02723638.2022.2039433?journalCode=rurb20

En este episodio, hablamos sobre la planificación en Ciudad de México, y a quien beneficia. Junto con el cohost Santiago Echarri (@EcharriCotler) entrevistamos a Victor Delgadillo, profesor investigador de la UNAM, sobre los cambios en la planificación, el Plan General de Ordenamiento que se aproxima, y el derecho a la ciudad.

Mucha gente aboga por ciudades más densas/compactas y de un desarrollo intensivo - pero dice Victor, esto puede beneficiar a la gente, o como está pasando en CDMX, convertir a la ciudad en un “casino inmobiliario”. ¿Cómo pasamos de un modelo que se plantea combatir el despilfarro de la ciudad construida, detener la expansión urbana, y proteger las áreas de conservación ecológica a una ciudad exclusiva y excluyente?

Analiza en detalle los diferentes instrumentos que han hecho esto posible: El polémico Bando 2, las FIBRAS (REITS mexicanos), Las Zonas de Desarrollo Económico y Social, los corredores turísticos y un amplia variedad más de instrumentos que abogan por el desarrollo intensivo fuera de un plan ordenador general.

Y estos debates se vuelven más importantes al pasar del “Distrito Federal” (DF) a ser Ciudad de México, que ahora está en el proceso de formulación de un programa general de ordenamiento territorial  (PGOT).

Pero este resultado no es inevitable, y ya hay instrumentos que pueden orientar el desarrollo urbano hacia un bien público. Por ejemplo, captura de plusvalías, impuestos a lotes ociosos y en ruinas, la función social de la propiedady más. 

Hablamos de dos artículos: el primero titulado “Ciudad de México, quince años de desarrollo urbano intensivo: la gentrificación percibida (scielo.cl). El Segundo, escrito para El Pais para un público más amplio, se titula: Ciudad de México: ¿para la gente o para el mercado?”. < 1. ONU Hábitat: Ciudad de México: ¿para la gente o para el mercado? | Seres Urbanos | Planeta Futuro | EL PAÍS (elpais.com)

Victor Delgadillo es Profesor investigador de la Universidad Autónoma de la Ciudad de México. Doctor en Urbanismo de la UNAM, y sus líneas de investigación incluyen: Centros Históricos Latinoamericanos, Gentrificación; Derecho a la Ciudad y más.
Santiago Echarri Cotler es Arquitecto por la UNAM, y actualmente está estudiando una maestría en urbanismo en la ETSAB. Ha colaborado como profesor adjunto en el Taller Max Cetto y publicado en diversos medios impresos y digitales como: EstePaís, La Tempestad, .925 Artes y diseño y Galimatías, principalmente acerca de los fenómenos de la financiarización de la ciudad, los procesos de segregación urbana y las posibilidades estéticas del paisaje construido. Tiene su propia práctica de arquitectura y ha colaborado con oficinas como Colectivo MX, OIOIOI y en el taller de arte de Julia Carrillo

En el episodio de hoy, hablamos de lo que pasa cuando la planeación se reduce a contratos, el título de un artículo escrito por mi buen amigo, Samuel Nossa Agüero. Hablo con Samuel sobre su estudio etnográfico de Ciudad Bolívar, en Bogotá, donde ejerció como asesor de planeación en la alcaldía local. Samuel fue testigo y partícipe de la manera en la cual la planeación se ha ido reduciendo a la formulación y ejecución de contratos por operadores privados. Nos habla de cómo llegamos a esto, por qué presenta tantos problemas, y qué podemos hacer para superar este parálisis tan terrible en el que estamos. Samuel Aguero tiene un Phd en desarrollo Local del CIDER, de la Universidad de los Andes. Su tesis conecta los estudios sociolegales con los debates de la planeación con una investigación en Ciudad Bolívar, Bogotá. Además de trabajar en la alcaldía local, ha sido activista defensor del derecho a la Ciudad.

Este episodio nace de la profunda tristeza ante la tragedia humana en Palestina e Israel – sí, una tragedia que contempla a los civiles de ambos países, y que interplea a millones de personas en todo el mundo. También nace de la rabia ante todas las decisiones hechas hasta el 7 de octubre que llevaron a ese momento, y el revanchismo desmesurado del Estado de Israel, además de la hipocrecía de los países del norte global – ante todo, de los EEUU – al apoyar a los crimines de Guerra en Gaza y la ocupación continuada de Cisjordania. Pero también, nace de la esperanza ante la solidaridad que muches hemos ido forjado al rechazar esta massacre, y al ver que muchos países de América Latina se han declado en contra de estos crímenes.

Quisimos hacer un episodio que explorara la relación entre Palestina y América Latina desde lo urbano. Si bien el caso de Palestina – y sobre todo, de Gaza – es único, también hay lazos y paralelos que, sospecho, despiertan un reconocimiento y solidaridad entre nosotres y el pueblo Palestino. En este episodio, exploramos estos lazos desde los legados del colonialismo, la arquitectura de la ocupación y de las fronteras abiertas, de lo que representa lo urbano y ante todo, de la Resistencia a través del espacio construido, y de los lazos materiales y simbólicos entre América Latina y el estado de Israel, por una parte, con los palestinos, por otra. Esperamos ante todo, que este episodio fortalezca la solidaridad activa y la movilización, y que se sume a todas las voces clamando por paz, justicia y Libertad en Palestina.

El evento fue organizado por The Center for Latin American Studies-CLAS, University of California, Berkeley, Co-Laboratorio Feminista de Investigación, Acción e Imaginación - Universidad del Tolima, y el Instituto de Estudios Regionales-INER - Universidad de Antioquia. 

Este evento reunió a les feministas afrocolombianes Glenda Palacios y Yanith Cristancho Segura en conversatorio sobre las posibilidades, oportunidades, implicaciones y retos de abrazar epistemologías y metodologías anti-racistas y feministas en trabajos académicos, políticos y de defensa de derechos humanos. Aprendimos sobre las iniciativas que incorporan activamente políticas anti-racistas y feministas para avanzar prácticas colaborativas y nuevas formas de pensar la producción de conocimiento y la acción política en Latin América.

En su intervención, Glenda presentó sobre cómo su trabajo incorpora posturas anti-racistas y feministas para interrogar la construcción de indicadores de desarrollo económico y social. Aportó elementos para explorar y cuestionar las formas restrictivas en que se miden dinámicas de género y raza en investigaciones académicas, y avanzó una reflexión sobre las implicaciones de estas mediciones en la vida de las mujeres negras.

Yanith (o Naki) exploraró cómo perspectivas anti-racistas y feministas que centran el arte, la espiritualidad y la acción política colectiva promueven formas de reparación y sanación para personas negras trans, queers y género flexibles. Una es

Glenda Palacios es una economista colombiana y estudiante del Doctorado en Política de Educación Urbana en la Universidad del Sur de California (USC). Actualmente es asistente de investigación en el Centro Pullias para la Educación Superior, también en la USC. Recibió su título de pregrado en Economía de la Universidad Nacional de Colombia y su maestría en Economía de la Universidad de los Andes. Es fundadora de la Asociación Colombiana de Mujeres Economistas Negras. Pueden consultar uno de sus informes recientes aquí.

Yanith Cristancho Segura “Naki” (elle) es une feminista negre colombiane y activista del movimiento cuir. Yanith es educadore de la Universidad Pedagógica Nacional con una especialización estudios Afrolatinoamericanos y del Caribe de CLACSO. Elle es el co-fundadore de Posá Suto, un espacio creado para personas trans, cuir y género expansivo negras donde pueden estar a salvo al sanar a través del arte, la espiritualidad negra y la colectividad. Yanith es también miembro de la Colectiva Matamba Acción Afrodiaspórica, grupo dedicado a la lucha contra las opresiones estructurales que enfrentan las mujeres negras en Colombia, especialmente en Bogotá. Una de sus columnas recientes se puede consultar aquí.

En 2022 la convención constituyente de Chile presentó la propuesta para una nueva constitución que declaraba, entre otras cosas, el derecho a la vivienda digna y adecuada, al amparo del Estado. 

Esto iba en contra de décadas de lo que se conoce como el modelo Chileno de vivienda, que fue creado durante la dictadura militar de Pinochet, y fue el primer programa del mundo en subsidiar la demanda para comprar viviendas.

Para muchos, es el neoliberalismo encarnado, porque está basado en la idea de que el paper del estado es solo como facilitador para que el mercado responda a las necesidades habitacionales del país. 

A pesar de ello, el modelo ha sido celebrado como un éxito - redujo los asentamiento informales, permitió a miles de personas acceder a la casa propia y finalmente, transformó la ciudad de Santiago. Y por eso, ha sido exportado y replicado por todo el mundo. 

Pero, como veremos hoy, este modelo tiene sus límites. Junto con Catalina Vásquez-Marchant, entrevistamos al antropólogo Miguel Pérez, quien estudia cómo se ha ido profundizando la crisis de vivienda en Santiago desde la perspectiva de las personas migrantes.

Leímos su artículo de NACLA, “A Home for All in Chile’s New Housing Occupations".

Miguel argumenta que la experiencia de los y las migrantes muestra los problemas estructurales del tal modelo chileno, pero que también abre oportunidades para nuevas soluciones y formas de ciudadanía en Chile. 

Miguel Pérez es Director de la Escuela de Antropología en la Universidad Diego Portales. Es también Doctor en Antropología Social por la Universidad de California, Berkeley.

Catalina Vásquez-Marchant es licenciada y maestra en Historia por la Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile. Actualmente es estudiante doctoral en University of Connecticut. Su investigación se enfoca en las dinámicas de urbanización en Santiago, Chile durante los años 1970s, 80s y 90s, con énfasis en la vivienda social, los cursos de agua urbanos y las relaciones socio ambientales entre el agua y la ciudad.

Este es nuestro segundo episodio hecho en colaboración con NACLA, el North American Congress on Latin America.  NACLA fue fundada en 1966 para examinar y criticar el imperialismo estadounidense y su intervención política, económica y militar en el hemisferio occidental. Es una poderosa fuente de investigación y análisis sobre América Latina.

Second, we are starting Season II with an interview with the University of Sao Paulo's Eduardo Marques and cohosted by Marcela Alonso Ferreira. This was an timely conversation, in that Eduardo’s work examines the conditions and dynamics of redistributive urban policies and their changes in Sao Paulo. Understood broadly, it accounts for how progressive urban agendas become policy, and the conditions for their continuity, disruption or oscillation - a pretty fundamental question for the left. It was a hopeful message laced with fear, since we recorded just days before the October 30 presidential election. Now on the other side of the election, Eduardo and Marcela’s analyses are useful in understanding the significance of Lula’s victory.

Eduardo Marques is a full professor at the Department of Political Science and Director of the Center for Metropolitan Studies at the University of São Paulo. He holds a degree in Civil Engineering (UFRJ, 1987), a specialization in Public Health (Fiocruz, 1988), an MSc in Urban and Regional Planning (UFRJ, 1993) and a Ph.D. in Social Sciences (Unicamp, 1998). He recently published the book “The Politics of Incremental Progressivism Governments, Governances and Urban Policy Changes in São Paulo” (Wiley/SUSC-IJURR, 2021), which I recommend to anyone interested in urban policies in Latin America. 

In this episode, we discuss two of Eduardo's recent articles: "Why do local governments produce redistributive urban policies?" and "Continuity and Change of Urban Policies in São Paulo: Resilience, Latency, and Reanimation". 

Marcela Alonso Ferreira is PhD candidate in Political Science at the Center for European Studies and Comparative Politics at Sciences Po, Paris interested in urban governance in Latin American cities. Marcela investigates the changes in land regularization policy and politics in São Paulo and Mexico City.

Marcela also mentions a research group called Cities are back in town, a seminar series convening urban scholars from various disciplines to discuss recent publications on cities worldwide. Many seminars are online so if you're interested, write to citiesarebackintown@sciencespo.fr to receive our mailing list.

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The significance of Peruvian history on the topic of informality, however, is not restricted to this nation. Some of the most emblematic experts on informality - from John Turner to Hernando de Soto - came out of reflecting on housing in cities like Lima and Arequipa, before their ideas were exported to Latin America and around the world. 

Today we talk with University of Technology Sydney researcher Helen Gyger on her book “"Improvised Cities: Architecture, Urbanization, and Innovation in Peru," which was also the topic of her PhD dissertation at Columbia University.

As it turns out, when Helen interviewed John Turner on his experience in Peru, he told her she had to look further back and at the Peruvian architects, politicians and academics who were pioneers in addressing low-cost housing. In this episode, we do just that. Cohost Kelly Ros Mery Jaime and I talk to Helen about three figures whose different approaches continue to define the terms of the debate around housing provision and informality today: Fernando Belaúnde Terry, Pedro G. Beltrán, Adolfo Córdova. 

We discuss their visions for architecture and low-cost housing provision in the 1950s, ther impact on how informality and the role of the state was conceived in the developmentalist era, and their continued legacy. 

Helen Gyer is a researcher on architecture history at the University of Technology Sydney and previously was a Postdoctoral Researcher at the University of Pennsylvania. She holds a PhD in the history and theory of architecture from Columbia University.  

Kelly Ros Mery Jaime is an architect at the National University of Engineering in Peru, researcher and activist on housing issues. She holds a master in urban development planning from Manchester University.

No último episódio desta temporada mergulhamos numa história pouco conhecida pela maioria: a da trajetória dos Soldados da Borracha na Amazônia Brasileira! Nessa conversa com o cineasta Wolney Oliveira e o historiador Marcos Vinicius Neves falamos sobre a vida dos Soldados da Borracha, seringueiros na Amazônia Brasileira durante a Segunda Guerra Mundial. Discutimos a migração e ocupação territorial no Norte do país, a influência Norte-Americana na política e economia nacional, e como que a história dos Soldados se relaciona com as desigualdades sociais e regionais no país. Vem com a gente!

Trailer do filme Soldados da Borracha que estreou no Festival É Tudo Verdade de 2019, e recebeu 15 premiações, aqui: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ChWUijmw0Ts

Exposição “Braceros e Soldados da Borracha, trabalho e poder nas Américas.”:https://sites.google.com/berkeley.edu/latin-american-cities/exhibitions?authuser=0

Livro "Soldados da Borracha os Herois Esquecidos": https://www.amazon.com.br/Soldados-Borracha-Os-Her%C3%B3is-Esquecidos/dp/8575316451

¿Qué define un modelo de ciudad progresista? O más bien, ¿qué alternativas tienen los sectores progresistas y de izquierda - ampliamente entendida - para que las ciudades sean más justas, democráticas, y equitativas? Desde la elección de Gustavo Petro y Francia Marquez a la presidencia de Colombia, esta es la pregunta que nos hemos hecho entre muches que nos alineamos políticamente con la izquierda, y que amamos las ciudades. 

Por eso quisimos hablar con Maria Mercedes Maldonado, quien además de haber sido Secretaria de Planeación y de Hábitat y Vivienda para la alcaldía de Gustavo Petro, ha dedicado buena de su vida profesional y académica a pensar sobre esta pregunta. ¿Qué instrumentos y alternativas podemos imaginar desde el presente? 

Junto con Ana Prada, quien estuvo en uno de los equipos de empalme del Gobierno de Petro y Francia, hablamos con Maria Mercedes sobre el pasado, presente y futuro. Del pasado, repasamos los logros y retos que se enfrentó la alcaldía de Gustavo Petro y Bogotá Humana en temas de aseo y vivienda. De ahí pasamos a hablar sobre por qué el tema de las ciudades no protagoniza la actual agenda del proyecto político de Petro y Francia, y hacemos a un llamado a que existan políticas nacionales - no solo locales - en torno a las ciudades. Maria Mercedes ofrece algunas propuestas para el nuevo gobierno, que parten de rescatar el espíritu de la Ley 388 de Ordenamiento Territorial, y plantear nuevos modelos de vivienda que realmente le sirvan a les residentes urbanos de menores ingresos.  

Maria Mercedes Maldonado es abogada, urbanista, investigadora y activista en temas de ordenamiento territorial, y políticas de suelo, derecho a la ciudad y en temas ambientales y políticas de vivienda.  Fue secretaria de Planeación y de Hábitat durante el gobierno de Gustavo Petro, luego de trabajar muchos años en el CIDER de la Universidad de los Andes, en el Instituto de Estudios Urbanos y en el Lincoln Institute of Land Policy. Como Secretaria de Planeación tuvo a cargo la coordinación del plan de desarrollo Bogotá Humana y luego fue coordinadora programática de la campaña a la presidencia de Colombia Humana en 2018.

Ana Prada es arquitecta, con una maestría en políticas públicas urbanas de la Universidad de The New School, en Nueva York. Hizo parte del equipo coordinador de Empalme del Gobierno Petro y Francia del sector estadístico, que comprende al DANE Departamento Administrativo Nacional de Estadística  y al IGAC (Instituto Geográfico Agustín Codazzi), especialmente en el empalme intersectorial del Catastro Multipropósito que es uno de los ejes fundamentales del programa de gobierno de Petro y Francia. 

Bienvenides a una nueva temporada de Sur-Urbano!

Para hablar de este importante tema quisimos invitar a Hasta ‘Bajo Project, el primer archivo histórico del reggaetón en Puerto Rico. Junto con mi cohost Betsabé Castro, entrevistamos a Ashley o “Ash” Olivia Mayor  - co-directra ejecutiva de Hasta Bajo Project, y curadora de música Latina en el Smithsonian, y a Loraine, o “Lola” Rosado Pérez, del equipo del archivo y estudiante doctoral en el Centro de Estudios Avanzados.

Hablamos de los orígenes y evolución del género, desde el dancehall jamaiquino en Panamá, al rap en español en las las calles de nueva York, llegando a Puerto Rico. El reggaeton se convierte en un escenario y lente para entender las dinámicas de clase, raza y género en Puerto Rico durante los últimos 25 años, y paralelamente, cómo esto se manifiesta en el espacio urbano. En el entramado de los barrios populares como la Perla del del viejo san Juan, o en los caseríos de Vivienda social, los primeros artistas de reggaeton – muches de ells negres – forjaron este género para describir sus experiencias. Con Lola y Ash, exploramos cómo el reggaeton se convirtió en objeto de estigma e incluso prohibición a la par que estas comunidades fueron criminalizadas y racializadas a la par que el espacio urbano fue sujeto a la segregación racial y privatización. También exploramos cómo la comercialización del reggaetón tuvo un “blanquamiento” – metafórico, al pasar de retratar la cotidianidad de estas comunidades a temas más comerciales, y también un blanqueamiento literal, ya que el colorismo favoreció a ciertos artistas de rasgos más mestizos y excluyó a muchos de los artistas negres que crearon este género. Culminamos con un mensaje de resistencia, al discutir cómo el reggaeton se está usando como arma de lucha política y de defensa del territorio, incluyendo las luchas por servicios públicos y en contra de la gentrificación.

¿Cómo se ve la justicia climática desde lo urbano? En el marco del cambio climático, el acceso al agua es un tema cada vez más apremiante - y la Ciudad de México, es una crisis ya reconocida que se intensifica todos los días. En este episodio Lis Camacho y yo hablamos con Claudia Campero y Jimena Silva sobre su informe  La guía Agua y Clima para involucrarte en tu ciudad, publicado por Greenpeace México.  Discutimos esa intersección tan compleja entre los retos urbanos, la gestión del agua, y el cambio climático. Sobre todo, vemos cómo las ciudades contribuyen a la crisis climática, pero también son víctimas de ella. Cuando se suma esto a contextos de desigualdad, vemos cómo la crisis climática profundiza la inequidad. En su Guía, Claudia y Jimena nos invitan a informarnos, sí, pero también a actuar. 

Claudia Campero y Jimena Silva, expertas profesionales y activistas en temas de sustentabilidad, gestión del agua, cambio climático y transiciones justas. Jimena es activista para el cuidado del agua, el ajolote y la biodiversidad en Xochimilco con la iniciativa del Foro Económico Mundial, dentro de la red Global Shapers del hub CDMX . Claudia Es coordinadora de alianzas de la Iniciativa por del Tratado de No Proliferación de Combustibles Fósiles. Lis, nuestra cohost, es abogada especializada en derecho ambienta y política climática.

Episodio especial de Traffic in the Americas sobre abolicionismo y activismo trans entre Bogotá y Los Ángeles con Daniela Maldonado de Toloposungo y la Red Comunitaria Trans, Amy Ritterrbusch y Álvaro Escobar, en colaboración con el Laboratorio de Narrativas Urbanas del CIDER, Universidad de los Andes, y Sergio Montero. 

Además escucharán en la intro una composición original de FreeSoul Smith para Sur-Urbano, que fue producida por Upeksha - Voices of Resilience. Smith hace parte de la Esquina Redonda, un grupo increíble que junta a personas desplazadas por la operación policial del Bronx en Bogotá.

Tuvimos además a nuestro querido editor, Sebastián Duque Sánchez, como host, junto con Isabel Peñaranda. 

Daniela, Amy y Álvaro nos hablan de la historia de Toloposungo (Todos los Policías son Unas Gonorreas), un movimiento trans marica contra la violencia policial que se ha tomado las calles de Bogotá con consignas abolicionistas y a través del voguing. Toloposungo surge de las experiencias de las chicas trans trabajadoras sexuales del barrio Santa Fe y la Red Comunitaria Trans con la violencia policial. Pone el foco en la policía misma, cuya violencia lejos de  bajar con la constitución del 91, sólo ha cambiado de forma.

Esta conversación surgió en el marco de "Traffic in the Americas," una iniciativa transnacional que buscó promover colaboraciones entre académicxs y activistas para teorizar cómo diferentes tipos de tráficos (de personas, objetos, ideas) configuran las ciudades de las Américas." Fue organizado por: Kevin O’Neill de la Universidad de Toronto (@UofT_CDTS ), Austin Zeiderman de LSE, Ananya Roy de UCLA y Sergio Montero de la Universidad de los Andes, y fue posible gracias a la financiación de SSHRC   gracias a financiación de The Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. 

Esto es un desafío al orden establecido, una invitación a transgredir, a romper el cerco. Son historias ordinarias y cotidianas, de amores y desamores, del prójimo y del próximo, de muertos y vivos, de locos y cuerdos, de desacuerdos, de un país en cantos y del desencanto, de las visitas al baño y de la oveja negra que perdió el rebaño, del macharrán y del sacristán, del bien  y el mal, de los excesos, y del poco seso, de mis desvelos y de un poco de eso. 

Hoy en Sur-Urbano, tenemos un episodio un poco diferente. Entrevistamos al cronista puertoriqueño Rafaél Pabón, quien acaba de lanzar un nuevo libro lamado “Surviving a lo Bori”.  Como las crónicas del libro, en este episodio hablamos de todo un poquito: de la historia familiar de Rafael en San Juan, de las nostalgias de un boricua en Nueva York, de la música, política y por supuesto, de los mundos urbanos que nos inspiran.

Cómo se vuelve la propiedad de la vivienda una forma de despojo, y cómo los migrantes latines en España lucharon contra el desahucio? Hablamos con Sophie Gonick 

Discutimos el libro de Sophie, Despojo y disidencia.  Las y los Inmigrantes y la lucha por la vivienda en Madrid, actualmente sólo disponsible en inglés: https://www.sup.org/books/title/?id=33182.

Sophie analiza cómo las experiencias migratorias y las tradiciones indígenas del activismo sirvieron de base para luchar contra las ejecuciones hipotecarias y desalojo

Más allá de que Madrid es la tercera ciudad más grande de ecuatorianos (!), Sophie demuestra que a través de las experiencias de exclusión, y luchas que emergen como respuesta, las ciudades latinoamericanas se extienden más allá de nuestro continente.

Sophie Gonick es profesora de Análisis Social y Cultural en New York University. Estudió en Harvard y la Universidad de California - Berkeley, y su trabajo se encuentra en la intersección de la historia de la planificación, estudios críticos de raza y género, y debates sobre la migración.

Luisa Fernanda Pinto es abogada colombiana especialista en urbanismo y con una maestría en planificación territorial y gestión ambiental de la Universidad de Barcelona. Forma parte del equipo del PEMB  Barcelona como experta en vivienda en la redacción del nuevo plan estratégico metropolitano.

It has become common sense to assert that compact cities are better, among other things because agglomeration economies make them more productive. However, what if this apparently universal rule doesn’t always apply? In today’s episode, cohost David Lopez García and I talk to Prof. Paavo Monkkonen about an article he co-authored titled Compact cities and economic productivity in Mexico. We talk to Paavo about why Mexico’s economic structure and land-use needs mean that agglomeration economies don’t behave  in the same way in Mexican cities as they do in the global north, and how this impacts the relationship between density and productivity. It was a great conversation, and incredibly timely as we try to figure out a post-pandemic future

Paavo Monkkonen is Associate Professor of Urban Planning and Public Policy at the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs, director of the Latin American Cities Initiative and Faculty Cluster Leader for the Global Public Affairs Initiative. He researches and writes on the ways policies and markets shape urbanization and social segregation in cities around the world.

David López-García is a Visiting Lecturer in the Urban Studies Department at Queens College-CUNY and at the Observatory on Latin America (OLA) at The New School. He is also external faculty in the Doctoral Program in Urbanism at the University of Guadalajara. Broadly speaking, his research spans urban political economy, urban structure, urban accessibility, distributional effects of transport and land-use policies, and institutional arrangements for urban governance.

In this episode, returning cohost Aurora Echeverría and I talk to Nora Libertun on her article, “Peripheral Growth in Latin American and Caribbean Metropolis: Gated Communities and Path Dependence”. Nora was great to talk to because she is a practitioner – currently working in the Inter-American Development Bank – but has also taught at numerous universities, including Harvard’s Graduate School of Design. She brings this perspective in this article about how the legacy of core-periphery models within Latin American cities – where peripheries tended to be spaces of informality, poverty and divestment – laid the foundation for a new kind of periphery: that of gated communities. We talk about how the legacy of the relationship between the public and private now reproduces – or may potentially mitigate – inequality, and what policy makers can do to address these urban development patterns.

You can find her paper here: https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/edit/10.4324/9781003132622-16/peripheral-growth-latin-american-caribbean-metropolis-nora-libertun-de-duren

Nora Libertun de Duren is a leading expert on sustainability, social inclusion, and affordable housing in urban areas. She has experience working in multilateral development banks, local government, and academia. Currently, Nora leads the Inter-American Development Bank research and knowledge agenda on cities; and mainstreams gender and diversity issues in urban projects. Previously, she was the Director of Planning and Natural Resources for New York City and has taught urban planning and international development at various universities, including Columbia University and the University of Buenos Aires, and currently teaches at Harvard's Graduate School of Design. 

Aurora Echavarria is a PhD student in Urban Planning at the University of California, Los Angeles, where she is a graduate fellow in the Latin American Cities Initiative. Her research centers on the relation between systems of local government finances, property taxation and the dynamics of urban inequality in public good provision. Aurora's dissertation research is supported by the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy's C. Lowell Harriss Dissertation Fellowship.

¡Bienvenides a nuestro primer episodio en español! De ahora en adelante alternaremos episodios en español con los de inglés. 

Empezamos esta nueva etapa hablando con la abogada, activista y académica Carla Escoffié sobre su libro “ El Derecho a la Vivienda en México: Derechos Homónimos”, explorando cómo se ha concebido y provisionado este derecho en el contexto Mexicano, pero también en América Latina. De ahí pasamos a hablar sobre cómo este derecho se puede realmente defender ante un sistema judicial que favorece la propiedad privada y los intereses económicos poderosos - y por ello hablamos sobre las experiencias de Carla defendiendo este derecho en Yucatán. 

Culminamos con el llamado a que los y las planificadoras trabajemos más cercanamente con quienes ejercen el derecho, para juntes construir ciudades más justas y equitativas.

Nuestro co-host esta semana es Alfonso Fierro. Alfonso Fierro es Profesor de Literatura Latinoamericana en Kenyon College, y está terminando su doctorado en la Universidad de California Berkeley, donde estudia utopías urbanas en el trabajo de escritores, arquitectos y planificadores después de la Revolución Mexicana.  

https://editorial.tirant.com/co/libro/el-derecho-a-la-vivienda-en-mexico-derechos-homonimos-carla-luisa-escoffie-duarte-9788411131452

Welcome to the first episode of 2023! In this episode, Giselle Mendonça Abreu and I have the privilege of talking to a scholar well known among those of us who study Latin American cities: Teresa Caldeira. Professor Caldeira's work, rooted in ethnography of Sao Paulo's peripheral urbanization, has made substantial methodological and theoretical contribution to how se study cities, particularly in the Global South, for decades. In this episode,  we discuss Teresa’s trajectory as an urban anthropologist in the 1970s in favelas in Sao Paulo. We then move on to talk about what has changed since then by discussing her two latest articles, which explore the twin concepts of “transversality” and “transitoriness”. Departing from the belief in progress of the midcentury, which was implicit in autoconstruction, Teresa takes us to the transitory, fragmented and non-linear dynamics which characterize cities today. Like so much of her work, she asks us to critically reflect on the categories we use, including that of the Global South, and pushes us to think transversally with concepts that “travel” in unexpected ways.

The texts we discuss today can be found here: 

• “Transitoriness: Emergent Time/Space Formations of Urban Collective Life” (published in Grammars of the Urban Ground, edited by Ash Amin and MIchele Lancione
  • “Transversal Connections: Seeing Cities from Other Spaces” (published in Catalan in 16 Barris, 1000 Ciutats, edited by Valentín Roma, Teresa Caldeira, Frits Gierstberg 

Teresa Caldeira is a professor at the University of California - Berkeley in the Department of City and Regional Planning. Her research, which is rooted in anthropology, looks on the predicaments of urbanization, such as spatial segregation, social discrimination, and the uses of public space in cities of the global south. Her book City of Walls: Crime, Segregation, and Citizenship in São Paulo (University of California Press, 2000), won the Senior Book Prize of the American Ethnological Society in 2001, and presents a comprehensive analysis of the ways in which crime, fear of violence, and disrespect of citizenship rights intertwine with urban transformations to produce a new pattern of urban segregation based on fortified enclaves.

Giselle Mendonça Abreu is  is PhD candidate in City & Regional Planning at UC Berkeley. Her research examines the political economy of rapidly-growing “soybean” cities in Brazil’s hinterland.

One of the central nodes of capitalist circulation in Latin America is a city you may have never heard of. It is also, by some accounts, the largest illicit economy in the hemisphere – raising the question of how central transgression is to the circulation and globalization of capitalism. The city in question is Ciudad del Este, a Paraguayan city at the border with Brazil and it is the subject of Jennifer Tucker's new book "Outlaw Capital, Everyday Illegalities and the Making of Uneven Development". Tucker explores the city's history, beginning with her connection to Paraguay as a Peace Corps volunteer, and delves into the complexities of street vending, the intertwining of legal and illegal economic activities, and the racialized and class-based disparities within these practices. She weaves personal stories of street vendors with the spatial and economic transformation of Ciudad del Este through malls and informal trade, and the state's role in shaping and sustaining these practices. The episode critically examines how contraband and informal economies are legitimized and contested, offering insights into broader themes of globalization, urban development, and social justice.

00:00 Introduction to Sur Urbano and Guest Jennifer Tucker

00:15 Exploring Street Vendor Life in Ciudad del Este

02:12 Unveiling 'Outlaw Capital': The Book on Ciudad del Este

02:34 Jennifer Tucker's Connection to Paraguay and Research Journey

03:53 The Dynamics of Ciudad del Este's Border Economy

08:18 Theoretical Insights: Outlaw Capital and Accumulation of Transgression

29:29 Contraband Urbanism and the Struggle for Space

44:25 Methodology and Ethnographic Challenges

48:15 Recent Changes and Ongoing Struggles in Ciudad del Este

51:50 Concluding Thoughts on Outlaw Economics and Urban Futures

 Sabían que del suelo nuevo generado durante en los últimos 20 años en las principales ciudades de Perú, el 92% ha sido informal? En este episodio - el segundo sobre informalidad en Perú - hablamos con Julio Calderón Cockburn y mi buen amigo Augusto Mendoza sobre la historia, teoría y prácticas que nos ayudan a entender por qué la informalidad es un mecanismo tan predominante de urbanización en el Perú. 

Empezamos discutiendo el libro de Julio Las Ideas Urbanas en el Perú (1958-1989 y en particular, el capítulo titulado “Visiones sobre el problema de la barriada”. Como sugiere el título, quisimos hacer un repaso histórico sobre cómo se ha conformado - para ser un poco Foucaultiana  - el espacio-problema, o la problematización, de los asentamientos informales. Y esto es muy importante en Peru, donde figuras como John Turner y Hernando de Soto han planteado, en diferentes maneras, que las barriadas no son un problema, sino una suerte de panacea. De ahí pasamos a discutir cuáles han sido las consecuencias de estas aproximaciones en las políticas públicas. De cómo posiblemente han creado incentivos para la informalidad que no asumen los costos reales de este modo de urbanización. Y para terminar, sobre posibles soluciones y nuevos campos de investigación. 

Julio Calderón es un investigador de la Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos, doctor en ciencias sociales por la misma universidad, es profesor del Lincoln Institute of Land Policy, ha publicado diversos libros y artículos acerca del tema y es un renombrado investigador de la informalidad urbana peruana y latinoamericana.

Augusto Mendoza es el Director Ejecutivo del Instituto Metropolitano de Planificación de Lima.

¡Bienvenides a nuestra cuarta temporada de Sur-Urbano!

Arrancamos con un estallido. El 28 de Abril de 2021, se declaró un paro nacional en Colombia como reacción en contra de una controversial reforma fiscal impulsada por el gobierno de Iván Duque en medio de la pandemia. En todo el país, las calles se llenaron de manifestantes, se escuchaba el eco de los cacerolazos, y durante meses fuimos testigos de una impresionante experimentación política de resistencia.  Aunque su importancia trascendió lo electoral, tuvo mucho que ver con la elección de Gustavo Petro y Francia Marquez, el primer gobierno de izquierda en la historia de Colombia. 

Alejandra Azuero Quijano, nuestra invitada de hoy, es doctora en derecho y antropología y actualmente es profesora en Swarthmore College, Filadelfia. En su libro El Paro como Teoría, nos propone pensar al paro como un “estallido epistémico”, un acontecimiento que tiene la capacidad de cambiarlo todo: la política, las condiciones sensibles y los modos del saber.

Junto con Ana Marrugo Gómez, hablamos con ella sobre qué significa eso de entender al paro como teoría, sobre las temporalidades y espacialidades y sentidos nuevos que el mismo creó y sigue creando, y sobre cómo repensar el pasado para entender y actualizar el presente. 

This week we are talking to Martim Smolka, the man who has been the director of the Latin American and Caribbean program at the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy since it was made, 27 years ago. This is no minor thing: four of our guests on this podcast have worked or published with the Lincoln Institute, and its impact on Latin American land policy is profound - Martim has truly played an important role in the history of land policy in Latin American cities. In this episode, Flavia Leite and I talk with Martim about the Georgist theoretical underpinnings of progressive land policy, the history of these policies in Latin American cities, and why TIF may well be understood as the “anti-christ” of land value capture.

On the subject of TIF, check out Flavia and Bridget Fisher's critical analysis of the camouflaged risks and costs of TIF in Hudson Yards that we mention in the episode: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0264275122001007

Martim is a Brazilian economist, with a Ph.D. in Regional Science from the University of Pennsylvania (1980). He was the director of the Program on Latin America and the Caribbean at the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy for 27 years. At the LILP he developed (and lectured in) many educational programs for high-level public officials, members of academia, NGOs leaders and other professionals throughout Latin America.

Flávia is a PhD student in City & Regional Planning at UC Berkeley. Her research interest revolves around the relationship between formal and informal housing markets, with a specific focus on housing financialization, access to credit, and housing policy in Latin America.

Our cohost today is Irene Farah and our second guest of the season is Prof. Calla Hummel. We are discussing Prof. Hummel’s recent published book, Why Informal Workers Organize: Contentious Politics, Enforcement, and the State. Given that over half of Latin America’s workers are estimated to be informal workers, a percentage that is estimated to have grown in the pandemic, the book’s exploration of why informal workers choose to organize – or not – is very timely and important. We talk to Calla about what factors contribute to informal workers organizing, xyr experience working as a vendor, about how governments should relate to informal workers.

Dr. Calla Hummel is an assistant professor in the University of Miami’s Department of Political Science, with a PhD from the Department of Government at the University of Texas at Austin. Xe studies when and why informal workers organize and the impacts that the world’s two billion informal workers have on local and national politics, by using statistical, ethnographic, survey, computational, and formal methods.

Irene is PhD Candidate in City & Regional Planning at UC Berkeley. Previously, she worked in the Center for Spatial Data Science at the University of Chicago. Her research revolves around themes of inequality, focusing on topics of urban informality, governance, health, and spatial analytics. In particular, she is interested in how recent shifts in governance structures in Mexico City impact how informal workers, street level bureaucrats, and local politicians negotiate over the use of public space, with a particular focus on street vendors.

The question of inequality haunts the global north and south as economic, racial and other forms of inequality appear to grow deeper and to more devastating effects. But although this is a global problem, it is not an inevitable or homogeneous one, and local actors can have a role in responding to this dynamic. That is why in today’s episode we ask: ‘Why are some cities more equal than others?”. To answer this question, Flavia Leite and Isabel Peñaranda talk to Ben Bradlow, an associate research scholar and lecturer at Princeton. Through a south-south comparison of Sao Paulo and Johanseburg, Ben argues that some cities are better at reducing inequality than others because of their degree of embeddedness and cohesion.

Bradlow's book, Urban Power (forthcoming with Princeton University Press) asks “Why are some cities more effective than others at reducing inequality?” To answer this question, he compares the divergent politics of distributing urban public goods — housing, sanitation, and transportation — in two mega-cities after transitions to democracy: Johannesburg, South Africa, and São Paulo, Brazil. 

Because the book isn’t out yet, we based our interview on two papers: a 2022 paper in Theory and Society – Embeddedness and cohesion: regimes of urban public goods distribution – and a 2021 paper in City & Community –Weapons of the Strong: Elite Resistance and the Neo-Apartheid City

Ben Bradlow is an Associate Research Scholar in the Department of Sociology at Princeton University and a Lecturer in Princeton’s School of Public and International Affairs. He is trained as both a sociologist and city planner, and holds a PhD in Sociology from Brown University (2020), and a Masters in City Planning from MIT (2013).

Flavia Leite is a PhD student in City & Regional Planning at UC Berkeley. Her research interest revolves around the relationship between formal and informal housing markets, with a specific focus on housing financialization, access to credit, and housing policy in Latin America.

Can land use regulations end up incentivizing informal settlements, or mitigate? In this episode, cohosted by Flavia Leite of UC Berkeley, we interview Prof. Cynthia Goytia of Torcuato Di Tella University in Buenos Aires. We talk to Prof. Goytia about an ambitious multi-year project which charts the relationship between land use regulation and informal settlements in over 300 municipalities across 10 different Latin American countries. We talk about the prevalence of low density residential zoning in Latin American cities, the impact this and other land use regulations have on promoting or mitigating informal settlements, and what local governments can do to leverage what is arguably their cities’ biggest asset – their land – to make more inclusive cities.

Although the reports we discuss are not yet publicly available, we will post it when they are published. 

Cynthia Goytia is Head of the MSc. in Urban Economics at Torcuato Di Tella University in Buenos Aires, Argentina where she also has founded and chairs since 2012, the Urban Policy and Housing Research Center (CIPUV), one of the most prestigious urban research centers in Latin America. She has developed a relevant and influential body of academic research on urban policies, housing and land markets. She is a senior urban consultant to Argentinas and Latin American governments, the World Bank, United Nations Inter-American Development Bank and CAF (Banca de Desarrollo de America Latina), and fellow of the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy.

Flávia is a PhD student in City & Regional Planning at UC Berkeley. Her research interest revolves around the relationship between formal and informal housing markets, with a specific focus on housing financialization, access to credit, and housing policy in Latin America.

Neste primeiro episódio do Sur_Urbano em português falamos com o professor Nabil Bonduki! Discutimos diversas fases da sua produção acadêmica. Começamos com o livro Origens da Habitação Social no Brasil: Arquitetura Moderna, Lei do Inquilinato e Difusão da casa própria (link abaixo). Em seguida passamos para temas mais contemporâneos, como a reforma do programa Minha Casa Minha Vida e o papel dos municípios na questão da habitação. Nabil conclui compartilhando como a sua experiência na política e na gestão pública impacta sua produção acadêmica.

A co-host Laryssa Krueger é professora e coordenadora adjunta da pós-graduação em Urbanismo Social no Insper, com graduação em gestão de políticas públicas, mestrado em avaliação de políticas públicas pela FAU-USP, e especialista em habitação social.

Materiais discutidos no episódio:

Livro- Origens da habitação social no Brasil: Arquitetura moderna, Lei do Inquilinato e difusão da casa própria

https://www.amazon.com.br/Origens-habita%C3%A7%C3%A3o-social-Brasil-Arquitetura/dp/857448282X

Seminário de 10 anos do Minha Casa, Minha Vida:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/19yXPu8K8mr8Qvp5-wM0zCWZ1dBpheZZd/view

Does property undermine development, and specifically, the construction of infrastructure? Along with co-host Aurora Echaverria, we discuss  Prof. Alisha Holland's article "Roadblocks: How Property Rights Undermine Development in Colombia". 

Looking at the case of Colombia, Prof. Holland argues that strong property rights encourage opportunistic behaviors that undermine infrastructure investments, even though political economy models define property rights as essential for economic development. This is especially important given the lengths that Colombia's president-elect, Gustavo Petro, went to great lengths to promise to never expropriate. Is it time to rethink property rights, from the left as well as the right?

Check it out the article: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/ajps.12706

Prof. Alisha Holland is an Associate Professor in the Government Department at Harvard University studying the comparative political economy of development with a focus on urban politics, social policy, and Latin America.

Aurora Echavarria is a PhD student in Urban Planning at the University of California, Los Angeles, where she is a graduate fellow in the Latin American Cities Initiative. Her research centers on the relation between systems of local government finances, property taxation and the dynamics of urban inequality in public good provision. Aurora's dissertation research is supported by the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy's C. Lowell Harriss Dissertation Fellowship.

What does it mean to read LA in the frame of the “Americas”, and to understand its police violence in the context of a hemispheric imperialist project of domination? Inversely, how can we understand abolitionism as a political project that is continental, local and circulating? We talk about this in this special episode from Traffic in the Americas about police violence and abolitionist resistance in Los Angeles (California) with Hamid Khan from the Stop LAPD Spying Coalition and Ananya Roy from the UCLA Luskin Institute on Inequality and Democracy. It was made in collaboration with the Laboratorio de Narrativas Urbanas (LABNA) and Sergio Montero. Hosted by Isabel Peñaranda Currie.

This episode also features an original composition and performance by FreeSoul Smith for Sur-Urbano, and which was produced by Upeksha - Voices of Resilience. Smith is part of the Esquina Redonda, an amazing group that brings together people displaced by the Bronx police operation in Bogotá, and which also participated in the Traffic in the Americas conference.

Hamid explains the history and work of @stoplapdspying and their recent report, “Automating Banishment”, which studies the relationship of “data-driven policing” to real estate development and settler colonialism. It "belongs to the community, produced through collective study and grassroots self-defense". You can read the full report here.

Ananya spoke about her work on  “Racial banishment’, which  “emphasizes state-instituted violence against racialised bodies and communities”, shifting  attention from displacement to the dispossession of personhood underpinning racial capitalism. She writes that “The antonym of racial banishment is, as the black radical tradition insists, freedom. These “freedom dreams” ([…] animate urban struggles around the world.” We end by talking about how abolitionist ideas participate in kinds of traffic in the Americas. You can find one of her articles on Racial Banishment here.

This conversation arose within the framework of "Traffic in the Americas," a transnational initiative that sought to promote collaborations between academics and activists to theorize how different types of traffic (of people, objects, ideas) shape the cities of the Americas. It was organized by: Kevin O'Neill of the University of Toronto, Austin Zeiderman of LSE , Ananya Roy of UCLA and Sergio Montero of the Los Andes University thanks to funding from The Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. 

Hamid Khan is an organizer with the Stop LAPD Spying Coalition. He was the founder and former Executive Director of South Asian Network (1990-2010), and serves on the board of Political Research Associates, an organization that seeks to advance progressive thinking and action by providing research-based information, analysis, and referrals.

The mission of the Stop LAPD Spying Coalition is to build community-based power to dismantle police surveillance, spying, and infiltration programs. The coalition utilizes multiple campaigns to advance an innovative organizing model that is Los Angeles-based but has implications regionally, nationally, and internationally

Founding Director of the UCLA Luskin Institute on Inequality and Democracy, Professor of Urban Planning, Social Welfare, and Geography and The Meyer and Renee Luskin Chair in Inequality and Democracy.

When we think of the Amazon region, I think its fair to say that most of us think of the vast expanses of virgin rainforests, crossed by the largest river who gives the area its name. We don’t usually think of cities. And yet, Amazonia is home to 40 million people, 80% of which live in cities. IN other words, from the perspective of the human population, Amazonia is urban. To discuss this, I talk to Adrián Lerner Patrón about two articles. The first, published in NACLA, is titled “The Amazon’s Forgotten Cities’, and the second titled “The Ruins of a Steel Mill: Planetary Urbanization in the Brazilian Amazon”, linked in the show notes.

We talk about the history of urbanization in Amazonia, focusing on Iquitos in Peru and Manaos in Brazil, including the particularities of cities formed in extractive frontiers, the militarized logic to secure them, and the rise and fall of developmentalist hubris.

We delve into the histoyr of the SIDERAMA (Companhia Siderúrgica da Amazônia Sociedade Anônima) steel mill - created in 1961 and liquidated in 1997 - through the lens of planetary urbanization. Overall, Adrián invites us to think about what is unique about Amazonia cities, but also to understand the global reach of urbanization during the 2nd half of the twentieth century and the need to rethink the role of Amazonia during the Anthropocene.

Adrián Lerner Patrón is a Philomathia Fellow in the Consortium for the Global South at the University of Cambridge, with a focus on “Ecologies in Place,” and a lecturer and research associate in Global History at the Free University of Berlin. 

I also want to add that this episode is our first in collaboration with NACLA - the North American Congress on Latin America. (NACLA) is an independent, nonprofit organization founded in 1966 to examine and critique U.S. imperialism and political, economic, and military intervention in the Western hemisphere.

You can find the two articles here: "The Amazon's Forgotten Cities" in NACLA

 "The Ruins of a Steel Mill: Planetary Urbanization in the Brazilian Amazon” in the Journal of Urban History

Bienvenides a un episodio muy especial de Sur-Urbano sobre Puerto Rico. En vez del formato de entrevista que normalmente hacemos, hicimos una mesa redonda para explorar la relación entre el colonialismo, el capitalismo y el cambio climático en la isla. Lo interesante es que, como este es un podcast sobre ciudades, lo hacemos desde el punto de vista de la planificación. En otras palabras, exploramos sobre cómo la historia de Puerto Rico, desde el colonialismo hasta los ajustes estructurales neoliberales, se cristalizaron en las instituciones de planificación en Puerto Rico, y así afectaron la respuesta ante el huracán María y su reconstrucción.

Para ello tenemos dos invitados de lujo. El primero es David Josué Carrasquillo Medrano, quien fue el pasado presidente de la Sociedad Puertorriqueña de Planificación, y lleva años trabajando en temas de ordenamiento – u ordenación, como lo dicen en Puerto Rico - territorial, además de haber trabajando con los Planes de Ordenación Territorial y Planes de REcuerpación de múltiples municipios.

También tenemos a Omar Pérez Figueroa, quien obtuvo su doctorado en la universidad de California Irvine del departamento de planificación urbana y política pública, y es el autor de textos como “La geografía de la crisis del agua: ¿Dónde está Puerto Rico?” y demás que pueden consultar aquí: https://www.omarperez.me/bio 

Neste episódio discutimos com a urbanista Camila Maleronka as Operações Urbanas Consorciadas, instrumentos responsáveis por grandes transformações em cidades brasileiras. Em São Paulo, por exemplo, onde o instrumento nasceu e foi mais implementado, as operações urbanas foram responsáveis por intensificar e direcionar a atividade imobiliária e investimentos públicos para certos bairros. Ao mesmo tempo, muitos argumentam que são elas as responsáveis por agravar ou mesmo causar processos de gentrificação e exclusão de famílias mais vulneráveis desses mesmos locais. Vamos discutir essas e outras questões!

Camila Maleronka é urbanista e consultora em habitação, planejamento e instrumentos de financiamento urbano. Colaboradora do Instituto Lincoln em programas sobre gestão fundiária, recuperação da valorização da terra e instrumentos de financiamento. Desde 2020, é professora da disciplina de Instrumentos de Financiamento e Política Fundiária do curso de pós-graduação em Urbanismo Social do Insper. É doutora em Urbanismo pela Universidade de São Paulo.

"A global pandemic has brought renewed attention to an old question: what do we owe each other? " The crisis of the COVID-19 brought this question to a head, and with it, calls for rethinking a “new social contract” that would outlast the emergency measures, a social contract rooted in mutual aid, yes, but also a stronger, more active, welfare state. It also made painfully urgent to consider the process by which these measures were operationalized; that is, by which the intentions of the state to reach the most marginalized groups of urban residents were put into practice, given that these resdents and workers were also the least visible, often informal, and therefore illegible to the state.

Gautam Bhan's article "Operationalising Social Protection: Reflections from Urban India" addresses this very question. Drawing from empirical cases at the Indian Institute for Human Settlements, Bhan explores how the social contract plays out through social protection systems, arguing that how we deliver both existing and new entitlements is as important as deciding what entitlements urban residents should be entitled to.

We discuss four challenges:

(a) residence as an operational barrier;

(b) workplaces (thru informal worker orgs) as sites of delivery;

(c) working w worker orgs as delivery infrastructures; and

(d) building systems of recognition and registration of informal workers.

Bhan also points out how the different trajectories of Brazil and India changed inequality, finding that the ecosystem of social protections (in education, housing, cash transfers and the right to the city) backed by social movements rose the conditions for the bottom 30% of Brazilians.

For Bhan, “operational knowledge is essential to imagine what Simone and Pieterse (2017) describe as ‘grounded and speculative alternatives’” - and in this text, he reveals operationalization to be a profound reflection on putting solidarity in action.

Gautam Bhan is an urbanist whose work focuses on urban poverty, inequality, social protection and housing. He is currently Associate Dean of the School of Human Development, at the Indian Institute for Human Settlements School, and the Senior Lead in Academics and Researhc at this same institution. He holds a PhD in urban studies and planning from the University of California, Berkeley.

Pranav Kuttaiah is a researcher and writer from Bengaluru, India currently pursuing a PhD in City and Regional Planning (with designated emphases in Political Economy and Science and Technology Studies) at UC Berkeley.

In this episode, cohost Julian Gomez and I talk to Professor Amy Offner about her book, Sorting the Mixed Economy: The Rise and Fall of Welfare and Developmental States in the Americas. This is the "untold story of how welfare and development programs in the United States and Latin America produced the instruments of their own destruction". We focus on the history of Ciudad Kennedy in Bogotá, a borough in Bogotá built with support of the Alliance for Progress, and whose history reveals  how the logics of assisted self built housing has its roots in the New Deal and Cold War, and held the seed of austerity even as it required major state involvement. We also read the Colombian presidential elections - then just days away - and what the history describe in Prof. Offner's book tell us about the face-off between Gustavo Petro and Rodolfo Hernandez. 

Prof. Amy C. Offner (Ph.D. Columbia University) studies twentieth-century US history in global perspective, with special focus on Latin America.  Her research and teaching address the history of capitalism and political economy, empire and foreign relations, and social and intellectual history. You can find her book here.

Julián Gómez Delgado is a PhD student in sociology and historical studies at The New School for Social Research. His research in political and historical sociology revolves around state formation, capitalist development and social conflict across Latin America, with a special focus on Colombia.. You can find him on twitter @juliangomezdel

This episode is about stolen cars, the relationships between illegal and legal markets, and public security in Brazil. We talk to Prof. Gabriel Feltran from Sciences Po about his new book Stolen Cars: A Journey Through São Paulo's Urban Conflict. Stolen Cars is an ethnography of urban inequalities and violence in São Paulo, told by Gabriel and ten other contributors.

Through the journey of 5 stolen cars in the city, they tell us how stories of everyday life in São Paulo are intertwined with global capitalism, they discuss which social actors are involved in the journey of a stolen car, and how the theft of a car is associated not only with violence, but also with socioeconomic, racial, gender, and spatial inequalities.

Gabriel is an urban ethnographer and Director of Research at CNRS (National Scientific Research Centre – France) and a full Professor of Sociology at Sciences Po. Currently, researches criminal groups and illegal markets in Brazil, based on previous work on everyday social/political dynamics in urban outskirts, focusing on collective action, marginalized groups and "the criminal world" in São Paulo. 

Marcos Campos is an urban ethnographer and a postdoctoral researcher in the International Postdoctoral Program at the Brazilian Center for Analysis and Planning (Cebrap). He is also a researcher affiliated with the CASA Group and MTTM. Marcos holds a Ph.D. in sociology from the State University of Rio de Janeiro.

Book: https://www.wiley.com/en-us/Stolen+Cars%3A+A+Journey+Through+S%26atilde%3Bo+Paulo%27s+Urban+Conflict-p-9781119686163

CEBRAP article by Feltran (mentioned during the episode): https://novosestudos.com.br/formas-elementares-da-vida-politica-sobre-o-movimento-totalitario-no-brasil-2013/#gsc.tab=0