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Urban Rights and Sustainability in Latin America First Steps Towards Urban Justice Operationalization 1st Edition Dr. Javier Alonso Gomez Davila
Urban Rights and Sustainability in Latin America First Steps Towards Urban Justice Operationalization 1st Edition Dr. Javier Alonso Gomez Davila
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Journal Of Contemporary Urban Affairs
2019, Volume 3, Number 1, pages 132– 142
A R T I C L E I N F O: ABSTRACT
Article history: The following research is based on the affirmation that urban
Received 10 February 2018
Accepted 23 April 2018
sustainability in developing regions, such as Latin America, is an
Available online 20 July 2018 impossible goal to be totally achieved, due to the circumstances of
poverty, informality (slums), corruption, violence, among others that
Keywords:
exist there. Therefore, the urban sustainability in the cities of this region
Urban Sustainability:
Urban Justice: has to be reached through survival efforts that seek to balance the existing
Latin-American Urban inequalities (urban justice). So, the first step to take is to detect and
Rights. measure those inequalities, in order to be able to take actions to eradicate
or decrease them. To do that, urban rights were chosen to be used as
measuring tools for those urban injustices. The research presents five
priority urban rights contextualized to the Latin-American spatiality,
called the Latin-American urban rights (right to a living place, right to
the public space, right to alterity, right to mobility and accessibility, and
right to good government practices and public policies), that were
This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution - obtained after analyzing urban and social characteristics in different
NonCommercial - NoDerivs 4.0.
"CC-BY-NC-ND"
cities such as Santiago, Chile, Salvador de Bahía, Brazil, and Monterrey,
México. Finally, a first proposal of operationalization of the Latin-
American urban rights is presented, which was applied to a case study in
the city of Monterrey, México, in order to prove the efficiency of the
model.
JOURNAL OF CONTEMPORARY URBAN AFFAIRS (2019), 3(1), 132-142.
https://doi.org/10.25034/ijcua.2018.4690
www.ijcua.com
Copyright © 2018 Journal Of Contemporary Urban Affairs. All rights reserved.
The “traditional” concept of sustainable
1. Introduction development that has predominated in the
This paper states that although sustainability is a political, academic and cultural discourses from
concept that initially seeks to achieve a the past two decades has been the one of a
common welfare status, this hasn’t been able to balance between the economic, social and
be achieved due to several reasons, so it is
proposed to make a critical review and a re- *Corresponding Author:
definition of that concept, in order to obtain Faculty of Architecture, Universidad del Valle de Mexico,
more tangible tools that allow us to move Campus Monterrey Norte, Monterrey, Mexico
E-mail address: javier.gomez@uvmnet.edu
forward urban justice in the contemporary city.
JOURNAL OF CONTEMPORARY URBAN AFFAIRS, 3(1), 132-142 / 2019
environmental areas that guarantees the Another aspect to establish is that, in order to
resources of present and future generations. shorten that distance between the economic,
It is a concept born from the different crisis social and environmental aspects of
provoked by the industrial revolution in the XIX sustainability, it is necessary to complement its
and XX centuries, which produced changes traditional approaches, which are mostly
and consequences that have generated more thought in quantitative terms, that is, the
negative issues than benefits to the sustainability levels are measured in numeric
contemporary society, such as environmental units (poverty index, CO2 tons in the
depredation, social inequalities and poverty atmosphere, deforested hectares, gross
exacerbation, uncontrolled urbanizations, social domestic product, population census, etc.),
and urban fragmentation, excessive water and which is good and useful, but it needs a
energy consumption, among others. qualitative counterpart that can analyze and
But over time, the disenchantment has been measure the people and their daily life
constant, especially in the Latin-American processes, as well as the aspects of their culture,
region, where the expectations of sustainable identity, and the spatial manifestations
development haven’t been fulfilled in their generated in their different urban geographies.
contemporary cities, which are dynamic, That is why, it is proposed, that contemporary
flexible, effective, versatile and global, but are urban sustainability has to be measured also in
also places of violence, poverty and injustice, spatial units, justice units, and urban rights that
with an evident polarization of wealth and allow us to monitor the relationship between
power, generating new urban crisis, and a need people and their built environments, and with
for staking out a re-thinking of the whole that, help to increase dignity and spatial justice
sustainability concept. in those environments, contributing to achieve
The sustainable development concept “feasible levels of sustainability”.
mentioned above, hasn’t accomplished its When the contemporary sustainability concept
proposed expectations, because its trialectics ceases to be only “global”, and can have a
of an economical-social-environmental “local” complement that contextualizes it into
balance has created a “global sustainability” the different cities’ spatialities, and in the
concept, with big generalizations that are moment when the sustainable analysis opens its
applied as a unique “recipe” to any urban trialectics (economical-social-environmental)
problem without taking into account the and includes justice and considers it as a
particular contexts of each city. And that qualitative counterpart, then, we could talk
general concept has lost sight of the about a “feasible” and “achievable”
interactions and simultaneities that are sustainability.
produced when its three elements crisscross
each other, leaving open a lot of possibilities 2. A proposal for an updated urban
and problems to attend. sustainability concept
Therefore, that global concept of sustainability is To redefine the idea of sustainability, to a more
an impossible goal to achieve given the updated concept, and transform it into an
mentioned urban circumstances. Different operable concept, that can be useful for urban
authors in the last years have suggested that the issues interventions, the first step is to “spatialize”
idea of urban sustainability as has been it, in the same way as Edward Soja did it with the
presented, is a utopia (Ruano, 2000) for different concept of justice (Soja, 2010), that is, to
reasons, being one of them, that, because the generate a consciousness that the geographies
general concept of sustainability refers to a in which we live in, can be changed and
state of balance, in which its economic, social reconfigured, and with that new consciousness,
and environmental elements remain stable, it is to “land” the concept from the abstract, to a
impossible to apply it to any city environment, more specific contexts of the contemporary
which is anything but stable, static and urban life, giving it different scales (local,
balanced, due to its dynamic, changing, hybrid, regional, national, global), which will allow us to
and unstable nature. explore strategies to move towards fairer
That is why the efforts to achieve sustainability in geographies.
the contemporary city don’t have to be The new concept of sustainability has to have
directed to balance their elements, but to the first name “urban”, so that, when we talk
shorten the distance between them, trying to about urban sustainability, we will be talking
adjust the spatial injustices presented in each about a spatialized sustainability, not of a
specific context. concept that belongs to ecology, economy, or
sociology.
As a next step in the proposal of this new distribute the resources, impose growing limits,
concept, we must take into account that cities and above all, deepen in the democracy
in the world coexist in a division between the concept in order to achieve a social and
cities of the “North”, which act as the global environmental equity.
centers from which the power and dominant This way, urban sustainability has to be proposed
discourses are exercised, also known as first- also as a more open and transdisciplinary
world cities; and the cities of the “South”, that concept, that takes into account the multiple
are the megacities of the Global Periphery, the dimensions that act in it. When talking about
third-world, subordinated to the Global North urban sustainability in the XXI century, it is
discourses (Roy, 2009; 2011). imperative to include the complex realities that
So, in the same way that the urban discourses each city presents and that makes them unique,
cannot be the same in the Global North than in because they derive from their own historical,
the Global South, the sustainability discourses temporal and spatial context.
and strategies developed in the Global North The next step is to exemplify how the proposed
can’t be the same as the ones developed in the urban sustainability concept can be flexible and
Global South. Fernando Gaja (2005) raises focus in different and more specific contexts,
about that, that the sustainability challenges in that is, inside the Global South, in spite that there
the Global North have to do with making cities are some characteristics and values in common
attractive, sustainable, integrated, and solidary. with the Global North, the realities and
But in the Global South, the challenges of circumstances are not the same in Latin-
sustainability have to do with stopping and America that in India, Africa, or the Pacific Asia.
controlling the growth of the cities, to guarantee So, to re-think of an operational urban
dignified living conditions, such as the access to sustainability concept, it is necessary to consider
basic goods and services, or re-qualify the the local aspects of each region. For example,
urban environment, because the urban Latin-America is one of the most urbanized
hypertrophy process they experiment, is zones of the planet: three of four people of this
aggravated due to the absence and non- region live in cities, and it is estimated that
compliance of urban and economic planning, almost 44% of the urban population of the
which has as a consequence, one of the main region lives in informal areas. Therefore, the
urban characteristics of these regions: the increasing informality, even in economical
informal city. recovering circumstances of some countries, is
Thus, for the development of urban sustainability a central subject in the Latin-American agenda
as an applicable concept to the cities of the because of its implications in the quality of life of
Global South, it is necessary that along with the the people that live in these areas, the
traditional urban planning strategies, different dysfunctions that it generates in the entire urban
strategies and survival efforts are also built from society, the environmental commitments that
the context of informality and the “border” entails, and the urban management problems
thinking, with all its elements and spatial that provokes (Viana, 2007).
components, because the urban sustainability And it is not that there have never been efforts
cannot exclude the segregation processes to combat complex phenomena such as Latin-
produced in those cities’ environments, and American informality, but most of those efforts
must include the fragments and different have a deep background of political and
geographies that compose them. economic convenience interests, that generate
There are authors like Roy, A. (2009), that isolated and sectorial interventions
propose that the concept of sustainability opens (construction of social housing, rehabilitation of
its trialectics and includes the element of public deteriorated urban centers, occupation of
institutions that propitiate the needed legal vacant land and properties, investment in
framework to face the urban challenges in an infrastructure and urban services, among
integral way, thinking in transdisciplinary terms, others), without a real integration into the
in a proactive way that takes action and seeks broader urban context of the daily life of the
solutions, rather than analyze problems without inhabitants of the informal city (Fernandes and
making decisions. Smolka, 2004).
In the other hand, Larraín (2002), declares that This helps to reaffirm the hypothesis that Latin
excluding the political dimensions of the American urban sustainability will be possible
sustainability triad, has been decisive for its only from survival efforts in this context of
failure, and enunciates that a sustainable changes and economic and social processes
society does have to satisfy the needs of present experienced by this region.
and future generations, but also has to equally
A very strong urban imaginary of fear strategy to give the first steps towards the
and insecurity in every sector of the mentioned changes.
population He proposes, then, a catalogue of 21 urban
Deficient or non-existent transport and rights to contribute to an urban and political
urban mobility systems renovation, and to carry out a democratic
Little or no regulation regarding battle for justice in the cities that legitimate the
environmental impact issues (water local demands, and the existing territorial
management, energy consumption, practices, which are listed below:
atmospheric pollution, among others) Right to housing and place, to the public space,
This obtained information serves to verify that to beauty, to collective identity, to mobility and
the Latin-American city is a “border” territory, accessibility, to centrality, to the marginal city
where we find urban-architectonic elements legitimating, to have a metropolitan
product of capitalism and globalization government, to political innovation, to
combined with elements like informal information technologies access, to the city as
settlements and urban peripheries. a shelter, to government protection, to justice
All of the above contributes to form an image of and security, to illegality, to employment and
the contemporary Latin-American city as a city salary, to environmental quality, to intimacy and
of contrasts between different but simultaneous difference, to a same-citizen status, to
realities, a city that is not a first world city, nor a international organizations participation, to
third world city, a city in which the limits between transversal information access, and to
formal and informal structures juxtapose, a city international associations and governments
that can no longer be planned under the networks.
traditional way, or from approaches generated This catalogue of urban rights is an important
in the Global North. That is why, the Latin- base to re-think the contemporary city in terms
American city needs to contextualize concepts of democracy and justice as the qualitative
like urban sustainability and justice into more complement of sustainability previously
achievable goals, and into efforts of social and mentioned, establishing this way, a first overview
spatial fight and survival according to its real of the various factors that need to be
context. addressed. However, if we want to apply those
urban rights to the spatiality of the Latin-
4. The Latin-American Urban Rights (LAUR) American city, they feel incomplete, or a little
Therefore, the proposed unit to evaluate the un-contextualized, because they were stated
urban justice/injustice conditions in the Latin- from an “occidental” and “Spaniard” point of
American city is the “urban right”. That unit is view, due to the cultural and formative contexts
derived from the concept of “right to the city” of the author.
coined by Lefebvre and its re-definitions and Therefore, it was decided that a more specific
updates made by several authors like Edward analysis of those rights had to be done, in order
Soja (2010). to be able to contextualize them, by grouping
In order to be able to operationalize the “urban their intentions and essence, and
right” as an evaluation strategy, it was decided complementing them with the Latin-American
to start from the reinterpretation made by Jordi urban characteristics mentioned before, with
Borja (2013), in which he states that the right to the purpose of obtaining the "Latin-American
the city is a democratic response that integrates Urban Rights” (LAUR) that can be used as a
the rights of the citizens and the urban criteria more appropriate evaluation tool.
that makes them possible, and that is From that contextualization process, it was
conditioned by the physical and political forms concluded that the fight for justice in the Latin-
of urban development, stating that, in order to American city can be approachable through
materialize the right to the city into citizen five general urban rights, that are not the only
demands, it has to be linked to a critique of the ones, but they can be the most priority to
current urban dynamics. advance towards a Latin-American urban
Borja also recognizes that as long as the current sustainability to the extent that strategies that
urban and political criteria are not replaced by involve them are developed:
those of competitiveness, social cohesion, LAUR 1. Right to a living place: It is not just the
sustainability, democracy, participation, and a right to a shelter or protection, but a right that
strong will to reduce social inequities, every covers all the basic services needed for a
effort will only be a good intention. That is why, healthy and worthy habitability, with a full
he proposes a fight for the urban rights as a freedom of choice their residence place. It’s the
right to housing with beauty and quality public
spaces nearby. Also, that housing has to mixed centralities accessible to every person.
contribute to strengthen the feeling of Likewise, it has to do with making a city for
community and collective identity. It has to be vulnerable people like elderly or disabled. This
accessible or connected to the rest of the city, right also seeks to guarantee connectivity,
physically and virtually, and has to guarantee permeability, and mobility infrastructure in an
security and tranquility through strategies that inclusive public space that allows virtual free
seek justice and fight crime. Finally, that housing access to the cyberspace and the information
and its urban environments have to be technologies. The citizen also has to have
committed to cause the less possible freedom of organization and network creation
environmental impact. in any level or scale, and has to have access to
LAUR 2. Right to public space: It is a right to the the government information (transparency).
free access to quality public spaces, spaces LAUR 5. Right to good government practices
that help to articulate all of the urban fragments and public policies: Every citizen has the right to
of the city, beautiful, democratic and worthy their rulers to be in continuous updating
spaces that also recognize and include the regarding practices, government systems,
existing spaces in the informal and marginal public policies, citizen participation
areas of the city. Spaces that strengthen the mechanisms, among others, which must be
feeling of community, belonging and identity, focused into including the demands of the
spaces that are safe and that allow a different social movements, civil associations,
connection not only physical between the academics, etc. It is the right to be considered
people, but also virtual through the free access by the authorities as a first-level citizen, and a
to the cyberspace and the information right to the government to innovate and update
technologies. The public space has to be its laws and management instruments
designed and intervened taking into account according to the realities of the contemporary
the best practices for diminishing the Latin-American city. A government that has the
environmental impact. flexibility of exercise authority with a
LAUR 3. Right to alterity: Is the right to be metropolitan reach beyond the municipal
recognized as a true citizen. The democratic borders, that seeks justice, security and
city must be thought in matters of alterity, that is, protection of every citizen. A government that is
including the “other”. Its discourses and transparent in its actions and movements,
strategies must accept the difference, without corruption and that not put up actions
multiculturalism, heterogeneity and against the common welfare, but instead, builds
simultaneity. In the extent that the informal city associations between the public, the private
stops being excluded, and all the citizens are and the citizens in local and global levels,
recognized as equal without distinguishing race, pledging to watch over the environmental
beliefs, sexual orientation, gender, migrant quality in the city.
situation, social class, etc., the city will move It’s important to note that these five Latin-
towards urban justice and democracy. It is also American urban rights are written in a utopic
about give the same guarantees to everybody structure or ideal scenarios of democracy and
regarding security, justice, accessibility, inclusion, but we have to be aware that
infrastructure and quality of life, and include achieving a full and complete justice is an
them in the public policies, giving them voice impossible and overwhelming task due to the
and decision power over their own urban reality. current complexities and the socioeconomic
LAUR 4. Right to mobility and accessibility: It has and political conditions, so these rights are not
the objective of balancing the existing viewed as a set of goals to accomplish in a
inequalities regarding the access to different hundred per cent, but instead, as instruments of
transport alternatives in the city, without making evaluation of the urban justice/injustice in the
one more privileged than the other. It is the right different fragments of the city, and as a guide
to move and transit freely in the city in the most that point us a direction to follow in the course
sustainable and worthy possible way, a right to a more feasible urban sustainability.
that the city is not planned and designed only
for the private vehicles only, but to have multiple 5. Operationalization example in
and consolidated options for urban mobility, Monterrey, Mexico
designed to make the citizen’s life easier in their According to Anaya (2008), the main issue
daily life activities, diminishing the regarding rights operationalization is that
environmental impact. Accessibility also has to people usually go from enunciating the right to
do with stopping the excessive urban sprawl, the operationalization process, without making
and strengthen urban nodes/districts to create a previous clear and solid definition of the right’s
content, that is, establishing what does that right value would be assigned to it. Obviously, the
implies and what it means. So that, in order to assigned values are going to vary depending on
make a more successful operationalization of the perception of the interviewed people, but
an element as subjective as a right, it is as it has been explained, this measuring allows
necessary to establish with detail and clarity its us to have a first overview of the evaluated
content, identify its components, select a space.
certain number of indicators, and finally, define
the measuring technique of each one of them. 5.1 Measuring example
With that in mind, an example of the In the city of Monterrey, Mexico, it has been
operationalization process of one of the five observed that informal and segregated
Latin-American urban rights is going to be settlements lack of parks or sports facilities with
presented, establishing its content and elements quality, beauty and accessibility. For that
to measure. The selected right is the right to reason, the inhabitants improvise their public
public space, and from the definition of the right space in wasteland, in private land that hasn’t
established before, a set of nine elements that been developed, or at the sides of streams and
compose it is generated: urban rivers. This is an example from the
Right to public space content: neighborhood called Colonia Alfareros, in
1. Free and safe accessibility to the public which the inhabitants use a non-developed
space land as a football court:
2. Accessibility, permeability/connection with
the city
3. Beauty/Design/quality urban image
4. Maintenance and quality conditions of the
public space
5. Strengthen of communitarian identity
6. Security
7. Design and construction with low
environmental impact strategies
8. Public space status (formal or informal)
9. Accessibility/connectivity to the Figure 16. Aerial view of the analyzed space (Google &
cyberspace author digital manipulation, 2017).
And with those 9 elements, turned into
indicators, a measuring chart can be created,
assigning values from 1 to 5 to measure them,
based in the observations, tours and interviews
made in the public space that is being
measured:
Table 2. Measuring chart filled out are currently being evaluated and taken into
LAUR 2. RIGHT TO PUBLIC SPACE 1 2 3 4 5
1 Free and safe accessibility to the public space practice in others examples. This document only
2 Accessibility, permeability/connection with the city presents a first approach to the subject.
3 Beauty/Design/quality urban image
4 Maintenance and quality conditions of the public space
5 Strengthen of communitarian identity Acknowledgements
6 Security
This research did not receive any specific grant from
7 Design and construction with low environmental impact strategies
8 Public space status (formal or informal)
funding agencies in the public, commercial, or not-for-
9 Accessibility/connectivity to the cyberspace profit sectors.
Fah. Thermometer.
Date. State of Weather.
6 a.m. Noon. 3 p.m.
1823.
Aug. 1 Rain all night. 75 82 86
2 73 78 79
3 Sunday. Rain in
evening. 74 80 82
4 78 82 83
5 76 82 84
6 Rain much. 73 77 78
7 74 78 81
8 Rain. 76 80 81
9 75 81 82
10 Sunday. Rain, loud
thunder. 74 77 80
11 76 81 83
12 Rain and thunder all
night. 79 83 85
13 75 80 81
14 76 80 85
15 Rain, thunder, vivid
lightning. 77 84 87
16 76 82 85
17 Sunday. 78 83 85
18 77 84 86
19 Rain and thunder during
the night. 79 85 86
20 Rainy day. 78 84 85
21 75 82 83
22 Much rain. 74 79 83
23 Morning cloudy. 74 80 84
Fah. Thermometer.
Date. State of Weather.
6 a.m. Noon. 3 p.m.
24 Sunday. Drizzling rain. 76 83 85
25 Night violent. 75 77 79
26 Night. 75 78 79
27 All night. 74 78 79
28 Day and night, showers. 73 77 79
29 Rain. 74 78 80
30 75 80 82
31 Sunday. Rain, much
thunder. 74 78 80
Sep. 1 74 79 81
2 76 84 86
3 79 85 89
4 80 85 88
5 Morning. Rain and
thunder. 80 80 81
6 78 83 84
7 Sunday. 78 85 86
8 Rain. 79 80 81
9 78 83 85
10 Night, hurricane, east. 80 86 88
11 South. 78 85 87
12 80 86 88
13 79 85 87
14 Sunday. 78 86 89
15 80 86 89
16 81 87 89
17 Cloudy afternoon. 81 88 89
18 80 85 87
19 Hurricane, east and a
half south. Strong 3
p.m. 80 87 85
20 80 84 87
21 Sunday. 78 85 87
22 79 87 89
23 78 86 88
24 80 88 90
25 82 89 92
Fah. Thermometer.
Date. State of Weather.
6 a.m. Noon. 3 p.m.
26 Violent storm, noon wind
N. hail and rain. 80 89 90
27 76 86 89
28 Sunday. 80 86 88
29 81 87 91
30 80 86 91
Oct. 1 Rain and wind in night. 80 87 91
2 78 84 85
3 80 85 88
4 Wind, thunder. 81 87 90
5 Sunday, rain and wind. 80 86 88
6 79 87 89
7 80 88 90
8 80 89 93
9 79 89 92
10 Breeze N.W. 78 89 91
11 77 90 92
12 Sunday, 79 92 94
13 78 92 94
14 79 91 93
15 77 92 93
16 83 92 94
17 81 92 94
18 80 90 93
19 Sunday, 81 92 94
20 79 92 94
21 80 92 94
22 81 93 95
23 75 90 92
24 76 85 88
25 77 87 90
26 Sunday, 77 88 91
27 78 90 92
28 78 90 91
29 79 91 93
30 78 88 90
Fah. Thermometer.
Date. State of Weather.
6 a.m. Noon. 3 p.m.
31 79 89 92
Nov. 1 78 87 90
2 Sunday, 76 89 91
3 75 88 89
4 76 88 90
5 77 87 89
6 77 88 90
7 76 87 90
8 75 86 88
9 Sunday, 76 88 90
10 77 86 89
11 79 87 88
12 76 88 90
13 74 87 89
14 74 86 88
15 73 87 89
16 Sunday, 74 88 89
17 74 83 86
18 75 85 87
19 75 86 88
20 75 85 87
21 75 86 88
22 69 78 81
23 Sunday, 71 79 81
24 69 77 79
25 68 78 80
26 67 79 81
27 66 78 80
28 65 77 79
29 66 77 79
30 Sunday, 67 79 80
Dec. 1 66 79 81
2 67 78 80
3 66 79 81
4 65 78 80
5 67 80 82