As delegates to the World Social Forum (WSF) in Porto Alegre, Brazil, in January 2003, the authors examined alternatives to the neoliberal approach to urban development, to escape the negative results that are too often ignored by the media and even academia. Broad-scale, national-level alternatives to neoliberalism have been rare, but alternatives at the municipal level are more common. The authors draw from lessons in Brazil and from their home countries of Mexico, South Africa and the United States. Their lectures and seminars at the World Social Forum, and related programs at the University of São Paulo and the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, have been supported in part by the Lincoln Institute.

Residents of enormous districts in some of the world’s largest cities suffer with miserable housing, difficult access to work, inadequate water supplies and sewerage, poor public services and exposure to violence. In many cases, conditions grew worse during the “lost decades” of the 1980s and 1990s, due to recession and cutbacks in planning and public investment. Those with faith in trickle-down improvements waited in vain for private markets to increase household incomes. Instead, in many countries the poorest three-quarters of the population suffered absolute losses.

Forced to respond to these kinds of problems, city governments contemplate new approaches to such questions as local versus national authority, productive efficiency versus neighborhood-based redistribution of services, and conflicts between plans and markets. At the municipal level the complications become painfully clear. Popular advocates of redistributive reforms struggle to survive in a hostile environment, often against strong private business interests, a privileged middle class, and conservative provincial and central governments. The problems in cities are immediate and concrete, requiring negotiation, concessions, compliance with an often-biased legal framework, and high degree of professional competence and leadership. Municipal planners and activists cannot overturn the whole system, but for success they must look to exploit cracks and find institutional openings. In spite of the manifest failures of the neoliberal regimes, reformers will find no simple return to an earlier age.

This brief discussion highlights complex issues, perhaps raising questions more than answering them. How does one deal with land issues underlying most urban problems: ownership, regulation, taxation and value? How much scope is available to municipal governments to pursue economic development or to redistribute basic needs, including household income and access to land? How much difference does it make at the municipal level whether or not the national regime is moving in progressive, redistributive directions? Complicating these issues, globalization may be intensifying, challenging cities with low-cost competition, increased transnational corporate reach, and ever-broader powers concentrated in multilateral institutions.

Land Values and Markets

The benefits of urbanization require public and private access to land, yet urban land values reflect differing degrees of access to a city’s benefits. Low bidders are excluded from more desirable land in most land markets, whether formal or irregular. The poor are pushed to the city margins or crammed into the deteriorated inner core. Weakly regulated land markets do not even guarantee economically efficient use of urban land, let alone ensure land use patterns vital to environmental survival. Local governments intervene with land use controls and taxation, or facilitate access to cheap urbanized land, in the best of cases pursuing equity, fiscal efficiency and environmental viability. Performance on all these counts is highly variable.

In Mexico, at least 60 percent of the urban population lives in areas developed by the illegal occupation of land that subsequently receives services and supports self-built (or rather, self-financed) housing. Thanks to historically ingrained traditions about the people’s right to land, informal settlements have been supported by infrastructure and service provision, regularization programs, and even credits for home improvements. Otherwise, the urban housing situation in Mexico would be much worse. During the 1980s, public institutions accrued significant land reserves, which were applied successfully in low-cost sites and services, core housing and mutual aid projects as alternatives to irregular development. But Mexico eliminated land banking, under World Bank influence, hampering the scope of planning to ensure equitable and sustainable urban development.

In recent years, mass-produced formal housing in cities has increased. In line with World Bank advice, the subsidized finance system for the salaried working classes and middle-income sectors has been restructured, enabling commercial developers to operate on a very large scale, acquiring vast tracts of cheap greenfield sites (and some inner-city sites), and then designing, constructing and marketing industrialized housing. The initial advantages are the provision of services and the seemingly spacious suburban atmosphere. The disadvantages are inaccessibility, lack of urban amenities, reduced space standards, and lack of space for future growth. The gigantic scale of this type of development may deplete irregular settlements of middle-income residents, thus increasing social segregation.

In Brazil, municipal governments have begun to experiment with ways to regulate land use, such as property tax increases linked with progressive taxation, including broad-scale exemptions for as many as half the property owners, and popular participation in decision making for regulatory changes (planning and zoning) and for investments in urban infrastructure. Many changes were first implemented by Workers Party (PT) mayors, operating in opposition to the federal and state governments, with the aid of fiscal and regulatory changes introduced in the 1988 Constitution. Now, with the PT government holding national power under President Luis Inacio (Lula) da Silva, left or center-left municipal governments may find themselves able to experiment more. Nevertheless, the obstacles are very great. Even in the relatively rich city of Porto Alegre a third of the population lives in irregular settlements.

The South African experience since democracy was won in 1994 shows that tremendous difficulties confront those who would use public agencies to assist the poor to gain access to land. The government did succeed in subsidizing over a million families previously living in shacks and shared rooms, but almost all new houses were located at the extreme peripheries of the cities. A key progressive gain is that many large metropolitan areas are now consolidated in single municipal governments. But economic growth concerns and fiscal crises have limited the ability of the new jurisdictions to redistribute resources in favor of the poor. Planners intended to raise ample funds through taxation of high-value central land, to pay for subsidies for developments in poorer districts, but values did not follow predictions, and receipts were grossly inadequate. Land markets continue, by and large, to exclude the disadvantaged, and they haven’t yielded sufficient tax revenue. A continuing lack of coordination in the formulation of policy has seen programs in land, housing, services, public works and employment working against each other in some cases.

In the United States, nearly all land and housing development is “regular,” market-driven and dominated by private banking, real estate and development firms, and better-off households. The results are starkly unequal, pitting suburbs against much poorer central cities. Efforts to right the imbalance have generally been frustrated, because land markets do not deliver great efficiencies or fairness. The process is highly regulated, so that inequalities are generated not only by (land) markets themselves, but also by political groups such as “growth coalitions” and by fierce regulatory manipulation on behalf of privileged middle-class and wealthy districts.

The regulation of land markets through planning, land banking and taxation constitutes a broad arena for municipal intervention in land policy. Local governments have extensive potential authority, and they typically have constitutional prerogatives for planning and taxation (although in practice they are still constrained by powerful national forces). They may act to support economic growth or to redistribute it, even in a conservative provincial or national climate. Local planning does constrain land markets, but often without redistributive effects, since city governments must contend with strong financial interests, patterns of privilege, and entrenched power. Professional competency and consistency are required to exploit the full potential of property registration and taxation systems, and financial decentralization limits the possibility of cross subsidies and redistributive measures.

Progressive Local Government

In spite of claims about the conservative nature of powerful constraints on the redistributive capacity of local governments, evidence from the four countries cited here suggests that municipalities may indeed find ways to redistribute public goods and services on behalf of their less well-off residents. Municipalities also may serve as laboratories for social experimentation and as sources of progressive ideological change.

In Mexico, the role of municipal and state governments in achieving more equitable cities is undisputed and constitutionally sanctioned, yet fraught with obstacles. In the 1990s, the first electoral defeats of the Revolutionary Institutional Party (the PRI, which dominated the political arena from the 1920s) were at municipal and then state levels. Throughout the country there are genuine examples of successful innovative and socially redistributive programs run by municipal governments, such as participatory budgeting and planning, and community recycling. Mexico City’s Federal District is now governed by the left-of-center Democratic Revolution Party, which also controls most of the poorer and more populous jurisdictions of the metropolitan area. In 2001, this government introduced a social investment program targeting the poorer districts, providing monthly cash payments of US $70 in 2002 to people over seventy years, interest-free loans for home improvements in irregular settlements, and traditional public services and social assistance. Criticized from the left and right as populist and electioneering, this program is now emulated on a smaller scale by the center-right federal government and in local electoral platforms by the PRI. Despite initial positive evaluations, however, questions remain about costs for universal coverage and viability in poorer municipalities, and about reinforcing clientilism.

Brazilian experience with redistribution by municipal government has been documented in many notable cases, from giant cities such as São Paulo, to large cities such as Porto Alegre, Santo Andre and Belem, to the hundreds of smaller municipalities that have elected left-of-center administrations over the past 15 years. The case most often discussed is participatory budgeting, the innovation that has involved more than 10 percent of Porto Alegre’s residents in decisions to allocate more than one billion dollars of public expenditures on infrastructure and services. Other innovations include improvements in transit services and expansion of bus lanes to challenge the hegemony of the automobile, which serves a privileged minority. Some progress has been made in housing, but local government capacity is limited.

South African municipal government has emerged only in the last two years from its long history of apartheid division and the turmoil of reform since 1994. But, new trends demonstrate innovation at the municipal scale. Although many aspects of municipal government have been “corporatized” in Johannesburg, the city is beginning to make substantial progress on the regeneration of decayed inner city areas, using a wholly owned company (the Johannesburg Development Agency) as the instrument of change. Agencies of this kind seem to be able to solve some of the problems of intricate relationships between different spheres of government—local, provincial (or state) and national—and to attract greater private interest in supporting municipal initiative.

New approaches to planning in South Africa are also starting to show signs of success. These participatory approaches bring public utility agencies and big-budget government departments, as well as citizens, into framing municipal action over the short- to medium-term. Such developments indicate that working on the linkages between different agencies is crucial for increasing effectiveness and reducing frustration during the early democratic period. Some municipalities are beginning to find ways of sharing experiences and shaping new forms of cooperation. An example is the new national Cities Network, which brings together nine of the largest municipalities in the country as a means of stimulating innovation and expanding impact.

Social and political innovation has also been documented at the municipal level in cities of various sizes throughout the U.S., often in situations that require resisting politically conservative national trends. Very large cities such as Cleveland and Chicago developed city plans aimed explicitly at redistribution to provide assistance to needy households and deprived neighborhoods. Chicago also developed solid programs to support smaller and more local business enterprises, versus the usual beneficiaries among large firms and downtown interests. Smaller cities such as Burlington, Vermont, and Santa Monica, California, developed aggressive programs in housing and rent control aimed at helping needy constituents. As in the heralded examples of participatory budgeting in Brazil, these progressive municipal programs typically have strict limitations, because they can do little to improve the labor market and thus can offer only small improvements to household cash incomes.

Municipal efforts on land use and housing in the U.S. are often constrained by local control or “home rule,” which isolates the more numerous, wealthier suburbs that literally surround poorer central cities. The wealth and significant taxing power of these separate jurisdictions combines with a U.S. peculiarity—local financing of public schools—to burden city residents with powerful disadvantages. Since about 90 percent of U.S. children attend public schools, local control of schools is a hot-button issue in U.S. politics. Scholars construe de jure public suburban control as de facto privatization: by purchasing homes in suburbs, households are purchasing control of local schools, thereby excluding others, such as new immigrants and ethnic groups, especially African Americans.

One hears echoes of such U.S. suburban privatization and division in the rigidly separated districts and gated communities of Rio de Janeiro, São Paulo and other Brazilian cities; in the huge separations of privileged central districts and the unserviced periphery in Mexico City; and in the surviving apartheid spatial structure of Johannesburg. We find that municipal governments do act against these inequities, at least in part because of an ideological commitment and because the resulting problems threaten their capacity to govern. Some localities may turn their limited victories into building blocks for larger progressive structures at the national scale, as evidenced in Brazil.

National-level Urban Reform

Urban affairs is a hot issue in Brazil, and various laws, administrative practices, budgets and regulations have been brewing since the new Constitution of 1988 promised an improved status for cities. After more than a decade of extensive public debate, new legislation was enacted in the 2001 City Statute, a federal law on urban policy. The new left-of-center government led by President da Silva is betting on a new national ministry to integrate different activities and to find more effective approaches to persistent urban problems. This Ministry of Cities (Ministerio das Cidades) was established in early 2003 to improve housing, transit and neighborhood services for poor majorities, preserve and renovate historic centers, promote economic development, and drastically increase participation. National leaders aim to emphasize the concerns of mayors, city councils and the neediest citizens in the federal agenda. Other countries are generally a long way from such an urban policy, and the Brazilian experiment will be closely watched.

Mexico is a clear example of how constitutional rights to such things as decent housing, health and education may be considered important, but are not valued enough to guarantee their fulfillment; nor are all those good intentions laid out in the highly complex planning legislation. Even municipal-friendly constitutional amendments of the 1980s have not fully undermined the high degree of centralization of all public policy, including social spending and virtually all environmental regulation. As a result, the urban and social agendas of different levels of government are often competing rather than complementary, and are always insufficient to meet demand.

South Africa has tried to develop a new national policy in the urban field, starting with a national Urban Development Strategy after the 1994 democratic elections. But relatively little has been accomplished since the strategy has tended to remain a paper commitment to good outcomes rather than a concrete program or a real obligation on different departments and levels of government to work together toward common goals. Part of the problem has been competition between different agencies over who should set the agenda. Diverse centers of power, from the president’s office to the finance ministry, the local government department of the national government, some of the provincial governments, and the national municipal association, are vying for position in shaping urban policy.

The lack of coherent urban policy in South Africa also must be placed in the context of the central agenda of government, which stresses not only economic growth but also the continuing empowerment of the previously disadvantaged black majority. There is by no means consensus over the roles of the cities in accomplishing either of these objectives. A single ministry addressing urban issues would seem like a dream to many observers, but other ways of achieving similar objectives by reorganizing relationships between parts of government suggest that progress can be made.

In the United States, the federal agenda for urban policy has been weak since the late 1970s, and general fiscal constraints have combined with suburban voters’ indifference to cities. These problems have been greatly exacerbated by the consequences of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, by demands of the U.S. war economy, and by the conservative nature of redistribution pursued by the Bush Administration.

This range of international experience suggests that profound national changes and legislation can have immense local effects. A national government can provide fiscal, regulatory and administrative support for a whole series of municipal improvements, many of which would be eagerly implemented by local governments. National governments (and even international agreements, as in the earlier European common market) can inhibit or even prohibit such things as municipal tax-cutting competition in pursuit of relocated private investment, thus eliminating a lose-lose situation for public budgets. But, even in the best of cases, such opportunities are limited, politically difficult and technically complicated.

Conclusions

In the context of the globalizing economy, city politicians and officials face remarkably similar uncertainties in Brazil, South Africa, Mexico and the United States. As economies have become more open, some industrial sectors have been hammered, while others have been able to take up new opportunities (such as motor vehicle exporting in South Africa) and new niches have emerged. The current geopolitical context poses challenges for city administrations; how they think about their role in this period of imported instability is significant. There is a tension between those who think that the role of city government is to frame competition with other cities, and those who see more cooperative roles.

Cities themselves need to develop capacity to formulate and implement plans. They cannot simply rely on the panoply of outside professionals and agencies that have increasingly defined urban agendas. Some of the needed sharing can fruitfully take place in an academic environment, especially where long-term research helps to inform choices. It is particularly important to widen opportunities for sharing between the city officials and scholars of the global South and the North, to the mutual benefit of both.

Priscilla Connolly teaches urban sociology and planning at the Autonomous Metropolitan University in Azcapotzalco, Mexico. William W. Goldsmith directs the Program on Urban and Regional Studies at Cornell University. Alan Mabin is associate professor in the Graduate School of Development Management at Witwatersrand University in Johannesburg, South Africa.

Francisco Sabatini, a sociologist and urban planner, is a professor at the Catholic University of Chile in Santiago, where he lectures on urban studies and planning and conducts research on residential segregation, value capture and environmental conflicts. He combines his academic work with involvement in NGO-based research and action projects in low-income neighborhoods and villages. He served as an advisor to the Chilean Minister of Housing and Urban Affairs after democracy was restored in 1990, and as a member of the National Advisory Committee on the Environment in the subsequent democratic governments. Sabatini has published extensively in books and journals, and has taught in several countries, mainly in Latin America. He is a long-standing collaborator in the Lincoln Institute’s Program on Latin America and the Caribbean, as a course developer, instructor and researcher.

Land Lines: Why is the topic of residential segregation so important for land policy and urban planning in general?

Francisco Sabatini: Zoning, the centerpiece of urban planning, consists of segregating or separating activities and consolidating homogeneous urban areas, for either exclusionary or inclusionary purposes. At the city level, this planning tool was introduced in Frankfurt, Germany, in 1891 and was adopted elsewhere to address environmental and social problems due to rapid urbanization and industrialization. In modern cities the widespread practice of zoning to separate different activities and groups has aggravated these and other problems. It affects traffic and air pollution because more car trips are needed to move around the city, and it contributes to environmental decay and urban ghettos characterized by symptoms of social disintegration, such as increasing rates of school dropouts, teenage pregnancy and drug addiction.

It is indisputable that the desire for social segregation has long been a component of exclusionary zoning, along with concerns related to the environment and health. The influx of working-class families and immigrants is often considered undesirable and politically threatening, and zoning has been used to segregate such groups. Ethnic and religious discrimination are the most negative forms of social segregation. When a national government defines itself in religious, ethnic or racial terms, residential segregation usually remains entrenched as a severe form of discrimination, intolerance and human exploitation, as in Ireland, South Africa and Israel. Segregation can be positive, however, as in many cities around the world that become socially enriched with the proliferation of ethnic enclaves.

LL: What are the economic impacts of segregation?

FS: Besides its urban and social effects, residential segregation is an important aspect of land policy because it is closely connected to the functioning of land markets and is a factor in motivating households to pursue economic security and the formation of intergenerational assets. Fast-growing cities in unstable and historically inflationary economies convert land price increments into an opportunity for households at every social level to achieve their goals. It is no coincidence that the percentage of home ownership is comparatively high in Latin American cities, including among its poor groups. Land valuation seems to be an important motivation behind the self-segregating processes of the upper and middle classes. And, the increase in land prices is a factor in limiting access to serviced land and contributing to spatial segregation. In fact, the scarcity of serviced land at affordable prices, rather than the absolute scarcity of land, is considered the main land problem in Latin American cities, according to research conducted at the Lincoln Institute.

LL: What makes residential segregation so important in Latin America?

FS: Two of the most salient features of Latin America are its socioeconomic inequality and its urban residential segregation. There is an obvious connection between the two phenomena, though one is not a simple reflection of the other. For example, changes in income inequality in Brazilian cities are not necessarily accompanied by equivalent changes in spatial segregation. Residential segregation is closely related to the processes of social differentiation, however, and in that sense is deeply entrenched in the region’s economically diverse cities.

The rapidly increasing rate of crime and related social problems in spatially segregated low-income neighborhoods makes segregation a critical policy issue. These areas seem to be devolving from the “hopeful poverty” that predominated before the economic reforms of the 1980s to an atmosphere of hopelessness distinctive of urban ghettos. How much of this change can be attributed to residential segregation is an open question, on which little research is being done. I believe that in the current context of “flexible” labor regimes (no contracts, no enforcement of labor regulations, etc.) and alienation of civil society from formal politics, residential segregation adds a new component to social exclusion and desolation. In the past, spatial agglomeration of the poor tended to support grassroots organizations and empower them within a predominantly elitist political system.

LL: What features are characteristic of residential segregation in Latin America, as contrasted to the rest of the world?

FS: Compared to societies with strong social mobility, such as the United States, spatial segregation as a means of asserting social and ethnic identities is used less frequently in Latin America. Brazil shares with the U.S. a history of slavery and high levels of immigration, and it is one of the most unequal societies in the world; however, there is apparently much less ethnic or income segregation in residential neighborhoods in Brazil than in the U.S.

At the same time, there is a high degree of spatial concentration of elites and the rising middle class in wealthy areas of Latin American cities, although in many cases these areas are also the most socially diverse. Lower-income groups easily move into these neighborhoods, in contrast with the tradition of the wealthy Anglo-American suburb, which tends to remain socially and economically homogeneous over time.

Another noteworthy spatial pattern is that the segregated poor neighborhoods in Latin America are located predominantly on the periphery of cities, more like the pattern of continental Europe than that of many Anglo-American cities, where high concentrations of poverty are found in the center. The powerful upper classes in Latin America have crafted urban rules and regulations and influenced public investment in order to exclude the “informal” poor from some of the more modern zones, thus making the underdevelopment of their cities and countries less visible.

Finally, the existence of a civic culture of social integration in Latin America is manifested in a socially mixed physical environment. This widespread social mingling could be linked to the Catholic cultural ethos and the phenomenon of a cultural mestizo, or melting pot. The mestizo is an important figure in Latin American history, and it is telling that in English there is no word for mestizo. Anglo-American, Protestant cities seem to demonstrate more reluctance to encourage social and spatial mixing. Expanding this Latin American cultural heritage should be a basic goal of land policies aiming to deter the formation of poor urban ghettos, and it could influence residential segregation elsewhere.

LL: What trends do you perceive in residential segregation in Latin America?

FS: Two trends are relevant, both stimulated by the economic reforms of the 1980s: the spatial dispersal of upper-class gated communities and other mega-projects into low-income fringe areas; and the proliferation of the ghetto effect in deprived neighborhoods. The invasion of the urban periphery by large real estate projects triggers the gentrification of areas otherwise likely to become low-income settlements, giving way to huge profits for some. It also shortens the physical distance between the poor and other social groups, despite the fact that this new form of residential segregation is more intense because gated communities are highly homogeneous and walls or fences reinforce exclusion. Due to the peripheral location of these new developments, the processes of gentrification must be supported by modern regional infrastructures, mainly roads. Widespread private land ownership by the poor residents could help to prevent their complete expulsion from these gentrified areas and achieve a greater degree of social diversity.

The second trend consists of the social disintegration in those low-income neighborhoods where economic and political exclusion have been added to traditional spatial segregation, as mentioned earlier.

LL: What should land policy officials, in Latin America and elsewhere, know about residential segregation, and why?

FS: Residential segregation is not a necessary by-product of public housing programs or of the functioning of land markets, nor is it a necessary spatial reflection of social inequality. Thus, land policies aimed at controlling residential segregation could contribute to deterring the current expansion of the ghetto effect. In addition, officials should consider measures aimed at democratizing the city, most notably with regard to the distribution of investments in urban infrastructure. Policies such as participatory budgeting, as implemented in Porto Alegre and other Brazilian cities, could be indispensable in helping to undermine one of the mainstays of residential segregation in Latin American cities: public investments biased toward affluent areas.

LL: How is your work with the Lincoln Institute addressing these problems?

FS: Residential segregation is widely recognized as a relevant urban topic, but it has been scarcely researched by academics and to a large extent has been neglected by land policy officials. With the Institute’s support I have been lecturing on the topic in several Latin American universities over the past year, to promote discussion among faculty and students in urban planning and land development departments. I also lead a network of scholars that has recently prepared an eight-session course on residential segregation and land markets in Latin America cities. It is available in CD-ROM format for public officials and educators to support teaching, research and debate on the topic.

LL: Please expand on your new role as a Lincoln Institute partner in Chile.

FS: This year we inaugurated the Program on Support for the Design of Urban Policies at the Catholic University of Chile in Santiago. The program’s advisory board includes members of parliament, senior public officials, business leaders, researchers, consultants and NGO representatives. With its focus on land policy, particularly actions related to the financing of urban development and residential social integration, this board will identify relevant national land policy objectives and adequate strategies to reach them, including activities in the areas of training, applied policy research and dissemination of the results.

The board’s first task is to promote broad discussion of the draft reform of major urban laws and policies that the government recently sent to the Chilean Parliament. Since the late 1970s, when the urban and land market liberalization policies were applied under the military dictatorship, the debate on urban policies has fallen nearly silent, and Chile has lost its regional leadership position on these issues. Overly simplistic notions about the operation and potential of land markets, and especially about the origins of residential segregation (due in part to ideological bias), have contributed to this lack of discussion. Both land markets and the processes of residential segregation must be seen as arenas of critical social and urban importance. We want to reintroduce Chile into this debate, which has been facilitated by the Lincoln Institute’s Program on Latin America and the Caribbean and its networks of experts over the past 10 years.

References and Resources

Sabatini, Francisco, and Gonzalo Cáceres. 2004. Barrios cerrados: Entre la exclusión y la integración residencial (Gated communities: Between exclusion and residential integration). Santiago: Instituto de Geografía, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile.

———. Forthcoming. Recuperación de plusvalías en Santiago de Chile: Experiencias del Siglo XX. (Value capture in Santiago, Chile: Experiences from the 20th century). Santiago: Instituto de Geografía, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile.

Sabatini, Francisco, Gonzalo Cáceres and Gabriela Muñoz. 2004. Segregación residencial y mercados de suelo en la ciudad latinoamericana. (Residential segregation and land markets in Latin American cities). CD-ROM.

Espaço e debates. 2004. Segregações urbanas 24(45).

The sound of electricity hums deep inside the Tate Modern, the power plant turned art sanctuary on the south bank of London’s River Thames. Despite the 4 million visitors per year now streaming inside since the galleries opened in 2000, the switching plant is still generating 2 megawatts of power for its neighborhood, making the Tate one of the most unusual mixed-use urban redevelopments ever concocted.

But an even more far-reaching hum is reverberating all around the Tate—that of regeneration. Connected to central London by the arching spine of Lord Norman Foster’s Millennium Bridge and further magnetized by the whirling mega-folly of the London Eye Ferris wheel nearby, the Tate has catalyzed well over $200 million worth of other redevelopments to the area. Yet, even as it joins other high-end arts institutions in the “Bilbao effect” of high art sparking higher-end gentrification, the Tate is working hard to nurture an economically and ethnically diverse live/work/play urban neighborhood.

“We’ve had impacts,” says Donald Hyslop, head of education for the Tate and coordinator of its community initiatives. “We attract 4 million visitors a year, and 12 million now move between the Tate and the London Eye. The question for us became, ‘How do we spread that wealth?’”

Such models of urban regeneration lured the 2006 Loeb Fellows from Harvard University’s Graduate School of Design to London for their annual study trip abroad, cosponsored by the Lincoln Institute. Aided by Jody Tableporter’s connections as the former director of regeneration for London Mayor Ken Livingston, the group gained a first-hand look at the leaps, stumbles, and lessons to be learned from one of the world’s most rapidly redeveloping cities.

“London has proven the relationship between transportation planning and economic growth,” observed Luis Siqueiros, a planner who has worked in Juarez/El Paso, Guadalajara, and other Mexican cities. “They are mixing all kinds of activities together in their buildings. In North America, we talk about these things a lot, but they are showing us how to do it and why.”

The Beginnings of London’s Regeneration

The story of London’s regeneration is long and complicated. It begins in the Thatcher years with a bold refocusing of government aid to cities that created urban redevelopment agencies and enterprise zones to assemble land and better focus new development and transportation infrastructure projects. The most conspicuous early success was Canary Wharf, the sleek, steel-and-glass commercial new town that became the first major project in the Royal Docklands, and in the Thatcher government’s vision for a larger, regional corridor of redevelopment, dubbed the Thames Gateway, stretching all the way to the North Sea.

Despite the misfortunes of Canary Wharf’s original developer, Olympia & York, the larger Docklands redevelopment agency and enterprise zone resulted in the Jubilee Line tube extension and the first phase of the Docklands light rail line. Today, with more than 100,000 workers, Canary Wharf is competing with downtown London to be the center of the financial services sector, decidedly shifting the momentum of the city’s growth to the east.

While Margaret Thatcher’s free-market programs—particularly the release of huge tracts of government-owned land for redevelopment—broke a long freeze on urban redevelopment, subsequent Labor Party policies have guided recent successes. In the 1980s, forecasts of 4 million new households by 2020 led John Major’s government to create the Urban Task Force overseen by architect Richard Rogers. The resulting 2000 Urban White Paper made urban renaissance official national policy.

The reverberations have been widespread, stretching from Leeds to Norwich, but the epicenter is London. Projects like Canary Wharf and the Tate established momentum that gained further steam with the city’s election of its first mayor, Ken Livingston, to set policy for the metropolitan region’s 24 boroughs. Livingston has unleashed a panoply of internationally attention-getting initiatives, from the much-lauded “congestion pricing” of automobiles traveling into the core to a series of bold, new buildings and public spaces by top-rung architects like Rogers and Norman Foster. Now, with the Olympics scheduled for 2012, London has succeeded Barcelona as the “It girl” of European cities, while luring other English cities onto the dance floor.

“Having an architect like Richard Rogers involved in the destiny of cities was a major force,” Tableporter says. “His work with the Urban White Paper spawned a whole batch of English cities that all of a sudden are attuned to design standards and urban principles via master planning.”

But for all the excitement and the dozens of major projects underway, the Loeb Fellows agreed that London’s growth will live or die in the details. As Jair Lynch, a developer from Washington, DC, put it, “The question is, can they give these new places soul.”

Guiding Land Use Principles

While far more modest than some of the huge redevelopments that have been and are being completed, the Tate Modern offered the kind of careful instrumentality that attracted the Loeb Fellows, by both seeding major new development in the long-dormant south bank and spreading the benefits to the existing community.

Under Hyslop’s guidance, the Tate joined a national pilot program to create one of England’s first Business Improvement Districts (BIDs). This initiative developed an employment training program called START, helping to bring more than 40 percent of the museum’s employees from the nearby, and historically downtrodden, South London districts. It started a new community group now boasting 450 members who wanted more open space, meeting places, and a movie theater. Their efforts moved the Tate to open up rooms for public use, develop a community garden, and host a new neighborhood film club.

“The Tate is trying to create a dual function for an arts institution,” noted Lisa Richmond. A long-time arts administrator and activist who has worked on community development projects for the Atlanta Olympics and the Seattle Arts Commission, Richmond says most major U.S. cultural institutions focus solely on audience development. “On the one hand, the Tate has a major global impact, representing the U.K. to the world, but it is also taking responsibility for its immediate community,” she observed. “I don’t know of any U.S. arts institution trying anything like it.”

By combining a major attraction, top-notch architecture, public space, and transportation infrastructure, the Tate became an early standard setter. But, it is rapidly gaining many potential equals, from the centrally located King’s Cross, where a new Channel Tunnel station designed by Norman Foster is triggering a 50-acre redevelopment with 1,800 new homes plus retail and commercial uses, to the outlying Wembly Stadium, the building and master plan designed by Rogers, including a plaza and grand boulevard lined with shops, bars, and restaurants, as well as 4,200 homes.

The primacy of the pedestrian is another common denominator. With Michael Jones, a director at Foster and Partners, the Loeb Fellows toured the newly renovated British Museum. There, the breathtaking glass roof—gently domed in a Fibonacci sequence of diamond-patterned steel structure—covering the 2½-acre Queen Elizabeth II courtyard has garnered all the headlines. But the restoration of the museum’s forecourt—ripped out in the 1960s for a road—has transformed the area into a new magnet for lunching, lounging, and strolling tourists and locals alike.

Nearby, Jones pointed out the similarly transformed Trafalgar Square. This traffic-choked cameo player has set the scene of “busy London” in so many movies. But it is now costarring in Livingston’s remake of the city through a “World Squares for All” campaign that will link Trafalgar with Westminster Abbey and Parliament Square as a major pedestrian corridor.

“For too long London’s public realm has been neglected and ignored,” Livingston said in a 2005 speech, as he unveiled plans to build 100 new public spaces for the Olympics. “Now we have an opportunity to get things right by rebalancing the spaces of the city for people and cars. I believe that the street is the lifeblood of city life.”

The Loeb Fellows also saw some of the method behind Livingston’s Midas touch in the work of Space Syntax, a dynamic new studio pioneering techniques of measuring and shaping traffic—both on wheels and on foot. Growing out of research at University College London by Professor Bill Hillier in the 1970s, and now a four-year-old company with offices in Sydney, Tokyo, Brussels, and South Africa, Space Syntax has developed new software to algorithmically model impacts on congestion and movement. It is based on a simple principle: people’s urge to take the shortest route.

In early studies of the potential impact of the Millennium Bridge, for instance, the city’s planners guessed it would be crossed by 2 million pedestrians annually. Space Syntax’s formulas predicted at least 4.4 million, but already more than 9 million are crossing the bridge each year. Jones added that similar studies eased planners’ minds about the benefits and impacts of removing streets at the British Museum and Tralfalgar Square.

“Space Syntax is using the traffic engineer’s language for the urban designer’s goals,” noted Etty Padmodipoetro, a Boston urban designer who designed several key open spaces for the Big Dig highway project. “In the United States, we could learn a lot from how they have harvested academic research for use in the profession.”

Challenges to Redevelopment Goals

Such innovations, however, only mitigate some of the risks in London’s bold experiments in regeneration. So far, London’s greatest successes have been catalytic projects within the existing city fabric that humanize the public realm while generating new developments that attract new residents and jobs. On the horizon are dozens of larger-scale projects that will determine whether London’s mastery of regeneration is a moment or an era. Some are widely considered to be mirages, like the Battersea Power Station, where an all-star cast of designers—Cecil Balmond, Nicholas Grimshaw, Ron Arad, and Kathryn Gustafson among them—has teamed up for a Tate-like power station to arts remodel as part of a proposed $1.5 billion transformation of 40 acres into hotels, offices, retail spaces, and flats. But other projects, like the soon-to-break-ground Silvertown Quays, teeter precariously in the gusts of London’s transformation.

Land Ownership

As the Loeb Fellows learned from Timothy Brittain-Catlin, a historian and lecturer at the Architectural Association, enormous swaths of London’s land base are owned by a small number of families who first gained control when King Henry VIII abolished church land ownership, handing the land over to his cronies whose descendants, like the Duke of Marlborough, still control it. In short, most of central London’s land is leased rather than sold. Most of these areas are also protected under the city’s strict historic preservation policies. With Livingston’s hopes of building 120,000 new units of housing in the next 10 years, the success of projects like Silvertown Quays—outside the core, on government-owned land less bound by historic codes and neighborhood NIMBYs—is essential.

Partnering with the Government

But “developing in London is not for the faint-hearted,” even in partnership with the government, according to James Alexander of KUD International, the company codeveloping Silvertown Quays. Borrowing a page from its successful playbook in the United States, in which it has partnered with local governments to build aquariums and stadiums, KUD is working with the Docklands Redevelopment Agency to transform the now largely empty 60-acre Quays site. At the center will be the Terry Farrell-designed Biota!, Europe’s largest aquarium, along with 5,000 units of housing, 420,000 square meters of commercial space, and 73,000 square meters of retail and leisure facilities.

Mixed-use development is new to KUD, better known as a horizontal developer that leverages land values with large-scale infrastructure. But KUD’s techniques are new to London: sharing equity with the redevelopment agency and offering a guaranteed delivery price for infrastructure and the aquarium. Even in partnership with the agency, according to Alexander, getting to a final deal has taken four years—tracing deeds, completing archeological surveys, dealing with watchdog groups, and hopping other regulatory hurdles, not to mention negotiating against Livingston’s demand for 50-percent social housing (talked down to 30 percent).

KUD’s Alexander was candid about the firm’s worries. It will be betting $250 million up front on reclaiming the land and building the aquarium with no profit projected for seven years. The affordable housing goals remain aggressive, particularly with no guarantee that government grants, estimated at $20,000 per unit in the development agreement, will come through. Project delivery also will converge with the Olympics, which is guaranteed to trigger construction inflation and capacity issues. And, with many developers following the current boom and the government’s housing goals, Alexander adds, “an equal challenge will be to maintain value over time as the market inevitably drops off.”

Volatile Housing Markets

Indeed, with more than 90 percent of new housing permits in London’s pipeline designated for flats, a recent study, “New London,” by Knight Frank estate agency predicted a softening market for flats, signs of which are already appearing. More critical, the study suggested, is an already failing market for flats in other, less robust English housing markets that have followed the London model.

Citing a range of studies showing the dramatic tilt nationwide to brownfield/flat development over greenfield/single-family houses, historian Peter Hall also expressed concern in a recent paper presented at a Lincoln Institute conference that government and private developers are failing to meet a critical market for workforce housing, particularly single-family houses for young families. Several Loeb Fellows worried about the continued focus on large-scale, Bilbao-style attractors like Biota!. “The Tate’s BID model seemed potentially ground-breaking,” Lisa Richmond reflected, “while the aquarium (at Silvertown Quays) felt like a disaster in the making.”

Ambitious Plans for Olympic Village

On the 23rd floor of Barclay’s building overlooking the sleek Canary Wharf development and the future Olympic Village beyond, Tim Daniels of the London Olympic Delivery Authority offered the Loeb Fellows an overview of what will be London’s most ambitious attempt at regeneration. The Olympic Village dates to the Thatcher government’s launch of the Thames Gateway corridor, but it is finally sprouting under Livingston’s mix of go-go capitalism with a larger social agenda.

Livingston cannily separated the usual single Olympic authority into two separate agencies—one for building facilities, the other for marketing. Consequently, London is keeping one eye on the long game of what Daniels calls the “regeneration dividend.” In the short term, a new velodrome, stadium, tennis center, and the much-anticipated aquatics center by architect Zaha Hadid, along with a major new Euroline transit hub ushering in visitors from all over Europe, will anchor what will be the first village to fully integrate athletes’ housing with sports facilities. The goal, Daniels says, is to have more than 50 percent of the participants within walking distance. But long after the Olympic Games close, those facilities will anchor a mixed-use neighborhood in which the bedrooms originally built for 23,000 athletes and support staff will become 4,300 units of family housing.

Numerous speed bumps lie ahead, however, ranging from the tough deals still being negotiated for land assembly with owners looking to cash in, to finding new homes for “travelers”—gypsies who under British law have the right to squat on unused land. More than 6 kilometers of rivers and canals need to be dredged and remodeled, and 40 bridges either refurbished or built anew. Since the village site is cut off from any existing neighborhood by a major freeway and rail line, at least two major 50-meter “land bridges” are being proposed to make the awkward link to nearby Stratford.

But challenges aside, “it’s a great way to look at the Olympics,” noted Jair Lynch, a developer and former Olympic medalist who now sits on the U.S. Olympic Committee. “The whole thing can be taken over by the marketing people, but by splitting the authority, they can keep a strong focus beyond the event.” He and other Loeb Fellows concluded that the key for the village, along with all of London’s increasingly larger, bolder efforts at regeneration, will be keeping—and, in many cases, creating—a sense of local connection. As Lynch put it, “How do you create a real sense of neighborhood at those scales?”

Closing Observations

At the end of our study tour, most Loeb Fellows felt that Donald Hyslop of the Tate Modern offered the clearest, most hopeful, and most far-reaching aspirations for London’s bold, new brand of large-scale urban neighborhood building. With architects Herzog & de Meuron adding on to their celebrated first phase with an eye-catching, high-rise annex, the Tate will move out the electrical switching station and reclaim the huge, decommissioned fuel tanks beneath the building for a new 400-seat theater, more restaurants and shops, and more spaces for flexible programming.

Hyslop says the goal will be to develop a “life-long learning center” spawning a “16-hour-a-day” corridor along the 15-minute walk between the Tate and the rapidly regenerating Elephant & Castle neighborhood. Rather than being merely a catalyst for development, the Tate hopes to be an active agent in creating a neighborhood—a transformer, if you will, rechanneling financial and social wealth throughout the community.

Randy Gragg is the architecture and urban design critic for The Oregonian in Portland.

Loeb Fellows, 2005–2006

Teresa Brice-Hearnes, Program Director, LISC Phoenix (Local Initiatives Support Corporation), Phoenix, Arizona

Barbara Deutsch, Urban Greening and Green Roof Consultant, Washington, DC

Randy Gragg, Architecture and Urban Design Critic, The Oregonian, Portland, Oregon

Jair Lynch, CEO, Jair Lynch Companies, Washington, DC

Etty Padmodipoetro, Urban Design and Transportation Planning Consultant, Boston, Massachusetts

John Peterson, Architect, Peterson Architects, San Francisco, California

Lisa Richmond, Community Cultural Planning Consultant, Seattle, Washington

Luis Siqueiros, International Planning Consultant, Mexico City, Mexico

Kennedy Smith, Principal, The Community Land Use and Economics Group, LLC, Arlington, Virginia

Jody Tableporter, Chief Executive, Peterborough Urban Regeneration Company, Peterborough, United Kingdom

New evidence from Brazil indicates that the regulation of land use and building standards can reinforce other factors that contribute to informal and irregular urban land occupation. The magnitude and persistence of informality in Latin American cities cannot be fully explained by poverty rates (which are declining), insufficient public investment in social housing or urban infrastructure (which is expanding), or even government tolerance of certain opportunistic practices on the part of informal developers and occupants (The Economist 2007). While these factors are undoubtedly important, inappropriate land use and building regulation also seems to play a role in the resilience of the problem. It can be argued as a corollary that an alternative regulatory framework may help to alleviate informality in urban land markets.

Data from global satellite imagery and new technologies for processing digital maps are facilitating the study of urban expansion on a global scale. The Lincoln Institute of Land Policy’s most recent policy focus report, Making Room for a Planet of Cities, by Shlomo Angel and his colleagues, demonstrates this new capability. It analyzes the spatial structure of cities using four complementary data sets: Landsat satellite images for 3,646 global cities with a population over 100,000 in 2000; a detailed stratified sample of 120 of these cities with data from 1990 and 2000; geo-coded census tract data for 20 U.S. cities from 1910 to 2000; and data drawn from digitized historic maps for 30 representative world cities from 1800 to 2000.

Metrics of urban spatial structure based on these data sets measure a city’s built-up area (containing buildings and impervious surfaces) and the city footprint (the built-up area plus open spaces surrounded by or within 100 meters of built-up area). Available population data allow the calculation of population densities for these areas.

The population and area measures produce comparable urban built-up area average densities in 2000 that range in the sample of 120 global cities from 555 persons per hectare in Dhaka, Bangladesh to only 15.7 in Tacoma, Washington. Urban built-up area average densities vary systematically across country groups, ranging from 25 persons per hectare in land-rich developed countries (United States, Canada, and Australia); to 50 in other developed countries (Europe and Japan); and 130 in developing countries. Analysis of built-up area densities across cities supports the predictions of urban theory: for example, higher incomes and land availability are associated with lower densities; and larger city populations are associated with higher densities.

Urban average densities have declined in the three data sets with time series data: they fell at 2.0 percent per year for built-up area density in the 120 global cities from 1990 to 2000; at 1.9 percent per year for census tract density in the 20 U.S. cities from 1910 to 2000; and at 1.5 percent per year in the 30 representative cities from 1800 to 2000. In this 30-city sample, densities typically peaked around 1900 and declined since then. A U.S. exception is Los Angeles, where average census tract densities have increased since 1940 and now exceed those of New York City. The average census tract density in several other U.S. cities has leveled off since 1990, albeit at low levels around 20 persons per hectare.

In terms of fragmentation, the average city footprint density is half of the built-up area average density, implying that a typical city has as much land in its urbanized open spaces as in its built-up areas. In 2000, urbanized open space as a share of built-up area ranged from a low around 0.4 (São Paulo, Brazil) to a high around 1.8 (Zhengzhou, China). The proportion of urbanized open space across cities decreased somewhat from 1990 to 2000. Although fragmentation values did not differ between developed and developing countries, fragmentation in Chinese cities is particularly high, with much land remaining under cultivation within their city footprints.

Demographic forecasts indicate that the world’s urban population will double from 3 billion in 2000 to 6 billion in 2050, with nearly all such growth occurring in developing countries. This implies a doubling of urban built-up areas in the unlikely event that urban population densities will remain constant. If densities decline by 1 percent annually (half the historic rate), city built-up area will triple, and a 2 percent annual decline will increase built-up area five-fold.

Containment strategies that may be appropriate in the United States and other low-density developed countries are likely to fail in developing countries where city populations are expected to grow several-fold over the next few decades. These cities need to prepare for their future expansion by realistically projecting their built-up areas and allocating land for both open spaces and rights-of-way for the arterial road networks and other infrastructure that will be needed to support urban growth.

Infrastructure, defined to include transport, telecommunication, electric power, water, and sanitation, is high on the agenda of both industrial and developing countries. In the United States, concern has been mounting about insufficient maintenance and the resulting decline in the quality of infrastructure facilities and services, especially in transport. Additional investments in infrastructure have also figured heavily in proposals to stimulate demand, employment, and economic growth. In developing countries, infrastructure’s challenges relate more to increasing capacity to provide services to both existing urban residents and the two billion new urban residents projected to arrive by 2050. The Lincoln Institute’s seventh annual land policy conference, held in early June 2012, addressed many aspects of infrastructure including investment, maintenance, and its externalities.

Economic aspects.

Empirical work carried out over the past 25 years on the macroeconomic returns to infrastructure investment have produced a wide range of outcomes–from negative returns to those above 30 percent annually. A careful survey of more recent studies indicates that infrastructure investment in transport, power, and telecom is likely to have positive macroeconomic effects and raise productivity.

At the same time, many countries allocate only modest sums to infrastructure maintenance, even though a broad consensus of opinion and empirical evidence indicate that the returns to maintenance–particularly transport–are very high. Inadequate maintenance may result from donor preferences to fund new capacity in developing countries, but maintenance shortfalls are also common in developed countries, suggesting that other institutional factors are likely to be important.

Networked infrastructure normally is subject to scale economies, and some networks are natural monopolies. Such infrastructure must be subject to economic regulation to prevent firms from engaging in monopoly pricing. While the need for regulation is most apparent when infrastructure is provided by private firms, regulatory oversight is often necessary when provision is by a public enterprise.

Spatial aspects.

Infrastructure has a strong influence on spatial development patterns and can be used to direct growth and–along with zoning and other incentives–to encourage more dense and compact development patterns. While only a few studies are available, however, empirical work indicates that the cost of redeveloping brownfield sites exceeds the cost of greenfield development including the costs of new infrastructure service.

The de-industrialization of cities has been going on for a long time, but recently some cities, such as San Jose, California, have stopped supporting the conversion of industrial or office space to residential or commercial use. They seek to maintain appropriate space for employment when economic growth returns so that they can compete for new firms and encourage local job creation.

Externalities.

Metropolitan areas produce about three-quarters of global anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions annually, with a large share coming from transport and electric power. The replacement of aging systems and installation of new capacity provide a major opportunity to switch to more energy- and emission-efficient systems in urban areas. System management also can be improved with congestion tolls, parking fees, and transit expansion; by ensuring that tariffs cover the costs of water and electric power; and by promoting green buildings.

Relocating households in the path of infrastructure expansion involves a large number of people displaced by new roads or the widening of existing roads, the location of new facilities such as power plants, and reservoirs that flood broad areas behind dams. Estimates indicate that between 10 and 23 million persons are resettled involuntarily in developing countries each year, and that the majority of relocations are related to infrastructure. Some of these involuntary resettlements meet the safeguard standards promulgated by the World Bank or other standards such as the Equator Principles, but most resettlement is subject to only national or provincial policies.

These topics and many others–including the impacts on infrastructure of mega-events such as the Olympics, the taxation of utilities, the locational effects of congestion tolls, the variation in quality of infrastructure services, and the remarkable impacts of mobile telephony in Africa–will be covered in the conference proceedings that will be available as a printed volume in May 2013 and later as an eBook.

Stephanie Pollack, subdirectora del Centro Dukakis de Política Urbana y Regional de la Universidad Northeastern, detectó una curiosa anomalía cuando analizó los resultados de una encuesta sobre las necesidades de transporte público de los residentes de bajos ingresos en Massachusetts. La encuesta pedía que se indicara el principal modo de transporte, y daba las opciones tradicionales, como tomar el tren o el autobús. Pero no había ninguna casilla para marcar lo que resultó ser el modo más común de transporte: docenas de encuestados respondieron “el automóvil de otra persona”.

Para Pollack, este descubrimiento subrayó la dificultad de diseñar sistemas de transporte acordes con las necesidades de la población, así como la necesidad de contar con mejores maneras para medir y hacer participar a la gente para poder suplir las verdaderas necesidades de transporte público de los usuarios. Como parte de un proyecto llamado The Toll of Transportation (La carga del transporte), el Centro Dukakis trató de determinar cómo llegan los residentes adonde tienen que ir en ciudades como Lynn, Worcester, Springfield y East Boston. Pero la categoría “automóvil de otra persona” no formaba parte de ninguna lista de datos estándar de transporte. “Medimos la equidad en educación y en sanidad, pero no en transporte”, dijo Pollack a los escritores y editores reunidos para el Foro periodístico sobre el suelo y el entorno edificado, realizado del 28 al 29 de marzo de 2014 en Cambridge, Massachusetts. “No tenemos el concepto de cómo debería ser un sistema de transporte ‘justo’”.

El tema del foro fue la infraestructura: para quién es, cómo planificarla y pagarla, y por qué necesitamos inversiones más inteligentes en los entornos urbanos del siglo XXI. Esta fue la séptima edición de esta reunión para periodistas de dos días de duración, patrocinada por el Instituto Lincoln, la Fundación Nieman de Periodismo de la Universidad Harvard, y la Escuela de Posgrado de Diseño (Graduate School of Design o GSD) de la Universidad Harvard.

Pollock compartió también con los participantes su investigación sobre el desarrollo orientado al transporte público (transit-oriented development o TOD), una política que se fomenta cada vez más en las ciudades por medio de reformas de zonificación e incentivos económicos. Los datos revelaron algunos resultados problemáticos sobre el uso y la equidad del transporte público. Los residentes de ingresos más altos que se mudan a zonas TOD (que se convierten rápidamente en lugares caros para vivir) en general no usan transporte público, mientras que los residentes que sí lo usan tienen que residir más lejos de las estaciones, en barrios económicamente más asequibles. Este desplazamiento aumenta el costo y la complejidad de sus viajes para ir al trabajo y volver. Además, en un tercio de las zonas TOD estudiadas, el uso del transporte público se redujo después de haberse introducido el desarrollo.

En otra presentación, Judith Grant Long, profesora asociada de Planificación Urbana en GSD, analizó megaeventos, como la Copa del Mundo y las Olimpiadas, que inducen a las ciudades a invertir miles de millones de dólares en infraestructura. Hay poca evidencia de un retorno positivo a la inversión en términos de puestos de trabajo permanente, ingresos o incluso la imagen de la ciudad, indicó Long. El Comité Olímpico Internacional podría ayudar a las ciudades a planificar mejor y organizar juegos “del tamaño correcto”, sugirió. Barcelona, Roma, Tokio, Múnich, Montreal y Londres han podido transformar con cierto éxito las villas olímpicas en áreas de uso a largo plazo que benefician a un sector más amplio de la población una vez que se acaban los juegos.

Las sociedades público-privadas, la construcción y operación privada de rutas y los sistemas de peaje han sido innovaciones recientes para el financiamiento de infraestructura, dijo José A. Gómez-Ibáñez, profesor de GSD y de la Escuela Kennedy de Harvard. Pero se puede decir que desde que se completó el sistema de rutas interestatales en los EE.UU., el papel del gobierno federal no ha sido claro. El desafío estriba en demostrarle al público quién se beneficiará de los proyectos, para poder justificar su financiamiento.

Los gobiernos deberán ser más inteligentes y enfocar bien el objetivo al construir futuros sistemas de transporte y otros tipos de infraestructura, sobre todo cuando las áreas metropolitanas tratan de aumentar su resiliencia en vista de los impactos inevitables del cambio climático, declararon varios ponentes.

Rich Cavallaro, presidente de Skanska USA Civil Inc., citó la calificación de D+ (en una escala de A a F) en el último “boletín de calificaciones” de infraestructura emitido por la Sociedad Americana de Ingenieros Civiles. Dicho grupo estima que el país tendrá que gastar 1,6 billones de dólares más de lo que indican los planes actualmente para poder contar con una infraestructura de nivel aceptable en todos los sectores. En contraste con proyectos inmensamente caros, como esclusas similares a las del río Támesis en el Reino Unido, Cavallaro se inclina por tomar medidas más asequibles, como equipar a los túneles del metro con tapones inflables gigantes, elevar las rejas de ventilación y subestaciones eléctricas, y diseñar los garajes de estacionamiento e instalaciones similares para que se puedan inundarse y limpiarse después, cuando las aguas retrocedan.

Varios países realizan una mejor tarea de coordinación y recuperación en casos de desastres, según las encuestas realizadas por Robert B. Olshansky, profesor de Planificación Urbana y Regional de la Universidad de Illinois en Urbana-Champaign, y Laurie A. Johnson, presidenta de Laurie Johnson Consulting|Research. La construcción de resiliencia a largo plazo como parte de este proceso fue objeto de un reciente informe del Instituto Lincoln, titulado Lecciones de Sandy.

Susannah C. Drake, presidenta de dlandstudio pllc, describió enfoques creativos, como el rediseño de la protección de la costa en el sur de Manhattan y el sellado de trazados subterráneos que pasan debajo de barrios urbanos. La nación no puede simplemente reconstruir lo que existía antes de un desastre, sobre todo ahora que los avances en tecnología han abaratado el costo de infraestruc-tura, en comparación con las inversiones masivas que se realizaron en el New Deal. Marcus M. Quigley, presidente de Geosyntec Consultants, exploró el uso de tecnología inteligente y controles dinámicos para transformar la construcción de grandes obras de infraestructura. “Podemos cambiar la manera de construir la infraestructura para que actúe a nuestro favor”, dijo. “Cada vez que repavimentamos una calle o acera, estamos perdiendo una oportunidad”.

También se habló sobre el lado negativo de la infraestructura inteligente. Ryan Ellis, fellow posdoctoral de investigación en el Centro Belfer de Ciencias y Asuntos Internacionales de la Escuela Kennedy de Harvard, abordó el complejo problema de seguridad e infraestructura, revelando el submundo de ciberataques, vulnerabilidades y “días cero”. Los hackers espían el correo electrónico continuamente y podrían sabotear nuestra red eléctrica, el control del tráfico aéreo y los sistemas financieros. La clave, dijo Ellis, está en “diseñar ahora teniendo en cuenta la seguridad”, porque “es difícil incorporar la seguridad después”. Y añadió que los planificadores involucrados en construir ciudades inteligentes deben tener muy presente el tema de la seguridad.

El impacto interconectado de la urbanización global requiere un marco más amplio para la infraestructura urbana que exceda las áreas metropolitanas individuales, dijo Neil Brenner, profesor de Teoría Urbana en GSD. “Tenemos que actualizar nuestro mapa cognitivo de la urbanización”, dijo. Pierre Bélanger, profesor asociado de Arquitectura del Paisaje de GSD, predijo que trabajar con la naturaleza -incluso dejando que ciertas áreas abandonadas vuelvan a su estado silvestre- podría eclipsar el enfoque tradicional de controlar el agua y canalizar los arroyos.

El liderazgo político es la clave para reinventar y diseñar nueva infraestructura en el entorno urbano, dijo la arquitecta paisajista Margie Ruddick. Afortunadamente, los alcaldes son algunos de los líderes más innovadores para abordar estos tipos de desafíos, dijo David Gergen, analista senior de CNN y director del Centro de Liderazgo Público en la Escuela Kennedy de Harvard. Es raro que un alcalde llegue a ser presidente, pero resuelven problemas prácticos importantes, dijo Gergen, que fue el orador invitado en la velada nocturna tradicional del foro en la Casa Walter Lippmann de la Fundación Nieman. “Es en las ciudades donde se están llevando a cabo los experimentos”, dijo.

Janette Sadik-Khan, ex comisionada de la Ciudad de Nueva York y en la actualidad miembro de Bloomberg Associates, también se refirió a las dificultades políticas de transformar el paisaje urbano. Hizo notar que las ciclovías, el programa de bicicletas compartidas y los espacios peatonales en Times Square provocaron la oposición por parte de automovilistas, dueños de negocios y otros que consideraban estas iniciativas poco prácticas y “vagamente francesas”. Sin embargo, muchos comerciantes han reportado desde entonces un gran aumento de su actividad debido a un mayor trán-sito de peatones, y que las sillas portátiles de las áreas peatonales están continuamente ocupadas.

“Cuando se ofrecen más opciones, la gente vota con sus pies, con sus asientos y con los candados de sus bicicletas”, expresó. “Los neoyorquinos han modificado las expectativas respecto a sus calles”.

El foro incluye tradicionalmente dos sesiones dedicadas a la “práctica del arte”. Brian McGrory, editor de The Boston Globe, describió los esfuerzos para integrar un periodismo “ardientemente relevante” en un modelo de negocio digital que sea sostenible. The Globe tiene más lectores que nunca, expresó. Inga Saffron, crítico de arquitectura de The Philadelphia Inquirer, ganadora del Premio Pulitzer poco después del foro, junto con el crítico de arquitectura Blair Kamin del Chicago Tribune, Jerold Kayden de GSD y Gregory K. Ingram y Armando Carbonell, ambos del Instituto Lincoln, mantuvieron un coloquio sobre la interacción entre periodistas y fuentes expertas.

Varios participantes de los 40 periodistas y fellows de Nieman publicaron notas sobre el foro, incluyendo Roger K. Lewis del Washington Post, Tim Bryant del St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Christopher Swope de Citiscope y Josh Stephens de Planetizen.

Anthony Flint es fellow y director de relaciones públicas en el Lincoln Institute of Land Policy, y autor de Wrestling with Moses: How Jane Jacobs Took on New York’s Master Builder and Transformed the American City (Luchando con Moisés: Cómo Jane Jacobs se enfrentó al Jefe de Construcciones de Nueva York y transformó la ciudad norteamericana) (Random House, 2011). Fue fellow Loeb en 2000–2001.

Holyoke, una ciudad de alrededor de 40.000 habitantes en el oeste de Massachusetts, fue una de las primeras comunidades industriales planificadas del país. A partir de finales de la década de 1840, inversores de Boston transformaron lo que había sido hasta entonces un área agrícola en un pueblo industrial impulsado por molinos de agua, aprovechando la ventaja de su ubicación geográfica cerca del Río Connecticut. Los inversores querían fabricar textiles de algodón. Pero con el tiempo la ciudad construyó un elaborado sistema de canales para permitir la instalación de más y más molinos, y comenzó a ser conocida también por la producción de seda, lana y papel. En aquel período, Holyoke se convirtió en la “Ciudad del Papel”, por los molinos de agua dedicados a su fabricación.

Con el desarrollo de los molinos, la ciudad prosperó. Con la abundancia de trabajo, la ciudad atrajo olas sucesivas de inmigrantes irlandeses, franco-canadienses, alemanes, polacos, judíos, italianos y puertorriqueños para trabajar en los molinos, quienes crearon pequeñas empresas, formaron familias y construyeron una ciudad que llegó a tener 63.000 habitantes en 1917 (McLaughlin Green 1939).

Después, todo comenzó a desmoronarse… lentamente. Desde su auge en la década de 1920, la industria local se fue reduciendo gradualmente cuando las empresas y los puestos de trabajo se mudaron al extranjero o migraron al Sur y al Oeste para estar más cerca de la materia prima y de mano de obra más barata. En el censo del 2000, la población de Holyoke se había reducido a menos de 40.000 habitantes. Como otras pequeñas ciudades industriales del país, se convirtió en un símbolo en vías de extinción del pasado industrial de los EE.UU., y la otrora próspera Ciudad del Papel luchaba por conservar su nivel económico.

Afortunadamente, a Holyoke le tocó la lotería en 2009, cuando fue seleccionada para albergar lo que hoy se conoce como el Centro Informático Verde de Alta Prestación de Massachusetts (Massachusetts Green High Performance Computing Center, MGHPCC) un complejo de supercomputadoras respetuoso con el medio ambiente para promover —según la denominación que le dieron los funcionarios estatales— la “economía innovadora” de Massachusetts. La energía hidráulica fue, una vez más, la clave del éxito para la ciudad. La ubicación de Holyoke sobre el río Connecticut ofrecía acceso a energía hidroeléctrica de bajo costo, y el río y los múltiples canales de la ciudad ofrecían agua para refrigeración, una ventaja importante para las supercomputadoras. “Holyoke ha tenido problemas para sobrevivir después de haber perdido su base industrial”, dice Kathleen Anderson, presidente de la Cámara de Comercio del Gran Holyoke. “Teníamos una infraestructura envejecida que necesitaba reutilizarse para otros fines, perdimos puestos de empleo y las condiciones demográficas cambiaron. Holyoke ha tenido que pensar creativamente y reconocer los activos que teníamos. Tanto el talento humano como la decisión de construir la represa y su energía hidroéctrica han sido esenciales para nuestro renacimiento”.

Cuando inauguramos el centro informático en 2012, representó un primer paso importante para mejorar el destino de Holyoke, pero ello no fue suficiente para restaurar su vitalidad. La ciudad emprendió un esfuerzo de planificación que dio como resultado un plan de renovación de 20 años para revitalizar y volver a desarrollar el área donde se encuentra el MGHPCC, en el centro de la ciudad. Un paso importante en la ejecución del plan fue la creación del Distrito de Innovación de Holyoke, una inversión del estado por medio de la Asociación Tecnológica de Massachusetts (Massachusetts Technology Collaborative) que reunió a funcionarios locales, líderes empresariales y organizaciones comunitarias para estimular el desarrollo económico local y regional. “La instalación del centro informático en Holyoke desencadenó nuestro proceso de planificación alrededor del Distrito de Innovación de Holyoke. Nosotros decimos que el Distrito de Innovación nació del centro informático”, dijo Marcos Marrero, director de planificación y desarrollo económico de Holyoke y copresidente del Distrito de Innovación de Holyoke, en una entrevista en septiembre (Desmarais 2015) aparecida en el periódico Bay State Banner.

Liderazgo, colaboración, resurgimiento

Fue entonces cuando entró en escena el Banco de la Reserva Federal de Boston. Desde 2008, el personal de investigación del banco había estado estudiando las viejas ciudades industriales similares a Holyoke, como parte del esfuerzo para ayudar a revitalizar otra ciudad de Massachusetts: Springfield. Como Holyoke, Springfield había visto días mejores. El banco realizó un estudio de dos años en colaboración con Springfield para analizar los desafíos que se presentaban para la cuarta ciudad más grande del estado, que seguía decayendo aun cuando el gobierno estatal y las organizaciones sin fines de lucro habían invertido millones de dólares en obras de revitalización.

Una parte del estudio trató de aportar lecciones para Springfield a partir de los destinos de otras 25 pequeñas ciudades industriales del noreste, medio oeste y sur septentrional de los EE.UU. Los economistas de la Reserva Federal de Boston descubrieron que algunas de estas ciudades pudieron mantener o recuperar su estabilidad económica, medida según su nivel de ingreso, tasas de pobreza, cantidad de población y vitalidad económica. Los investigadores las denominaron «ciudades renacientes», y buscaron aspectos comunes que pudieran explicar la razón de su éxito. Encontraron que todas estas ciudades habían enfrentado los mismo desafíos: pobreza, cambio del perfil racial y étnico y pérdida de su base industrial. Pero estaban tratando de superar estos desafíos y compartían un elemento clave del éxito: liderazgo sostenido y colaboración entre empresas, gobierno, organizaciones sin fines de lucro y grupos comunitarios. “Una y otra vez, nuestro análisis de la historia de las ciudades renacientes identificó el elemento de liderazgo por parte de instituciones o individuos clave, junto con la colaboración entre los diversos grupos que compartían su interés en el desarrollo económico”, escribieron los investigadores del banco en un informe de 2009 (Kodrzycki y Muñoz 2009).

Los investigadores también notaron que el origen del liderazgo local variaba de un lugar a otro. En New Haven, Connecticut, las universidades locales trabajaron con funcionarios gubernamentales y la industria privada con el objeto de brindar capacitación laboral y financiamiento para atraer compañías. En Providence, una fundación sin fines de lucro trabajó con ejecutivos empresariales para desarrollar ideas y llegar a un consenso sobre proyectos de desarrollo inmobiliario en el centro. En Evansville, Indiana, un alcalde inició el proceso de recuperación en la década de 1960, proceso que tuvo continuidad gracias a una agresiva campaña de desarrollo económico liderada por la Cámara de Comercio local. A pesar de sus diferencias, todos estos esfuerzos de revitalización económica se prolongaron durante décadas, y precisaron de un liderazgo sólido y continuado.

Todos estos esfuerzos también contaron con la colaboración activa de numerosos grupos e individuos. Según la investigación de la Reserva Federal, “la colaboración fue un elemento necesario porque la transformación económica es compleja y porque los agentes externos, como los gobiernos nacionales y estatales, las fundaciones y las empresas que son una fuente potencial de financiamiento y fuente de trabajo, requieren frecuentemente una evidencia de la colaboración conjunta para contribuir al desarrollo de una ciudad”.

A la altura del desafío

Estas conclusiones llevaron a la Reserva Federal de Boston a preguntarse qué se podría hacer para ayudar a construir la infraestructura cívica sólida que era fundamental para el resurgimiento. Esto llevó a la formación de Working Cities Challenge (Desafíos para Ciudades en Funcionamiento), una organización creada por el banco con la ayuda de Living Cities, una asociación de 22 fundaciones, instituciones financieras y otros miembros, con sede en Nueva York.

El Desafío consistió en una competencia entre las antiguas ciudades industriales pequeñas de Massachusetts. En la primavera de 2013, 20 comunidades solicitaron participar. De estas 20, seis ciudades fueron seleccionadas para recibir un total de US$1,8 millones en subvenciones para financiar proyectos de liderazgo y colaboración. Entre ellas se encontraba Holyoke, junto con Chelsea, Fitchburg, Lawrence, Salem y Somerville. El objetivo era simple: ayudar a salvar estas ciudades de Massachusetts que luchaban por sobrevivir, respaldando el desarrollo de las herramientas necesarias para ayudarse a sí mismas. Este programa fue un hito importante e inusual para un banco de la Reserva Federal. Los bancos son más conocidos por sus investigaciones económicas que por organizar programas concretos. No obstante, la iniciativa fue un reflejo del compromiso del presidente de la Reserva Federal de Boston, Eric Rosengren, para aplicar las investigaciones económicas del banco al mundo real, y para mejorar las comunidades de Nueva Inglaterra. Y el concepto se puede extender, con la posibilidad de impulsar a ciudades y pueblos en todo el país que han tenido problemas con las realidades económicas del siglo XXI.

Tamar Kotelchuck, directora de Working Cities Challenge, dice que las investigaciones del banco sobre las ciudades renacientes le enseñaron que hasta las ciudades con muchos problemas pueden mejorar. “Con base en lo que aprendimos del estudio de ciudades renacientes, nos comunicamos con Living Cities (Ciudades Vivas) y se nos ocurrió la idea de una competencia para otorgar financiamiento multianual con objeto de incentivar el liderazgo y la colaboración”, dijo.

Señala que el banco decidió comenzar con un programa piloto en Massachusetts, concentrándose en ciudades pequeñas y medianas. El objetivo eran ciudades de entre 35.000 y 250.000 habitantes que compartían determinados aspectos económicos y demográficos, como una gran cantidad de familias pobres y una baja mediana de ingresos. “Estas ciudades ya habían formado una coalición para apoyar sus intereses con la ayuda de MassINC, una ONG de expertos”, dice Kotelchuck. “Se hacían llamar Gateway Cities (Ciudades-Portal), y habían estado colaborando para resolver problemas económicos y políticos comunes desde hacía varios años. Aprendieron que el trabajo conjunto les daba cierta cantidad de poder que cada ciudad por separado no tenía”, dice (Forman et. al. 2007).

Working Cities adoptó una metodología original para ayudar a estas ciudades, según Andrew Reschovsky, fellow del Instituto Lincoln. “Lo original de la iniciativa de Working Cities es que, a diferencia de muchas otras estrategias de desarrollo económico urbano, se enfoca en mejorar el bienestar económico de los residentes de bajos ingresos que viven actualmente en cada ciudad”.

Los bancos de la Reserva Federal no pueden usar fondos propios para otorgar subvenciones, pero una serie de socios dispuestos a ayudar se ofrecieron a apoyar a Working Cities. Kotelchuck dice que, como parte de la iniciativa, la Reserva Federal se encargó del diseño e implementación del modelo, en conjunto con un comité directivo, proporcionando asistencia técnica y ayudando a los equipos a capacitarse mediante la asistencia de expertos, redes de contactos y buenas prácticas. Estas subvenciones son financiadas por varios donantes, como el gobierno estatal; Living Cities; Massachusetts Competitive Partnership (Asociación Competitiva de Massachusetts), asociación de los 16 empleadores más grandes del estado que se concentra en el crecimiento económico; y MassDevelopment, la agencia de desarrollo estatal.

Kotelchuck dice que cuando el banco y sus socios organizaron la primera competencia en 2013, dieron libertad a las ciudades para proponer cómo se usarían los fondos de la subvención. “No dijimos a las ciudades en qué tenían que trabajar”, dice. “El Desafío está diseñado para ayudar a construir colaboración sobre temas importantes a nivel local”. Sin embargo, un requisito importante para que un proyecto obtuviera éxito era que generara una colaboración entre el sector privado, el gobierno y otros grupos locales. “Buscamos proyectos que promovieran un cambio sistémico”, dice. “Nuestra meta fue ayudar a los líderes locales a solucionar problemas en sus propias ciudades”.

Un jurado independiente evaluó las propuestas de las ciudades en base a los criterios establecidos por Working Cities Challenge: colaboración, participación de la comunidad y el uso de pruebas concretas para medir el progreso. Los proyectos tenían que concretarse en una contribución duradera para mejorar las vidas de los residentes de bajos ingresos.

En enero de 2014 se anunciaron los premios de las primeras subvenciones. De las seis ciudades seleccionadas, cuatro recibieron subvenciones multianuales y dos recibieron subvenciones en forma de capital semilla. Todas las ciudades estaban combatiendo una alta tasa de desempleo, bajo desempeño estudiantil y un futuro incierto. No obstante, dice Kotelchuck: “Todas las ciudades ganadoras tenían propuestas distintivas. No había dos propuestas iguales. Todas abordaban necesidades locales específicas, tal como esperábamos”, dijo.

Por ejemplo, Fitchburg, situada en la región central del norte de Massachusetts, recibió una subvención de US$400.000 durante tres años para su Iniciativa eCarenomics, un esfuerzo para desarrollar medidas comunes para la salud y bienestar vecinal, con el objetivo de mejorar una parte de la ciudad. Chelsea obtuvo una subvención de tres años para su Iniciativa Shurtleff-Bellingham, diseñada para reducir la pobreza y las tasas de movilidad en un 30 por ciento en su barrio más problemático. Salem recibió una subvención de capital semilla de US$100.000 destinada a su plan para alinear los indicadores económicos de uno de sus barrios de bajos ingresos con el resto de la ciudad, enfocándose en el desarrollo económico, el desarrollo de pequeñas empresas, el desarrollo de la fuerza de trabajo y el desarrollo de liderazgo. Somerville también recibió una subvención de capital semilla de US$100.000 dirigido a un programa de capacitación laboral para jóvenes de 18 a 24 años de edad que no estaban estudiando en la escuela.

El premio más cuantioso, una subvención de US$700.000 durante tres años, fue otorgado a Lawrence, en el noreste del estado, para la Lawrence Working Families Initiative (Iniciativa de Familias Trabajadoras de Lawrence), cuyo objetivo era crear un Centro de Recursos Familiares para aumentar los ingresos de los padres de estudiantes de escuelas locales en un 15 por ciento en un periodo de 10 años. La iniciativa está liderada por la organización Lawrence Community Works y el sistema escolar local, con respaldo de varios empleadores y organizaciones sin fines de lucro de la zona. “El sistema escolar de Lawrence había entrado en quiebra en 2011”, explicó Kotelchuck, así que era lógico concentrarse en las familias y las escuelas.

La ciudad también tenía características económicas que se ajustaban al modelo de Working Cities. La mediana de ingresos de la unidad familiar era la mitad que la mediana estatal, y su tasa de pobreza era casi el triple de la tasa estatal. “El 70 por ciento de la población de la ciudad es ciento hispana, y la tasa de desempleo era alta”, dice Kotelchuck. Muchos de los problemas de la ciudad se trasladaban a las escuelas. “El objetivo del Centro de Recursos Familiares es ayudar a las familias de todas las formas posibles. Brinda capacitación en temas financieros, apoyo en casos de crisis y otros servicios para fortalecer a las familias”, dice.

Además del centro familiar, una gran parte de la iniciativa está enfocado en lo que Kotelchuck llama “participación auténtica de los padres” en las escuelas. La iniciativa creó círculos de educación comunitaria, donde padres, maestros y estudiantes trabajan en problemas escolares específicos. “El objetivo es que los padres se comprometan y participen en el sistema escolar”, dice. Hasta ahora, el programa ha reclutado a 400 padres, ha contratado a un entrenador familiar y ha conseguido trabajo a más de 30 padres, según Kotelchuck.

Holyoke recibió el premio de una subvención de US$250.000 durante tres años que se está usando para implementar el programa de estimulación de potencial y acceso a recursos de conocimientos (Stimulating Potential, Accessing Resource Knowledge, SPARK). Este “centro de iniciativas comerciales y emprendimientos sociales” en el centro de la ciudad se propone aumentar la cantidad de empresas, sobre todo entre los residentes de la ciudad, incluyendo la población latina, que asciende al 60 por ciento del total. El equipo de proyecto que creó el programa se compone de representantes de la ciudad, la cámara de comercio, la biblioteca pública de Holyoke, un centro integral de empleo llamado CareerPoint y la organización local sin fines de lucro Nuestras Raíces.

El programa SPARK se “propone identificar, reclutar y estimular a los residentes y las organizaciones de Holyoke que tienen la ‘chispa’ o el deseo de convertir sus proyectos innovadores o propuestas de negocios de idea en realidad, poniendo énfasis en una metodología comunitaria integral de emprendimiento, aprendizaje individual y capacitación de liderazgo”, de acuerdo con la ciudad. En definitiva, está diseñado para ayudar a empresarios potenciales a elaborar planes de negocios para poner en práctica sus ideas.

Otro objetivo es incorporar a miembros de la comunidad del centro de Holyoke al Distrito de Innovación que la ciudad ha creado alrededor del centro de supercomputadoras. “La ciudad tiene un gran centro de datos “, dice Kotelchuck. “Pero ese hecho por sí mismo no necesariamente va a ayudar a las personas de bajos ingresos de Holyoke. La cuestión que SPARK trata de resolver es cómo aprovechar los recursos de la población inmigrante de Holyoke y conseguir que la gente se beneficie del desarrollo del Distrito de Innovación y sus alrededores.

Los funcionarios municipales están de acuerdo. “El premio de esta subvención es una buena noticia más para el futuro del Distrito de Innovación de la ciudad”, dijo el alcalde Alex Morse cuando se anunció. “Hemos hecho un gran esfuerzo para que Holyoke pueda competir en la economía moderna, para lo cual hace falta estimular proyectos innovadores y emprendimientos comerciales. Con la colaboración de algunas de las mejores organizaciones y líderes comunitarios de Holyoke, este financiamiento nos permitirá ayudar a los residentes locales a poner en práctica sus ideas innovadoras.

Kotelchuck dice que muchas ciudades tratan de atraer a profesionales jóvenes y enfocarse en trabajos de alta tecnología. Ven que otras ciudades han implementado y copiado este modelo con éxito, pero otras no. “Si no ayudamos a los residentes de bajos ingresos”, dice, “simplemente estaremos moviendo la pobreza de un lugar a otro, y eso no ayuda a nadie. La iniciativa Working Cities ayuda a la gente en el lugar donde vive. Ayuda a gente que de otra manera no tendría trabajo”.

“Muchas ciudades persiguen la estrategia de moda más llamativa para revitalizarse, pero al final no es la tendencia más novedosa lo que revitaliza una ciudad”, dice. “Son los efectos de muchas ideas a lo largo del tiempo, y sólo ocurre en aquellas ciudades que cuentan con participación y colaboración comunitaria. Nuestra recomendación es observar lo que uno tiene y construir sistemáticamente a partir de ello”.

Al supervisar el progreso del Desafío, comenta, ha notado diferencias en la manera en que las ciudades piensan sobre su futuro. “Algunas ciudades dicen: Tenemos muchísimos problemas, por favor dennos dinero”, continúa. “Pero otras dicen: Tenemos estos recursos. Tenemos cierta energía. Lo que necesitamos es ayuda para descubrir nuestro potencial”. Dice que las iniciativas de revitalización requerirán una década de esfuerzo o más. El objetivo de la Reserva Federal es proporcionar un adelanto de tres años para este esfuerzo.

También puede generar un interés más amplio en la revitalización de las ciudades. Recientemente, Holyoke SPARK recibió US$56.000 adicionales de Massachusetts Growth Capital Corp, una agencia cuasi pública que da apoyo a pequeñas empresas, para que el programa pueda ofrecer más clases, dar asesoramiento a los emprendedores y respaldar un programa de préstamos para microempresas para aquellos que reúnan las condiciones. También recibió este año financiamiento adicional de subvenciones en bloque para el desarrollo comunitario de la ciudad.

Signos de progreso

La Reserva Federal y sus socios están satisfechos con los resultados del proyecto hasta ahora, dice Kotelchuck. Y el banco anunció recientemente una segunda y tercera tanda de subvenciones para ciudades de Massachusetts y Rhode Island. Con el tiempo, ella cree que esta idea se podría difundir a otros distritos de la Reserva Federal. “Para la Reserva Federal es un modelo nuevo de involucrase en estas comunidades. Otras Reservas Federales están demostrando interés, y nos encantaría que esta idea prendiera en otros distritos”. Rosengren, el presidente del banco, dice que la Reserva Federal de Boston piensa expandir el programa, al menos a otros estados de Nueva Inglaterra.

El programa Working Cities tiene un gran potencial para extenderse más allá de la región. Hay pequeñas ciudades y pueblos en todo el país que han sido golpeados por el cambio de fortuna económica en las décadas recientes. Merecen una oportunidad de convertirse también en ciudades renacientes, y es gratificante ver como una organización como la Reserva Federal de Boston está invirtiendo su inteligencia y su influencia para mejorar el futuro. No hay una sola solución, no hay garantía de éxito, pero Working Cities Challenge demuestra que con tiempo, compromiso, esfuerzo y un poco de dinero se pueden conseguir buenos resultados.

Este es un punto que Reschovsky, del Instituto Lincoln, también subraya: “Aun cuando todas las ciudades involucradas actualmente en Working Cities necesitan más recursos económicos y fiscales, la clave para el éxito de la iniciativa será la combinación de recursos adicionales y el desarrollo y promoción de organizaciones sin fines de lucro, gobiernos, empresas e instituciones sociales.”

Eso parece, efectivamente, lo que está ocurriendo en Holyoke. Últimamente ha generado también algo de reconocimiento a nivel nacional. En el número de febrero de la revista Popular Mechanics, los editores nombraron las 14 mejores ciudades en marcha del país, expresando que querían identificar “la próxima ola de ciudades que están construyendo un ecosistema que convierta a los innovadores en emprendedores”. La lista incluye ciudades pequeñas a lo largo del país. Holyoke apareció en el sexto puesto (Popular Mechanics 2015).

Inevitablemente, la principal ventaja de la ciudad es lo que ya sabemos. “Tenemos energía barata”, escribió el alcalde Morse al describir la innovación aportada por Holyoke para la revista. “En el borde oriental de la ciudad, el río Connecticut tiene una caída de 17 metros en su avance hacia el sur. Cuando se fundó la ciudad en 1850, el río impulsó las ruedas de los molinos de papel; hoy genera energía barata y limpia”. También mencionó las viejas fábricas de ladrillo que se construyeron para la industria papelera, signos del pasado industrial que se han transformado en «atractivos espacios industriales de trabajo”.

“Holyoke ha vuelto a su punto de partida”, dice Anderson, de la Cámara de Comercio. “Nuestros antecesores construyeron un sistema de canales para utilizar la energía del río, y ahora estamos utilizando energía verde para alimentar una economía nueva”.

Billy Hamilton is vicecanciller ejecutivo y director financiero del Sistema Universitario de Texas A&M. Fue contralor adjunto de cuentas públicas del estado de Texas durante 16 años. Desde 2007, escribe una columna semanal para State Tax Notes.

Fotografía: Jeffrey Byrnes

Referencias

Desmarais, Martin. 2015. “The Holyoke Innovation District Finds Creative Solutions to Revitalizing the City.” The Bay State Banner. 10 de septiembre, 2015. baystatebanner.com/news/2015/sep/10/holyoke-innovation-district-finds-creative-solutio/?page=3

Forman, Benjamin, David Warren, Eric McLean-Shinaman, John Schneider, Mark Muro y Rebecca Sohmer. 2007. Reconnecting Massachusetts Gateway Cities: Lessons Learned and an Agenda for Renewal. The Brookings Institution and MassINC. Febrero. www.brookings.edu/research/reports/2007/02/regionsandstates-muro

Kodrzycki, Yolanda y Ana Patricia Muñoz. 2009. “Lessons from Resurgent Cities.” Federal Reserve Bank of Boston. 2009 Annual Report. www.bostonfed.org/about/ar/ar2009/lessons-from-resurgent-cities.pdf

McLaughlin Green, Constance. 1939. Holyoke, Massachusetts: A Case History of the Industrial Revolution in America. New Haven, Connecticut: Yale University Press.

Popular Mechanics. 2015. “The 14 Best Startup Cities in America.” Popular Mechanics. Febrero. www.popular mechanics.com/culture/advertorial/g1859/the-14-best-startup-cities-in-america

The Sun Belt grew at spectacular rates in the late twentieth century, and among western U.S. cities Phoenix and its metropolitan region led the pack. The Census Bureau reports that between 1990 and 2000 Maricopa County was the fastest growing county in the nation at 44.8 percent, increasing from 2,122,101 to 3,072,149 people. The county is the fourth largest in the nation in terms of total population. During the 1990s, the city of Phoenix topped one million people and became the sixth largest U.S. city. Its spatial expanse has eclipsed that of the city of Los Angeles. According to the Phoenix Planning Department’s data, the region is growing by about 63,000 residents per year and requires about 23,000 new housing units to meet the demand. Statewide, the population is growing by more than 2,000 residents per week, and the number of people in the state is expected to double in the next 20 years.

The weather, relatively affordable housing and abundant jobs attract a diverse array of newcomers, but increased population has numerous social and environmental consequences. Debate rages about the impacts of growth locally and nationally: Is it good? Is it deleterious? Can it be sustained? At what cost? Who benefits? Who suffers?

A group of Arizona State University (ASU) faculty has recognized that these phenomena represent an opportunity for both research and public service in this fast-growing urban environmental laboratory. Furthermore, knowledge gleaned from such inquiries could lead to smarter growth and more livable places in the future. This notion provides the intellectual foundation for a project named Greater Phoenix 2100 (GP 2100), which seeks to provide data and analysis to the region’s decision makers to help them make wise choices about the future.

Greater Phoenix 2100 Workshops

The Lincoln Institute helped ASU launch GP 2100 through workshops in April 2001 that brought together ASU faculty and staff, community leaders, national participants from institutions such as the Los Alamos National Laboratory and the National Research Council, and four distinguished speakers who stimulated debate and discussion. The panelists were ecologist and author Dan Botkin, professor emeritus of the University of California-Santa Barbara; Michael Crow, an authority on science policy and executive vice provost at Columbia University; political scientist Helen Ingram, formerly director of the Arizona Water Resources Research Center and now professor of human ecology at the University of California-Irvine; and Bob Yaro, executive director of the Regional Plan Association.

They observed that for the Phoenix metropolitan region to continue to prosper, three overlapping spheres of influence must be considered: the creation of knowledge capital, the enhancement of social capital, and the preservation of natural capital.

The GP 2100 workshop panelists and other participants suggested that ASU should become the convener for discussions on growth, as well as the data bank for computer-stored geographical information about these intersecting, mutually dependent spheres. As a result, ASU should create various scenarios for the future in a “Sim Phoenix” format and a “Decision Theater” that would be a physical and a virtual place where academic and community leaders could probe the consequences of possible actions.

Databases and Audiences

Still in its early stages, ASU’s GP 2100 seeks to coordinate federal, state and academic information programs relating to the environment of the region. The project will be linked with similar studies in other metropolitan areas and global city regions (Simmonds and Hack 2000). GP 2100 will answer questions that people care about by providing objective, scientifically based information using state-of-the-art forecasting and decision tools and theories. Coupled with the Central Arizona/Phoenix Long-Term Ecological Research Project (CAP LTER) supported by the National Science Foundation, GP 2100 has the potential to launch a network of similar undertakings nationally and internationally.

GP 2100 will develop and present a wide variety of scientific and technical data on the past, present and possible futures of the Phoenix metropolitan region. The project builds on the premise that knowledge can be used to create better lives for future generations. GP 2100 will provide learning and research experiences to six major groups of people.

• Regional decision makers and community leaders. Many activities, including community visioning exercises and open space ballot initiatives, point to an acute need for regional leadership. Regional decision makers have identified the need for sound, long-term environmental information.
• The general public. GP 2100 will generate considerable interest within the metropolitan Phoenix community. According to several opinion polls, the public is deeply concerned about growth, environmental quality, and the livability of their neighborhoods.
• Middle- and high-school students and teachers. The project will offer engaging learning opportunities for students and teachers about scientific and decision-making processes. The multiscale aspect of the project will enable teachers to illustrate how specific neighborhoods are connected to regional systems.
• ASU faculty. GP 2100 will be an umbrella and a catalyst for researchers studying the urban ecologies of the region. It will provide the opportunity to explore the integration of scientific information, the examination of new technologies for representation and visualization, and a platform for advancing modeling and decision theory.
• ASU students. Both undergraduate and graduate students will be engaged in GP 2100’s unique multidisciplinary studies that will contribute to an improved quality of life in the region.
• Future generations. The century-long approach means that there will be several generations of audiences.

Goals and Benefits

The goal of GP 2100 is to make the best possible scientific and technical information available in ways that will enable wise, knowledge-based decision-making that can shape the region during the next 100 years. This time frame presents a purposefully longer-term view of the metropolitan region than has previously been developed. While short-term visioning is limited by immediate considerations, a century-long perspective requires the incorporation of mutigenerational concerns and changes in technology. A 100-year time frame also allows for evaluation of impacts of such geologically common events as droughts, major floods and gradual climate changes. In short, GP 2100 will be a strong scientific resource for consideration of the region’s long-term prospects and for creating the kind of future its residents want.

Two types of benefits will flow from the project. The first relates to the future quality of life in the region. An underlying assumption of GP 2100 is that better information will lead to wiser decision-making that will, in turn, result in healthier, more livable communities. Metropolitan Phoenix is expected to double from 3 to 6 million people in the next 20 or 30 years. Meanwhile, the global population will increase from 6 to 9 billion people and will become more urban. Such growth poses many challenges relating to land use, transportation, open space, biodiviersity, urban design, recreation, employment, equity, air quality, water quality and quantity, and the overall quality of life of city regions. The GP 2100 effort will be beneficial to those who are addressing these concerns in Phoenix by providing a prototype of how science-based tools and a regional perspective can better inform long-term decision-making. By viewing the Phoenix region as an urban environmental laboratory, the lessons learned will have implications for the broader scientific and policy communities.

GP 2100 will also be an asset for ASU researchers and students, who will have the opportunity to collaborate in multidisciplinary teams and will have access to state-of-the-art GIS and visualization technologies. New and emerging theories in urban and landscape ecology, decision science, land use and environmental modeling, and biocomplexity will be explored.

Special Features

Several linked products are envisioned to flow from GP 2100. Existing data can be coalesced into a dynamic warehouse of continuously updated regional information. Such a data repository can be presented to the public through an Urban eAtlas, which will be made available in electronic and more conventional forms to provide documentation of existing conditions and enable the construction of future scenarios. The digital version will be available on-line so it may be continuously accessed and updated.

The data archives and Urban eAtlas will contribute to a third major product: Sim Phoenix, an interactive computer game that can help researchers, citizens and decision makers visualize the consequences of “what if” scenarios. Sim Phoenix is a step toward the creation of an even more ambitious visualization project: a Decision Theater where local leaders, citizens, students and researchers can explore future options for the region. The Decision Theater will be a physical space in which scientific data, group dynamics and interactive computer technology are used to develop simulations of the region’s futures and considerations of their consequences. The simulations and their representations will evolve with new computational and representational technologies as well as with new scientific information.

GP 2100 will complement and augment existing long-term monitoring activities being conducted at ASU, such as the CAP LTER project, one of only two such urban LTER sites in the nation. Launching a satellite in cooperation with NASA is one monitoring possibility. This “Phoenix-Sat” would pass over the region twice daily, enabling diurnal measurements of such dynamic parameters as traffic, air quality, soil moisture and construction. It is possible that the Phoenix-Sat could be part of a larger international remote-sensing program for urban resource monitoring. Tools such as the data archives, Urban eAtlas, Sim Phoenix, the Decision Theater and Phoenix-Sat will enable scholars and decision makers alike to probe the major issues that metropolitan areas like Phoenix will face in the coming century. As a result, problems may be foreseen and avoided and opportunities pursued with vigor.

Faculty in the life, physical and social sciences at Arizona State University are currently compiling a comprehensive suite of information about the region. Planners, policy analysts and educators also could identify a series of key response variables and parameters for a Decision Theater. Computer scientists could program this complex information so that it can be displayed in both two- and three-dimensional formats, as well as animated views illustrating changes through time. The data could be automatically updated from dynamic government and university databases, from hundreds of sensors throughout the metropolitan region, and from orbiting satellites.

In this first-of-its-kind Decision Theater, high quality audio and visual presentation systems will include a 180-degree screen, which provides an immersive, synthetic environment along with comfortable ergonomics. This arrangement enables decision makers and researchers to come together to explore, debate and analyze options for the future. The Decision Theater is capable of high-resolution stereoscopic viewing using shuttered glasses. A visitor can have her or his viewing position tracked (”head-tracking”), giving the impression of truly walking within the data and data results, pondering the possible landscapes of the future from different angles. It could be associated with an innovative Planetary Imaging Faculty set up jointly by ASU and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, as well as dance and visual representation projects from ASU’s Institute for Studies in the Arts. While real-time interaction with data and models in the Decision Theater is engrossing, a comparably rich on-line experience is also possible through the use of web-based multimedia, text, data download and upload, and modeling tools. The virtual Decision Theater allows a participant to interact with a Sim Phoenix-like game.

How will the Decision Theater be implemented? Four interactive parameters appear especially crucial for modeling the future: water availability, air quality, open space and land use. ASU and its community and government partners already possess an enormous storehouse of data on these parameters, but the challenge is to combine the data in meaningful ways. To this end, the Greater Phoenix 2100 team, in conjunction with the Arizona Department of Water Resources and the U.S. Geological Survey, is now developing a water availability prototype that would use the hydrologic cycle to model regional water availability using factors of precipitation, supply, evaporation and demand to illustrate water futures both graphically and spatially.

A Model for Other Metropolitan Regions

Generations of citizens and scholars will benefit from Greater Phoenix 2100. The project will result in products that will help community and business leaders make wiser decisions. It will assist local, state, and federal officials in planning and designing programs and policies. The project will aid teachers and students in their understanding of natural and social processes. Greater Phoenix 2100 presents uniquely complex targets for technological, scientific and policy analysis advancements. It will produce and facilitate interaction with massive, typically disparate, datasets. Because its major components are easily transferable to other urban regions, the project can provide a model for other places interested in pursuing similar initiatives. In this century, some two-thirds of the world’s population will live in urban areas. Greater Phoenix 2100 has far-reaching implications concerning the application of knowledge capital to regional and urban decision-making in order to maximize social capital while maintaining the natural capital of the metropolitan region.

Frederick Steiner, an internationally recognized expert on environmental planning, is dean of the School of Architecture at the University of Texas at Austin. He was formerly professor and director of the School of Planning and Landscape Architecture at Arizona State University.

Reference

Simmonds, Roger and Gary Hack, editors. 2000. Global City Regions: Their Emerging Forms. London: Spon Press.

An apparent paradox exists in developing countries between a more progressive definition of property rights and current trends toward privatization. On one hand, most proposals and programs of urban management have required the adoption of a socially oriented approach to property rights, which guarantees broader scope for state intervention in controlling the process of land use and development. This is particularly the case with land regularization programs. On the other hand, the widespread adoption of liberalization policies and privatization schemes has reinforced a traditional, individualistic approach to property rights, thus undermining progressive attempts to discipline the use and development of urban property. Are these trends mutually exclusive or can they be reconciled to some extent?

Two related workshops for policymakers, urban managers and academics were held in Johannesburg, South Africa, in late July to address this paradox. The Sixth “Law and Urban Space” Workshop was cosponsored by the International Research Group on Law and Urban Space (IRGLUS) and the University of the Witwatersrand’s Centre for Applied Legal Studies (CALS). The Lincoln Institute supported that workshop and also sponsored a seminar on “Security of Land Tenure in South Africa, Sub-Saharan Countries, Brazil and India.”

The Conceptual Framework for Law and Urban Space

IRGLUS, a Working Group of the Research Committee on Sociology of Law of the International Sociological Association (ISA), seeks to discuss critically the legal dimension of the urbanization process, thus promoting a long-needed dialogue between legal studies and urban environmental studies. Most urban studies have reduced law-including legal provisions, judicial decisions and the overall legal culture-to its instrumental dimension. Law is dismissed by some as if it were just a political instrument of social discrimination and political exclusion. It is taken for granted by others as if it were merely a technical, unproblematic instrument that can provide immediate solutions to escalating urban and environmental problems.

Among urban scholars and professionals alike, there is little understanding of the reasons for the growing illegal practices identified in urban areas, particularly those concerning the use and development of land. Existing data suggests that if both access to land and construction patterns are taken into account between 40 and 70 percent of the population in the major cities in developing countries are somehow disobeying the prevailing legal provisions. And this figure is not confined to low-income land users.

Few studies have asked why this phenomenon of urban illegality has happened, why it matters and what can be done about it. Most observers fail to see the apparent divide between the so-called legal and illegal cities as an intricate web in which there are intimate though contradictory relationships between the official and the unofficial rules, and between the formal and the informal urban land markets.

The combination of the lack of an efficient official housing policy in most developing countries and the actions of largely uncontrolled market forces does not provide adequate housing solutions for the vast majority of the urban population. Far from being restricted to the urban poor, urban illegality needs to be addressed with urgency, given its grave social, political, economic and environmental consequences to the overall urban structure and society.

However, if urban illegality is but a reflection of the powerful combination of land markets and political systems, it is also the result of the often elitist and exclusionary nature of the legal system prevailing in many developing countries. Both the adoption of legal instruments, which do not reflect the existing social realities affecting access to urban land and housing, and the lack of proper legal regulation have had a most perverse role in aggravating, if not determining, the process of socio-spatial segregation.

Definitions of Property Rights

One the most significant problems affecting urban management in this context is that, despite the existence of rhetorical provisions, urban environmental policies frequently lack legal support in the basic provisions of the legal system in force, especially those of a constitutional nature. The central issue to be addressed in this regard is property rights, specifically urban real property. Indeed, in many countries the progressive, socially oriented assumptions of urban policies, implying as they do a broad scope for state action, are frequently at odds with the constitutional definition of property rights.

Several presentations in the IRGLUS/CALS Workshop discussed how the traditional approach to individual property rights prevailing in many developing countries, typical of classical liberalism, has long favored economic exchange values to the total detriment of the principle of the social function of property. Many significant attempts at promoting land use planning and control, including the legal protection of the environment and historical-cultural heritage, have been undermined by a dominant judicial interpretation that significantly reduces the scope for state intervention in the domain of individual property rights. Attempts to promote land regularization have also been frequently opposed by both landowners and conservative courts, even in situations where the land occupation has been consolidated for a long time.

Whereas the excessive, speculative hoarding of privately owned urban land has been tacitly encouraged, the effective implementation of a long-claimed social housing policy has been rendered more difficult due to the need to compensate the owners of vacant land at full market prices. In many countries, the individual property rights system inherited as a result of colonial rule often fails to take into account traditional customary values in the definition of property rights. Since these countries have largely failed to reform the foundations of legal-political liberalism, the discussion of so-called neo-liberalism is a false question in this context.

The Workshop participants placed special emphasis on the legal-political conditions for the recognition of security of tenure. It was noted that agents as diverse as social movements, NGOs and international finance organizations have increasingly made use of different though complementary humanitarian, ethical, sociopolitical and, more recently, economic arguments to justify the need to adopt public policies on this matter. Legal arguments also need to be adopted, including long-standing provisions of international law and the fundamental principles of the rule of law concerning housing and human rights, so that a new, socially oriented and environmentally friendly approach to property rights is recognized.

Much of the discussion focused on whether security of tenure can only and/or necessarily be achieved through the recognition of individual property rights. In fact, the analysis of several experiences suggested that the mere attribution of property rights does not entail, per se, the achievement of the main goal of most regularization programs-that is, the full integration of illegal areas and communities into the broader urban structure and society. The general consensus was that a wide range of legal-political options should be considered, from the transfer of individual ownership to some forms of leasehold and/or rent control to more innovative forms, still unexplored, of collective ownership or occupation with varying degrees of state control.

It was argued that the recognition of urban land tenure rights has to take place within the broader, integrated and multi-sectoral scope of city (and land use) planning, and not as an isolated policy, to prevent distortions in the land market and thus minimize the risk of evicting the traditional occupants. Examples from case studies in Brazil, India and South Africa have shown that, whatever the solution adopted in a particular case, it will only work properly if it is the result of a democratic and transparent decision-making process that effectively incorporates the affected communities.

Above all, it was accepted that the redefinition of property rights, and therefore the recognition of security of tenure, needs to be promoted within a broader context in which urban reform and law reform are reconciled. Law reform is a direct function of urban governance. It requires new strategies of urban management based upon new relations between the state (especially at the local level) and society; renewed intergovernmental relations; and the adoption of new forms of partnership between the public and the private sectors within a clearly defined legal-political framework.

Law reform fundamentally requires the renovation of the overall decision-making process to combine traditional mechanisms of representative democracy and new forms of direct participation. Indeed, many municipalities in several countries have recently introduced new mechanisms to allow the participation of urban dwellers in several stages of the decision-making process affecting urban management. Examples are at the executive level through the creation of committees, commissions, etc., or the legislative level through popular referendums or by recognizing individual and/or collective initiatives in the law-making process, as well as the formulation of popular amendments to proposed bills. A most interesting and promising experience is that of the “participatory budgeting” adopted in several Brazilian cities, in which community-based organizations participate in the formulation of the local investment budgets.

Finally, the need to promote a comprehensive legal reform and judicial review can no longer be neglected, especially in order to promote the recognition of collective rights, to broaden collective access to courts and to guarantee law enforcement. India and Brazil, for instance, have already incorporated the notion of collective rights in their legal systems to some extent, thus enabling the judicial defense of so-called “diffuse interests” in environmental and urban matters by both individuals and NGOs.

In other words, urban reform and the recognition of security of tenure are not to be attained merely through law, but through a political process that supports the recognition of the long-claimed “right to the city” not only as a political notion, but as a legal one, too. There is a fundamental role to be played in this process by lawyers, judges and prosecutors for the government. However, the collective action of NGOs, social movements, national and international organizations, and individuals within and without the state apparatus is of utmost importance to guarantee both the enactment of socially oriented laws and, more importantly, their enforcement.

If these are truly democratic times, the age of rights has to be also the age of the enforcement of rights, and especially of collective rights. It is only through a participatory process that law can become an important political arena to promote spatial integration, social justice and sustainable development.

Edesio Fernandes is a lawyer and a research fellow at the Institute of Commonwealth Studies of the University of London. He is coordinator of IRGLUS-International Research Group on Law and Urban Space and coeditor (with Ann Varley) of Illegal Cities: Law and Urban Change in Developing Countries (Zed Books, London and New York, 1998).