Cities plus Secrets Cities Plus is a periodic publication. It presents urban issues through multiple and surprising perspectives. Each issue of Cities Plus focuses on a specific theme which is used to explore and analyse cities. Editorial Team Lia Brum Shareen Elnaschie Sahar Faruqui Lina Gast David Kostenwein Daniela SanjinĂŠs Richard W J Shepherd Cover Image Uzair Chaudhry Contact
http://www.citiesplus.org/ citiespluscities@gmail.com www.facebook.com/Citiesplus issuu.com/citiespluscities October 2015
Secret noun /’si:krIt/
Definition
Something that is kept or meant to be kept unknown or unseen by others (Definition of secret from Oxford Dictionaries)
THIS ISSUE...
by Richard W J Shepherd
I’m going to tell you a secret. Once I had a birthday, and a week or so later I caught up with a friend. He told me to come back to his car to get my birthday present. Out of the car he pulled a street sign for a SHEPHERD LN. He told me to keep it hidden because he had stolen it one night. I thought it was just about the best present I could ever have received. The next time I went to visit him, we crept out under cover of darkness to a little laneway around the corner - the original Shepherd Lane. High up on the wall - I mean, he must have got a ladder out there at midnight - there was a sign shaped mark in the wall where he had unscrewed it. It was a raw brick patch. I keep running through my head how much he had to have rehearsed that theft, the simple animal cunning behind it and the nonchalant manner in which he handed it to me from the back of his car. The council has since put up a new sign, but on a nearby pole, so every time I go past that street I look for the patch of unpainted brick, ladder height, and remember my birthday. The street sign is next to my computer as I type.
We’re going to tell you secrets in this issue of Cities+. Secrets so big and so small, so immense and so insignificant, that they could rewire your thinking or be nothing more than bitumen underfoot. Our fantastic contributions this issue traverse the globe, exploring our cities and dissecting their secrets. Spotlights are shone on small towns and their little quirks; satellites are trained over big cities where they collage rooftops into visual patterns for you to scrutinise. We send you on a hunt to find answers written in urban landscapes and whisper (or maybe shout) to you about Rankopolis, the most ‘city’ of all cities. There are images of Palestine that remind us how little we understand its secrets, or the war being conducted there under a private, steely tension. There is a polemic on the parasitic nature of the urbanrural divide. There is a series of conjurations based on Calvino’s ‘Invisible Cities’ (if you don’t think you can see the invisible, think again)(actually always, always think again). And there is a most impressive contributor who literally unearthed the secrets of her garden. That’s not even an exhaustive list. I’m going to tell you a secret. I sat on a bus the other day and turned off my iPod. I listened to the conversations happening around me and caught snatches of concerns, whispers of agitations or delights caught deliciously out of context. It was like an issue of Cities+: the live show. I began to feel a little lonely surrounded on a bus full of secrets being shared. And then the bus went past Shepherd Lane and I remembered the night time unveiling of a brick patch in the wall, and all of the stealthy quiet concern that entailed. And how I, and our amazing editorial team, would get to share some secrets with you, our readers.
WELCOME TO THE MOST CITY IN THE WORLD! by David Kostenwein
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SEEING CALVINO by Leighton Connor, Matt Kish & Joe Kuth
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reTURN SPATIAL STRATEGIES OF RETURN FOR PALESTINIAN REFUGEES by Maria Rocco
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A SHARED INTEREST IN THE BOUNCE Chris Alton
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SIGA (O SARA) by Richard W J Shepherd
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SHOW ME YOUR ROOFSCAPE AND I WILL TELL YOU WHO YOU ARE by Ian Losa
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THE TIMES THEY ARE A-CHANGING Anna Marandi
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THE OLD ROAD by Shirani Rajapakse
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THE POLITICAL POWER OF SECRET GEOGRAPHIES by Julian Castro
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MATERIAL NARRATIONS by Nia Lessard
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THE ISLAND CITY BOGOTÁ ́S HIDDEN URBAN MANIFESTO by Ramon Bermudez, Daniela Sanjines & David Kostenwein
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ARANG KEL by Yusra Amjad
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BASTARDIZED AND IDEALIZED: THE RURAL IN THE URBAN by Samantha Clements & Sara Bissen
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THE SEARCH FOR CLOUD 9.1 by Uzair A. Faruqui
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EDITORIAL TEAM
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THE LAST PAGE by Lina Gast
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WELCOME TO THE MOST CITY IN THE WORLD! by David Kostenwein
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For interesting articles or rants on city rankings, check here: http://theprotocity. com/city-rankingsirrelevance/ www.steep.fi/insights/2013/11/ how-to-become-theworlds-best-city/ www.forbes. com/2009/08/10/ cities-livable-eliteeconomist-monoclerankings-opinions-columnists-joel-kotkin. html Nice thought by author Günther Hack (seen in Falter 20a/15): “Vienna needed a century of social-democratic policies to rank #1 in neoliberal city rankings”
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here has been a lot of ranting and criticisms about the trend to rank cities by liveability, safety, fun, awesomeness, sexiness or whichever random criteria you may imagine. Indeed, ranking things that are almost impossible to quantify, like cities and quality of life is such a silly exercise that I am not even arguing about its ridiculousness (besides, this has been sufficiently done, for instance, by our friends at theProtoCity – see on the side). I must confess, though, that in our BuzzFeed times, I find myself deeeply entertained by city rankings. And that’s what they should be: Entertainment. Nothing else. Coming from Vienna, a city that usually gets high scores in most rankings, and I would be lying if I said I don’t feel a little pride when I see my hometown’s name shining in distinguished topten lists. When I saw, though, Vienna figuring with a number 8 in the Fun City Ranking, beating even Barcelona, Amsterdam and Buenos Aires, well, I felt a little suspicious. So, I decided to take a deeper look in the indicators used for this and other rankings. With the thoroughly recognized lack of transparency of
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their methodologies (I imagine to hide the randomness of their approaches), I could not imagine something more entertaining than criticising them a little more by playing their game. I created a fictional city using and manipulating indicators from the most acclaimed city rankings to win them all. Brace yourselves: below I unveil the secret features of the best, funniest, most liveable, sexiest city that has never existed: Rankopolis, the MOST city in the world! 1. Being IN the ranking The first and most important policy of Rankopolis is addressing the need to be IN the rankings. This might be the hardest task of all because it is not clear why some cities are and other are not included in the different city rankings. One can only guess that it’s about availability of data and the perceived importance of the city on a global scale. A large part of Rankopolis’ budget goes into the provision of data to the ranking agencies, and an entire department of its administration is fully dedicated to catering these organizations. On a monthly basis, Rankopolis produces emotional videos with an original soundtrack, showing the city’s best landscapes from a drone perspective, then zooming in on a variety of actors looking like happy citizens. Everything is accompanied by captions of numbers and graphs, many numbers and well-designed graphs, which do not necessarily relate to each other, but assure the reliability of Rankopolis fake statistics. Rankopolis monthly reports are delivered with a bottle of Prosecco in a wooden box to Mercer&Co. On top of that, Rankopolis Ranking Dept. has a large lobbying unit just to push for the inclusion in rankings such as the Monocle’s, which only includes 25 cities without giving any kind of objective reasoning - of course, Rankopolis is always there! 2. Location, location Not only does Rankopolis need to be included in the ranking, it needs to score highly. To assure this mission is accomplished,
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The fun city ranking by goeurope.com: 1. Berlin, 2. London, 3. Paris, 4. New York, 5. Tokyo, 6. Hamburg, 7. Rome, 8. Vienna, 9. Barcelona, 10. Istanbul Thanks to the Syrup Trap for the beautiful term: the MOST city in the world: http:// syruptrap.ca/2014/10/ vancouver-rankedthe-most-city-in-theworld/ Because I want to be more transparent than the rankings themselves, here the rankings I used, which are the most famous ones, like Monocle’s Most Livable Cities Index, the Economist Intelligence Units (EIU) Livability Ranking, Safe City Index, Worldwide Cost of Living Survey and Best Cities Ranking and Mercers Quality of Living Survey. I included one less serious ranking, the Ultimate Fun City Ranking by GoEuro.com. Is this a proper thing to do, mixing these rankings? I say it is as proper as the rankings themselves. And be assured, the Mercer study is just as silly as the Fun city ranking, it just has a more serious looking layout, because they want to sell it to corporations.
Cities that usually lead the rankings: Vancouver, Melbourne, Vienna, Zurich, Copenhagen, Toronto, Helsinki Cities that usually suck in city rankings: Dhaka, Port Moresby, Lagos, Algiers, Tehran, Jakarta, Baghdad (do you notice the regional and religious bias?)
These natural assets lets Amsterdam score really high and Damascus really low in EICs Best City ranking.
Most of the cites in Monocle’s Most Livable Cities Index offer more than 100 flight destinations a week (except Melbourne, Sydney, Fukuoka, Honolulu and Minneapolis)
location is key: Rankopolis must be, therefore, European. Rankopolis may dare being Canadian or Australian, at most, but anything else won’t fly. American (North and South, besides Canada) cities hardly make it into the top 10, African and Asian cities hardly in the top 30 and Arab cities, come on! Change your culture if you want to join the club! Let’s not risk ourselves, thus: Rankopolis is located in Scandinavia. It has a lake, the ocean and a mountain with a peak of 501m within 100km, as well as numerous protected areas within 75km. Also, neighbours are important: there are several cities with more than 750.000 inhabitants within 200km of the city centre. The location of Rankopolis guarantees it has a comforting temperature, with a low humidity. With around 4000 hours of nonaggressive sunshine a year, travellers are attracted to spend their holidays here, with the guarantee that they will not get sunburnt easily - and if so, an army of doctors will take care of them. Furthermore, there are almost no troublesome or destructive animals to be found in Rankopolis as the government has eradicated all populations of mosquitoes and predators in and around the city recently. Phew, that’s good. Last but not least, Rankopolis has a giant airport close to the city with hundreds of international connections all around the clock. Directing the entry lane outside of the city, we solve the air pollution indicator. It does get a bit noisy for the people living close by the airport, but what the heck, that’s not an indicator and it never goes in the datasets. Smart, no? 3. Better be safe
EIUs Safe city ranking uses the existence of community based patrolling and private security as a sign for a safe city. I ask: REALLY?
Rankopolis has an enormous police force, only exceeded by the army of private security. Wherever you look, there is a uniform. Only sometimes you get confused wheter you see private security officers, the real police or one of the hundreds of community based control officers. And there are heaps of security cameras. Man, do I feel safe! There is no crime in Rankopolis, no crime! Obviously, we are talking about petty crimes, the crime of the poor, since we don’t really take white-collar crime into account (again, this is not an indicator). 11
4. Shopping around the clock Things are cheap in Rankopolis. Meat and fish are almost free, so are fruits and vegetables. And cars, for sure! Here you can get all cars you want for a very low price. And you can shop all around the clock, Monday to Sunday. The government had to cut workers laws and to abolish unions, but it was worth it, since the measure also served to lower the minimum wage domestic workers. They are now almost for free! Enjoy! 5. Alcohol Yes, alcohol is a feature itself, highly important to score the best rankings (maybe this another reason why Arab cities never win). Just like shops, bars and clubs are open all night and are numerous in Rankopolis, offering cheap beer and cigarettes. Everyone over 16 is allowed to drink booze in public space, or in one of the many adult entertainment facilities. Cheers! 6. Screens, screens, screens Rankopolis has a rich cultural life. There are many concerts, theatre performances and, mostly cinema screens - we have two cinemas with 250 screens each. Most of the screens show the same three blockbuster movies, because Rankopolis had to shut down the film institute and all the small cinemas to finance all these screens. After all, what matters is rocking the screen number indicator! 7. Virus-free public-private schools! Since some rankings favour private and others favour public education, Rankopolis has convened that the best way to make everybody happy is to choose the public-private combination, the panacea for every urban financing issue. Such arrangements have provided the extra money to provide free WIFI throughout the city and create a minister for antivirus issues, which makes sure that computers are not infected by viruses or malware. 12
Monocle is obsessed with shopping on Sundays. Monocle about Helsinki: “If only the shops could keep their doors open on Sundays even in the winter – we all love a day of noncommercial relaxation, but allowing some shopping doesn’t take that away” (or does it?) The prices of alcohol and tobacco are indicators in Mercers Quality of Living Survey. Monocle complains about Minneapolis: “repeal of the Prohibition-era ban of selling alcohol on Sundays, and selling beer and wine at grocers”. The Ultimate Fun City Ranking uses the beer price and the possibility of drinking in public as indicators. And that’s why Vienna scores so high: Alcohol.
EIUs Livability Ranking likes private schools, Monocle appreciates a good public education. (Monocles ranking by the way seems like the most reasonable approach of all mentioned – also because they are more honest about the randomness of the ranking)
The price of domestic help is an indicator in EIUs Worldwide Cost of Living Survey; rapidly opening your business is important for Monocle. Things that do not appear in the rankings: inequality, segregation, poverty‌
8. The libertarian city Rankopolis is a start-up/ultra-smart city, of course. But what is the key recipe to deserve such qualification? First, the absence of regulations on commercial activities and an incredibly minimised bureaucracy. We are proud to say that anyone can start a business in two minutes here though the city’s online portal. And hiring and firing a piece of cake in Rankopolis! The second secret ingredient is that Rankopolis has a huge GINI index and half of the population lives in poverty, which guarantees a cheap workforce. These workers live far from the wealthy neighbourhoods, so social conflicts are not an issue. Quality of housing is world class and there is strong free market competition, which is thriving as there are no social housing policies to ruin the market! Welcome to the MOST city in the world!
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SEEING CALVINO by Leighton Connor, Matt Kish & Joe Kuth
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nvisible Cities is a grand inspiration for everyone interested in cities, as well as a reflection on the many facets of the urban experience. Italo Calvino’s seminal book has been quoted or mentioned many times in past, present and undoubtedly future Cities+ issues. Artists Leighton Connor, Matt Kish and Joe Kuth have taken their inspiration a step further by setting out to “see through the creation of illustrations responding to and exploring the ideas in the texts” in their amazing project “Seeing Calvino”. They illustrate the fabulous, mystical and beautiful tales of invisible cities fabricated by the Venetian Marco Polo – his words summoning impossible worlds for the emperor Kublai Khan. Their imagery is intricate and abstract, creating new dimensions to enjoying Calvino’s tales. Check out their ongoing project, including a swathe of other images, here: seeingcalvino.tumblr.com leightonc@mindspring.com mattkish87@gmail.com prestidigitonium25@gmail.com 14
“When you have forded the river, when you have crossed the mountain pass, you suddenly find before you the city of Moriana, its alabaster gates transparent in the sunlight, its coral columns supporting pediments encrusted with serpentine … . you have only to walk in a semicircle and you will come into view of Moriana’s hidden face … From one part to another, the city seems to continue, in perspective, multiplying its repertory of images: but instead it has no thickness, it consists only of a face and an obverse, like a sheet of paper, with a figure on either side, which can neither be separated nor look at each other.” INVISIBLE CITIES: Moriana artist: Leighton Connor 15
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“Now I will tell you how Octavia, the spider-web city, is made. There is a precipice between two steep mountains: the city is over the void, bound to the two crests with ropes and chains and catwalks…Below there is nothing for hundreds and hundreds of feet: a few clouds glide past; farther down you can glimpse the chasm’s bed… Suspended over the abyss, the life of Octavia’s inhabitants is less uncertain than in other cities. They know the net will last only so long.” INVISIBLE CITIES: Octavia Artist: Joe Kuth
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“You cannot say that one aspect of the city is truer than the other, but you hear of the upper Zemrude chiefly from those who remember it, as they sink into the lower Zemrude, following every day the same stretches of street and finding again each morning the ill-humor of the day before, encrusted at the foot of the walls.� INVISIBLE CITIES: Zemrude Artist: Leighton Connor
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“In every point of this city you can, in turn, sleep, make tools, cook, accumulate gold, disrobe, reign, sell, question oracles. Any one of its pyramid roofs could cover the leprosarium or the odalisques’ baths. The traveler roams all around and has nothing but doubts: he is unable to distinguish the features of the city, the features he keeps distinct in his mind also mingle.” INVISIBLE CITIES: Zoe Artist: Matt Kish
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“In Esmeralda, city of water, a network of canals and a network of streets span and intersect each other. To go from one place to another you have always the choice between land and boat: and since the shortest distance between two points in Esmeralda is not a straight line but a zigzag that ramifies in tortuous optional routes, the ways that open to each passerby are never two, but many, and they increase further for those who alternate a stretch by boat with one on dry land.� INVISIBLE CITIES: Esmeralda Artist: Matt Kish 22
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â€œâ€ŚIt is pointless trying to decide whether Zenobia is to be classified among happy cities or among the unhappy. It makes no sense to divide cities into these two species, but rather into another two: those that through the years and the changes continue to give their form to desires, and those in which desires either erase the city or are erased by it.â€? INVISIBLE CITIES: Zenobia artist: Joe Kuth
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reTURN SPATIAL STRATEGIES OF RETURN FOR PALESTINIAN REFUGEES by Maria Rocco
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he last trait of heterotopias is that they have a function in relation to all the space that remains. This function unfolds between two extreme poles. Either their role is to create a space of illusion that exposes every real space, all the sites inside of which human life is partitioned, as still more illusory (perhaps that is the role that was played by those famous brothels of which we are now deprived). Or else, on the contrary, their role is to create a space that is other, another real space, as perfect, as meticulous, as well arranged as ours is messy, ill constructed, and jumbled. This latter type would be the heterotopia, not of illusion, but of compensation, and I wonder if certain colonies have not functioned somewhat in this manner. In certain cases, they have played, on the level of the general organization of terrestrial space, the role of heterotopias. Michel Foucault, Of Other Spaces: Utopias and Heterotopias, sixth principle 26
Prologue The 1948 Palestine war is named ‘War of Independence’ by Israelis as it led to the birth of the state of Israel. Palestinians call these events Nakba (catastrophe) because hundreds of their towns and villages were destroyed and more than half of the population was forcibly evicted. Some Palestinians left their homes to escape the fighting, confident of returning as soon as the situation calmed down but most of them ended up in United Nations refugee camps for over 60 years. In 1950, the Knesset enacted the ‘Absentee Property Law’ according to which the land abandoned by the Arabs expelled out of the new state of Israel was transferred under the control of the Jewish National Fund. The law classified them as ‘present absentee’, namely present in the country, but absent for the purpose of land expropriation. UN resolution 194 established the right to return for Palestinian refugees but, having lost their land, they become a ‘stateless nation’. Traces of Miska Miska is that kind of impenetrable secret that is hidden in plain sight. Miska was a palestinian rural village of about 1000 inhabitants in the Tulkarem district. Inhabitants were evicted by Haganah troops in april 1948 and Miska was subsequently bombed to destroy its remains. Sites os dispossessions and sites of exile 27
Miska areal photo 1945
Following this destruction the central area of the village was then planted with eucalyptus trees (once extraneous to the region) with deeply penetrating roots that incorporated the remains of the mosque and the cemetery. The latter, that could not be covered by the trees, houses a bee farm; the surroundings are planted with citrus trees.
Miska areal photo 2007 28
The will to clear the memory and the sight of the old village, however, had almost the opposite effect: the grove shows exactly the position of the village and the layout of the fields follows the original road layout. Virtually it is still possible to walk the streets of the village, but the use of space has been completely changed by the new dwellers.
Israeli extraterritoriality
Reciprocal extraterritoriality The borders of the state of Israel are not so sharp as the segregation wall might suggest. The west bank is dotted with a vast array of settlements - in particular in proximity of the green line, the Jordan Valley and on the main lines of communication with Israeli territory. As gated communities, they function as suburbs alien from their immediate surroundings and instead closely interconnected with the cities of the motherland by a dense network of bypass roads, and ultimately annexed to Israeli territory. Palestinian territory remains instead fractured by barriers, settlements, civilian and military outposts, checkpoints and political demarkations. Overturning this mechanism, one could imagine the villages destroyed during the Nakba as Palestinian colonies in Israel, related to places of refuge in the Occupied Territories. These ‘colonies’, unlike Israeli settlements, would not be just suburbs of Palestinian cities, but could instead accommodate all the public spaces and collective activities lacking in the camps. In an alternative present, where the sepa-
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ration is replaced by an archipelago of reciprocal extraterritoriality, the villages destroyed during the Nakba would become the islands to which Palestinians can land inside Israel, exerting a form of return and re-appropriation of their lands. Heterotopias Acknowledging of the impossibility to act permanently on the space of the destroyed villages, the project proposes potential future scenarios that, from a present of destruction and cancellation, allow practical implementation – however ephemeral – of the right of return. Palestinian refugees already enact some practices of return, acts that take place outside of the prescribed structures of spatial power, questioning the impenetrability of the physical and legislative constraints and shaping a transformation on a territorial scale Inspired by present practices of return, the reTURN project is aimed at reorienting the operating logic of the space and returning it to the free use of its former inhabitants. The project manipulates the remains and additions on the ancient village through transformation strategies that, applied to ‘samples’ of the village space, work like litmus paper to reveal what, until now, has been concealed.
Arcipelago of reciprocal extraterritoriality 30
Diagram of the land samples 31
Trees 1948/2010/reTURN: “The traditional garden of the Persians was a sacred space […] and all the vegetation of the garden was supposed to come together in this space, in this sort of microcosm. […] The garden is the smallest parcel of the world and then it is the totality of the world. The garden has been a sort of happy, universalizing heterotopia since the beginnºings of antiquity” [Michel Foucault, Des Espace Autres, March 1967, Translated from the French by Jay Miskowiec, p.6]
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A SHARED INTEREST IN THE BOUNCE Chris Alton
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he Camden Bench, this amorphous piece of concrete, has been designed to resist a multitude of anti-social activities (as defined by the London borough of Camden, who commissioned it). The bench has a graffiti resistant coating, the sloped top deters rough sleepers and skateboarding is made nearly impossible by its angular features. It is an object that is defined by what it is not for, as opposed to what it is for. As a result, the Camden Bench has been described by many as ‘the perfect antiobject’, a site where subversive activity is unachievable.
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The bench operates as a signifier for the freedom we are rapidly losing in public spaces. It is a bench that says, “don’t be here” or “if you are here, obey the rules.” Rather than solving social problems and anti-societal activities, the bench simply deflects them. Subversion is relegated to other areas of the city, where the buildings aren’t so shiny and the wages are lower.
A shared interest in the bounce is played by a simple set of clearly defined rules, within (and sometimes against) a myriad of hidden or secret rules associated with public space. It is simultaneously a game and an occupation, where players act as a team to maintain the bounce of a ball against the surface of the bench. Instead of competing against each other, they actively engage the bench in competition as a durational performance. 35
The game seeks to subvert the intentions of the Camden Bench and animate it in a playful manner, whilst drawing attention to the narrow set of activities that it allows for and contesting the freedom of public spaces. It is the intention of the game to give the bench a new function, which takes advantage of its oppressive design features and would not be playable without them.
The use of table tennis bats and balls for a shared interest in the bounce is also significant, as the Victorian parlour game has recently become a regular fixture of public spaces, with tables appearing across London. 36
Images: a shared interest in the bounce, Performance, Documentary Photograph, 2014 (Photography: Chris Alton, Performers: Charlie Evans, James Mijnlieff, Mamadu Tyson) 37
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How to play: - 2-6 players - 1 table tennis ball - 1 table tennis paddle per player - 1 Camden Bench 1. Players work as a team to maintain the longest rally they can attain, playing the table tennis ball against the surface of the Camden Bench. 2. The ball must bounce on the surface of the bench once between each hit. The ball may bounce numerous times. 3. Players may not hit the ball twice or more in succession. 4. The rally ends when the ball hits the floor. Players then start a new rally, anyone may serve.
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SIGA (O SARA)
by Richard W J Shepherd
There was a door, and that was apparently enough for Sara. There was a door in the wall, a red one, with some dead vines scraping the edges like an unruly fringe. A wall of an apartment building, an odd brown stucco, across the road from her block in Palermo Viejo. But it caught her eye on the day she moved in and from then on it was all she could think about. She had dreams about red doors, with little brass handles that were smooth from wear, and scuff marks at the bottom. That perfect little door - and she imagined it was all hers. She had the key and it would unlock smoothly as she smiled and pushed a little and crossed the threshold. If it was summer there would be people looking at her with envy, maybe with some gelato, as she showed the world she had found the best door, ever. It was like a door from a fashion magazine. Why weren’t models draping themselves on this door? Sara began to tell her friend Paolo about the issue of the door. It had become an issue. It seemingly never opened, but the handle was so smooth. She’d checked, when she worked up the courage and the street was empty, by touching the handle a little herself. The apartment building was a dull building like any other in 40
the neighbourhood. Every weekend it seemed wealthier people were moving in, and only the cracks on the sidewalk, spiderlegs, told the world that this part of the city used to be rougher, steelier. Just down the road was a little Carrefour Express, theoretically next to whatever lay behind the red door. She had walked in one summer day, nodded to the cashier, bought a banana and lazily walked the cramped aisles until she felt sure she wasn‘t being watched. Chewing slowly, she ran her fingers through the bottles of detergent until the cool wall resisted her progress. What was through there? Laying on her bed in her little flat - always warm unless the window was open - she told Paolo about that time in autumn that someone had spray painted ‘blue dolar’ across the door face. The paint, the messy scrawl, seemed unnatural and she resented its arrogant imposition of the outside world on her door. But in hushed tones she relayed how the door was clean by the next morning, as if made new in the night, the edges of bl and lar remaining on the wall just outside the doorjamb. The little door held out against the city, a city that was clamouring to mark its face and stain it with the smell of people living together. It stayed closed, impenetrable. Fascinating. The autumn turned inexorably into winter. Sara wore colourful scarves and began to talk more and more about this door. They would have coffees with a great view of the door, which could be seen from her bedroom window. She began asking the door questions, talking to it when she watered her plants. on the windowsill She found excuses to stay in on Friday and Saturday nights, and would run to check the door if she was coming home from work. Her instagram account began to be flooded with images of red doors that she uploaded; the door in early morning light, the door with people walking by, the door in the dead of night. Paolo thought Sara was nuts. He would give the door a double glance if he came to pick Sara up, or walked her home after a night on Santa Fe, but that was it. It was another door. He couldn’t fathom anything behind it being of particular interest.
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The stories about the door (what stories? how can such a thing have stories about it? it doesn‘t do anything) grew more and more peculiar and outlandish. The door had facets to it, grains in the wood, that he couldn’t understand. He listened to a year of stories - Sara’s strange translations made flesh - about what the door meant. If she had started speaking Doorinese he wouldn’t have been surprised; he half expected to come home one day and find her sitting on the doorstep, having a casual chat with his sturdy white apartment door. The entire metropolis of Buenos Aires with all of its pleasures and avenues and people was cut out of her consciousness. If it wasn‘t within that doorframe, it was like it didn‘t exist for Sara. Paolo told her she needed to see her shrink, but Sara was just feeling fidgety - itchy, waiting for the scratch. She was living her life between two points in space, and they were on either side of her street. It was one night, when the street took on the qualities of a van Gogh painting, that the door made its move; that it came for dear Sara. A breeze fingered her hair strand by strand while she slept on the night-blue pillow. A razor-cut shard of moonlight somehow cut right down the street, through the sounds of people laughing and babies crying and the trees on the Plaza Italia. Right through her window, through the apathetically billowing curtain, and woke her up. In this, the darkest part of the night, she rose eerily, unwatched, and pulled herself to the window. Her arms in front of her seemed longer than the whole room and she stared at them in front of her, hands clutching the window ledge. Sleepy eyes adjusting to the scarce light, she registered no sound in the now-silent city below and around. How could Buenos Aires have suddenly become so hushed of its noisy ablutions? She looked up the street and the breeze died abruptly. Odd, but maybe the breeze was just a gust that had petered out. In the background was a hum, like someone had just chimed a wine glass and let it ring. Sara was just about to entertain the thought of going back to bed when she glanced at the door. Just as quickly she looked again, and her jaw dropped.
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In this light, the little door was a deep bruised purple. And it was open. This registered for a second. She had never seen it open before - not even a fraction, as it was now. And there was a yellow light spilling just a millimetre onto the sidewalk. Her skin was enveloped in warmth; like a cocoon of blankets on the coldest, wettest day of winter. She looked at her milky white hands. They were shaking. She looked at the door again. No eyes saw her pull back from the window, dress hurriedly and leave the apartment. No one saw her tap tap tap across the street, starry skies and impossible trees smiling around her. No one saw her grasp the handle she knew so well, pull the door towards her and go inside. And no one saw the little red door close untouched on the witching hour, on a street in Palermo Viejo. It took Paolo a few weeks to come by. He was busy with his latest fling - some guy from New Zealand or something - and he had been unnerved by all this talk of the fucking door. But a few days after Sara didn‘t reply to any of his messages he took the hint and walked his bike down from Scalabrini Ortiz station. She would be home normally. It was a beautiful Saturday and he had brought a peace offering; a brioche and dulce de leche. No response from the intercom. He rang a few times more, pulling his sunglasses onto his head. He quickly called her phone too, but not even the hint of a reply. Looking back into the street, it took him a moment to notice something was missing. The little red door. It had disappeared. In its place, the writing ‘blue dolar‘ had been reinstated in full. As if the door had never been there. Months later. The jazz floated around the little bar, smoothing the edges of the wood table and delighting the few people remaining. It was a warm night in Recoleta and Paolo was in his element. He was on a date which was just winding down; they’d just gone to see a movie. It was something with Liam Neeson
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but they hadn’t spent much time focussing on the film. The air in the bar was warm, and a lazy breeze redolent with promise caught everyones attention, if only for a few seconds. Even a dozing cat raised its head, before yawning and flicking its ears, and going back to sleep. Paolo stumbled out with his date and together they started walking back towards his flat. They passed trees with golden streetlight flickering through the leaves, casting jungle shadows onto the apartment buildings. At a little store he bought a chocolate and it came with a lovenote - ‘Hay millones de maneras para expresarte mi amor. Decírtelo la primera, darte un beso la mejor.’ They both had a chuckle at the cheesiness of it. At the corner of his street he kissed his date goodbye, and they made plans to meet up again later that week. It was a long kiss, and he could feel in the pit of his belly that he would be looking forward to seeing him again. The breeze kept up as he walked the last few blocks, passing a drunk couple who tried to talk to him; he just smiled and kept strolling. He held off a yawn, then succumbed as he reached his apartment block. Just as he was getting his key out of his jacket out he felt the breeze slowly die down, and in the dying night him of the early hours he heard a background noise; it was like someone hitting a glass and letting it ring. He turned. Across the street, beneath an impatiently swaying tree, there was a new little red door in the wall.
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SHOW ME YOUR ROOFSCAPE AND I WILL TELL YOU WHO YOU ARE by Ian Losa
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ities are like people. They have parts of their physical “body” that they proudly show off and other parts that are more intimate, sensitive and kept away from the look and attention of the masses. As dwellers or tourists, we primarily interact with features of the city that can be seen, felt and heard at ground level (street frontages, architectural elements of the façades of buildings, trees, pavements, etc), but what about the rest of the urban realm? What about those textures, colours, smells and shapes that are located elsewhere, just out of sight? For me, I decided to get high (literally I mean, not metaphorically of course) and explore rooftops – from above. This contribution presents a series of digital collages made from a selection of rooftops images of three different cities (Barcelona, Chicago and Sapporo).
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Collage n°1: Barcelona roofscape (Collage and editing: Ian Losa / Images source: Apple Maps – flyover mode) 47
Collage n°2: Chicago roofscape (Collage and editing: Ian Losa / Images source: Apple Maps – flyover mode)
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Collage n°3: Sapporo roofscape (Collage and editing: Ian Losa / Images source: Apple Maps – flyover mode) 51
THE TIMES THEY ARE A-CHANGING Anna Marandi
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t is true, there’s not much old-school left to feel or grit to see in New York – nothing with that tight community vibe we all long for, transplants or not. No need to discuss what it has so inadequately been replaced with, but where, you ask, can that old vibe be found that so many French tourists seek? Are there any secrets left in New York City? As a location scout on feature films, I get excited when I stumble upon portals into the past, virgin territories. My assignment this time was vague but intriguing: for the final scene in a police thriller, we would need a warehouse space in the Bronx. Bonus points for obscurity.
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Just off the 6 train, and not far from the South Bronx neighborhood of Hunts Point (infamy gained from HBO’s late night sleaze special on sex workers), there is an outdoor clubhousegarage, a kind of a hideout-from-the-angry-wife-after-youfought spot. One might drive right past it without a second glance. Units are not cheap in Whitlock – around $150 for the month. Good luck trying to rent a space if you’re a stranger: units are passed down from uncle to nephew, father to son, brother to brother, friend to friend. Some of the older “club members” have had their storage units since the 60s.
With the exception of two black brothers with adjoining units and a white gentleman who, as some suspect, may actually live inside his 8’x15’ space, everyone who rents a garage is Puerto Rican (or easily mistaken for), ranging in age from 20 to 80. The older “members” tuck their shiny old Buicks away. Others are cabinet-makers, collectors, mechanics, and some are just plain rowdy old retirees who like to socialize and keep a bunch of junk in their space – just an excuse to stop by and hang out with the other old guys. If ever there were a storage-garage version of Cheers for Puerto Rican men, this is it. 53
The younger guys hang out and work on their street racers or their motorcycles. There are no women here, except for me those few days, or the occasional girlfriend looking for her MIA boyfriend. On most summer days, the older heads battle gently with the younger guys over music rights. The former fight for salsa to be heard at one end, but the latter dominate with their earsplitting reggaeton. There’s really no competition, but stubbornness and age are interchangeable. Everyone rolls their eyes and shakes their heads – just a little family feuding is all. I’m told that on hot summer holidays and weekends, the garage is packed like a backyard cookout– women, families, everyone sitting on portable chairs and Wal-Mart coolers, drinking beer and grilling, the music competing with the train roaring by next door – all, of course, with their most prized vehicles out on display.
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The unofficial mayor of Whitlock is Louie, an older gentleman resembling a Hispanic Bob Dylan. He is a mechanic by trade, tinkers with cars and chats up the other old guys all day. He also takes great care to make sure all the stray cats are fed. It’s a cat family, he tells me. They stay up on the rooftops away from us. It’s cleaner up there, too. The cats are all females and all have the same strange, flirty little eyes. They wrap their tails together like braids and groom in sync. One little guy on the ground, though, catches my eye: he is white and grey (from dirt) and does not leave me alone. Cats are terribly manipulative, I have since learned. My heart gushes, but so do my sinuses. Louie tells me I should take the cat home. One of the younger members of the Whitlock community has been grandfathered in through his boss. His friend in the space next door inherited it his from an uncle, whose name still figures
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as the owner. Another tenant has been there since the 60s, when this was nothing more than a junkyard with wild dogs at one end, and a couple of old garage spaces on the other. He whispers to me, oye, mija, no one knows this, but I might be related to a certain Supreme Court Justice. Es la verdad! He refused to tell me any more about it. The other guys will get jealous. I notice a light blue tattoo on his wrist - a faded scorpion. I ask him if he was a sly little teenaged gangster back in the day. He tells me it was just like in the movies – his Puerto Rican crew and the black crews would chase each other on rooftops, back and forth, back and forth. There were turf wars and lots of fists flying over girls too. I think I’ve seen that flick, I say with a smile. Now that was another era, mija! He loves the attention. Even in the Bronx, rents are changing quickly. Louie talks about that way of life following the path of Brooklyn, fading into the past like it never happened, glossed over with period-correct barbershops and farm-to-table eateries. They know that everything is up for grabs, and even the South Bronx is subject to change. 56
There are a few more white faces here and there – especially down near the lofts on Bruckner. The old Penny Factory near Whitlock has been revamped, and loft spaces filled with eager artists abound. Even in Hunts Point, prices for warehouse space have skyrocketed in the last few years, and barely a working girl is spotted anymore, even at night. For the most part though, not many New Yorkers come in, and not too many from the Bronx go out. Why would you? Both sides would ask each other that. After visiting the garage on several occasions and spending some quality time with its mayor and cast of characters, I was a little sad to leave when the job was done. But this will warm you up: I took a little piece of it with me, adopting the little grey and white cat. He was getting beat up by the local tuxedo Tomcat, and worse, by the lady-cat crew on the roofs. I think he was grateful to be out of that West-Side Story drama. It seemed only fitting to name him Whitlock at first, but a few days later I realized that I had it all wrong and promptly changed his name to Louie.
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THE OLD ROAD by Shirani Rajapakse
I don’t know where it goes, the road snaking out from the side of the market between the shop advertising odds and ends and the only one on this side of town selling groceries that’s always always so full of people. It winds through old buildings beyond like a tired stream and loses itself at the bend. The name board stuck on a post hangs precariously like a lost soul waiting for directions. Too far away to read from here, where I stand. Someone said it was for the old store that once stood there now turned to rubble. Squirrels have taken 58
over playing hide and seek among the ruins while crows perch along roofs waiting, watching in silence, reminiscing about a time when things were better. Weeds sprout out from the sides, paint peels off walls and doors, two men sit outside munching on fruit while an old man shuffles talking to himself, a bag on his shoulder. The road disappears out of sight from there. I’ve stood at this place, my spot at the top mingling with the crowds buying their weekend provisions, trying to merge in, wandering about, creating excuses in my head to take a bold step and another and another and another until I’ve moved past the grocery shop, past the tailors, the fruit seller, the hardware store that looks like it was there forever, wander up to the bend and stand in front of the old sign board, look beyond at the rest of the road or
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walk, walk, walk and never turn around. But something holds me back, puts a brake on my feet. You came here once, a long time ago. Marched along the road as they ordered. I don’t know if you made it to the end. Was there even an end or did it open out to other lanes? My annual pilgrimage brings me here on the day you left. I am hoping to see your face again. Older, gray hairs, wrinkles, a limp in your step, but still the same. The road holds the key ;fear weighs me down like a borrowed coat. How can I search for you in this place?
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THE POLITICAL POWER OF SECRET GEOGRAPHIES by Julian Castro
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The extractivist model
The arrival of Canadian Multinational Medoro Resources LTDA (2006) who merged with Gran Colombia Gold Corp (GCG) with the purpose of an open-pit mining project in Marmato calling for the “relocation” of the village due to high-risk conditions, coincided with the recovery of significant portions of Colombian territory that had been controlled by armed groups. The weakening of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) after systematic military operations (2002-10) situated Colombia as one of the most attractive emerging markets in South America. The (re)discovery of new raw materials and territories provoked structural adjustment programmes, Free Trade Agreements (FTAs) and reforms in the mining laws to attract foreign investment. According to the US Office on Colombia, current dynamics have exposed the country to the incessant extraction of natural resources in 1.5 million hectares of Colombian land operated by national and transnational corporations on behalf of “progress”. 61
Mining permits approved VS requested, 2010 Source: Ingeominas
Not only in Colombia but across Latin America more generally, the Canadian mining industry has targeted its outward investment, growing steadily up to 35% since the early 1990s up to 2004 (Gordon & Webber, 2008). In 2010 president Juan Manuel Santos referred to five broad policy issues: mining, housing, infrastructure, agriculture and innovation as the locomotives of the economy and development. But if a great part of Colombia’s economy is to depend on the mining sector, how does the National government respond to environmental concerns, land tenure, sub-surface rights, labour standards, or community consent? Such new development norm threatens on a global scale; it challenges traditional conventions and paradigms, and exposes the contradictions inherent in the extractavist model. If so, it may be urgent to consider what happens once “new imperialism� (Harvey, 2003) hits the ground, and how and where it materializes. Moreover, how does mining extraction shape the urban/rural landscape? 62
II. Cities off the map The contemporary urban landscape under proliferation of neoliberal practices offers two visions. The first depicts the massive production of high-tech products (buildings) in articulation with fancy (if not stupid) concepts such as “smart cities”; driving the sterilization of entire cosmovisions. As a result, the cities produced to ensure major profits by means of standardization processes, at the expense of our identity, no longer allow us to distinguish one city from the other. The second vision is a direct response to the former; it reflects its externalities and marginalization by producing an image of fragmentation, gaps of inequality and lack of institutional presence. Hidden by the noise of drills, mills, shovels, backhoes, donkeys, trucks and cable cars, transporting raw material, the outsider may be able to perceive Marmato´s presence. Most commonly known as “the gold manger” due to its topographic conditions and the high concentration of gold, Marmato has been a national and international gold exploitation site for more than 476 years. The city is located at the heart of the northern Andes Mountains in close proximity to the Cauca River. Being the smallest municipality of the department of Caldas, Marmato´s multi-scalar effect has transgressed jurisdictional boundaries shaping urbanization worldwide. Historically, economically and socially, it continues to develop strategic elusive responses to universal neoliberal practices that threaten its eradication (open-pit plans) while becoming the counterpart of an ongoing debate in which the “cities off the map” (Robinson, 2002) are responsible for shaping the spatial configuration of the political economic sphere. Friedman´s 1986 “world cities hypothesis” identified the domain and hierarchy of top cities i.e. London, New York, Tokyo, Zurich and their responsibility within the global urban economy. Yet, if one is to accept that the accumulation of capital occurs in certain terrains, it might be appropriate to track the flows
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that allow those city centres to exert political power. Moreover, it becomes imperative to point out the dualities generated by such strategic nodes i.e. inequality and marginalisation (Sassen, 1996). If so, “cities off the map” (secrets cities) are equally relevant as they complement Friedman´s approach.
Urban foot-print 1800-2015 Source: Archivo Nacional de Planeación edited by author
Marmato has been a focal point where polarization has emerged after the illusion and speculation around the precious metal. The vast presence of raw material and the ruthless penetration of industrialization processes have exacerbated its “rural” landscape, and the lives of its 9,164 inhabitants. Very often geography, economy, or culture are not sufficient to comprehend a context fully, as a result, a primary question arises, do we really know where Marmato is located within the world urban dynamics, both spatially and over time? The question implies a one way process in which small cities seem to be rapidly absorbed by broader effects, hierarchies, top cities (if any). Simultaneously, Marmato´s epicentre as “the donkey hill” has infiltrated business
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speculative sectors from the stock market in New York, to the life-style, fancy jewelries around Mumbai, Zurich or elsewhere. Marmato has performed as an input receptor and a global emitter configuring a multi-scalar force, spatially and operationally.
Aerial view 1964, veins of gold from Marmato to the Cauca river Source: IGAC
III. Glo-cal flows From labour in the mines to the International Commodities Exchange, precious metals are traded 24 h/day all over the globe, subject to distinctive pricing dynamics, alongside exploitation, transportation, insurances or location swaps. Marmato´s gold bypasses Caldas because the product is transformed in the department of Antioquia. The refinery melts the metal and trades it with the United States/Salt Lake North and Switzerland/Mendrisio where the largest gold headquarters are based (SICEX). One of the first transcontinental corridors was traced from the original place (the mine) to Medellin and subsequently to different markets in Rudrapur, Miami, Zurich. Each of these are represented by multinationals such as Zaveri&Co.Pvt., Johnson Matthey Inc. and Argor-Heraeus who specialize in different
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services i.e. jewelry, chemicals, watches, semi-finished products for banks and trading. It is a fact that different transactions infiltrate new territories, for instance, the jewelry industry´s high demands in India (whose consumption reaches 25% of the world’s gold production) triggers deeper digging at the core of “the donkey hill”. While big corporations import gold from Medellin, the capital circulation (inwards- outwards) also takes place in Australia, Canada, South-Africa, Brazil, Norway, Mexico and Panama (SICEX, 2013). The flows coming from informal mining practices are harder
Gold’s export from CIIGSA, Antioquia/ Zancudo, Segovia, Mazamorras and Marmato GCG deposits are taken to CIIGSA Headquarters Source: By author
to track; however, an some assertions may be made relative to Marmato’s expansion of borders. Given that the village has developed important corridors and interdependent economies, the deficiencies of one zone are covered by the others´ supply. i.e. Marmato offers its high quality gold and supplies labour to the sub-region, whereas Supía, a nearby town, leads the agricultural production with coffee, panela (whole-cane sugar), and other products to supply the demand. 66
Marmato´s regional connectivity Source: EOT 2004 edited by author
GCG mines in Colombian territory Source: EOT 2004 edited by author
IV. Urban (dis)obedience In unprecedented ways, from Marmato to Athens, the “urban society” (Lefebvre, 2003) has witnessed an increased number of mobilizations, protests and riots as a public declaration of the absence of guarantees to social justice. Human rights violations, extrajudicial killings and dispossession, become ordinary acts of a catastrophic regime of extractivist imperialism. Calling for a new economic paradigm and accused of being demagogic, economist Max-Neef argues that “inequiality and pacific solutions are not possible within the current neoliberal apparatus whose aim relies on reaching economic growth at any cost”. The absurd acceptance of “economic growth at any cost” is certainly more an imperative than a choice, mis-sold through cynical propaganda by which one day everyone will benefit (Neef, 2012). But, is society supposed to meet the neoliberal agenda? Indeed according to Harvey, capitalist imperialism is biased on logics to produce over- accumulation and exchange value.
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Along with the global economy, recession was a catalyst for an emergent urban (dis)o rder, a global trigger for new protocols of urban resistance. Simultaneously multiple city centres and remote villages erupted denouncing abuse of power while developing their own lexicons and logics. From the occupy movement in Wall Street to the unexpected riots in London, Stockholm, to Marmato where mobilisations against open-pit mining plans have been taking place.
GCG Open pit plans for New Marmato Source: GCG edited by author
The last seven years have demonstrated the power of such events. Yamil Amar, President of Prodefense Committee, states: “Marmato is widely known for its mining but now it is also known for its social protest. At the beginning we thought it would be an impossible task, (to stop the open pit project). Today we have been able to tip the balance in our favour” (2013). At a national level the phenomenon against extractivist operations i.e. coal, oil, gold has increased dramatically. In Marmato mining has been contested, and today more than 10 mobilisations have been registered. Coalitions of small groups, through specific acts of urban (dis) obedience have been the only effective mechanism for Marmateños to postpone the “relocation” of the village (an euphemism by GCG that could be better described as a brutal act of 68
dispossession). Those events have social, political and economic consequences. What is the cost of civil protests to GCG, in economic losses, or more precisely in lost earnings? On their own, isolated mobilisations may not appear to be crucial; however, they set a precedent – pluralistic responses under the social exchange idea capable of permeating complex structures of power. V. The paradox It seems hard to comprehend the role of secret cities out of irony and contradictions; out of contrasts. For instance, the potential and the richness of Marmato´s territory does not balance nor prevent systematic operational abuse of the extractivist model. Not just Marmato, but Infinite geographies within Colombian territory such as Buenaventura, Barrancabermeja, or Tumaco, with either a geostrategic location or a vast biodiversity, continue to be trapped by the poverty trap, without socio- economic mobilization, while “progress” passes by…
Marmato, the “Cien pesos” mines Source: By author 69
MATERIAL NARRATIONS Nia Lessard
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found this collection of objects in April 2013, in the back garden of my basement flat on Kingsland Road, near Dalston Junction in East London. Domestic detritus left by the previous occupants: A collection of fragments of lives. I dug my whole garden, an 8x4 meter rectangular space, carefully making sure not to break any finds. I collected everything man-made that I uncovered. There were some objects that I found more desirable than others, but I tried not to discriminate, seeing them more as material arrangements rather than stand-alone objects of value. It took me roughly 2 weeks to complete the dig. I found it physically challenging because the earth was compressed. It was covered with a fabric membrane, presumably to deter weeds, and on top of that were rounded pebbles (the type you’d expect to find at a beach) that covered the whole garden surface. I decided from the outset that I was only going to dig one fork deep (roughly 30cm) and no deeper.
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Once collated, I categorised the found objects by material type: Glass/Ceramics, Plastics, Soft furnishings, Food packaging, Nails/ Wires, and Metals. I decided not to clean them of soil. After all, I felt that it was the earth that had bound these items together in the first place, and it was an important visual reminder of where they had come from. I had been reading ‘A Survey of London’ written by John Stow in 1598, and discovered that early Georgian London had been built from handmade bricks from brick-earth and fired on site. Of course, it makes sense - London lies on mainly clays and sands. I’m interested in the site-specific, and material that can be found or extracted and made into narratives about place. For my final piece, I brought all my material subcategories back together to create a large 1500x1500mm square composition which I secured on the wall with nails or panel pins. The trace of the earth and the grid binds these fragments together into a series and allows them to be read as a language. They are no longer fragments of rubbish. They are archaeological finds. Patterns of resemblance and variation. This practice of categorising and arranging things according to their resemblances follows a long tradition of classification and taxonomy that stems from the origins of Natural History. A system that is now so deeply embedded within our codes of thinking and language as to seem natural to us. In ‘The Order of Things’, Michel Foucault explains, that before the Seventeenth century, taxonomy and Natural History did not exist. Before this, signs were part of things themselves. It is not what was added to the existing system that made the essential difference, but what had been suddenly left out. “The division, so evident to us, between what we see, what others have observed and handed down, and what others imagine or naïvely believe, the great tripartition, apparently so simple and so immediate, into Observation, Document, and Fable, did not exist”
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THE ISLAND CITY BOGOTÁ ́S HIDDEN URBAN MANIFESTO by Ramon Bermudez, Daniela Sanjines and David Kostenwein
“It is a mountain range of evidence without manifesto” Rem Kolhaas
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fear, privacy and profit This is the story of Bogota, a Latin American Metropolis growing and expanding into the surrounding plains, seemingly without a spatial (and graphical) representation; without an urban vision. But as one looks closer, there is a hidden urban manifesto that is steering the spatial development of the city. This hidden manifesto shapes Bogota as the Island City: A city of isolated gated communities that are hidden behind walls. This city Bogota has traditionally always grown through the consolidation of residential neighborhoods. At present, this expansion is steered by a society whose lifestyle is shaped by fear and confined to private spaces, a real estate market seeking to maximize profits, and building regulations that promote and define the gated community as the basic cell of urban growth.
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imagine a city of gated communities Today, around 1.64 million people live in around 3000 gated communities in Bogota (De la Carrera 2014). This number is even higher when including the metropolitan area surrounding the city. This building typology is an escape from what people perceive as a “failing city� and therefore can be understood as the antithesis to a city per se. This is the story of how the gated community has become the basic cell of urban growth in Bogota and its growing sprawl. This article is part of a greater project with the aim of unveiling the plan and vision of the future city through a retroactive manifesto that allows for a critical debate about the hidden intentions that are shaping the city landscape. In other words: We seek to discover the hidden manifesto shaping the city’s future dystopia.
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the inevitable gated community-the case of chia Bogota has a growing population of approximately 7.8 million inhabitants of whom many, for one reason or another, are being pushed to the periphery of the city. With a deficit of approximately 300.000 homes, lower income families many times have to resort to informal settlements occupying land on the urban fringes, mostly concentrated on the southern border of the city. For the higher income families, traffic chaos, lack of open green spaces and a demand for “secure” gated communities have also led to the displacement of families towards the nearby municipalities of Bogota, where private developers have found cheap suburban land where they can offer low density gated communities for middle and higher income families that move to the countryside and commute daily to work in the city. This phenomenon has created great pressure on suburban land prices and municipalities have steered their land use plans in order to attract these type of developments. Meanwhile the rural and suburban land is being occupied and slowly but surely, the neighbouring municipalities are sprawling into one big conurbated metropolis. Furthermore, housing has not been the only use that has crawled to nearby municipalities. Big industrial complexes are also being lured with tax exemptions and other incentives to the outskirts of the city. This uncontrolled expansion and urbanization of the rural corridors that surround the city of Bogotá poses important environmental threats. One of the first municipalities to become a dormitory city for Bogotá, has been Chia. It is located on one of the main highways that connects the city with the northeast of the country and to the Caribbean coast. Because of its proximity to the city and its attractive landscapes, it was the first receptor of the gated communities that now spread all through the surrounding planes of Bogotá. Like many other towns in the area, Chia´s rate of growth in population is greater than that of the country, the region or 83
Bogota itself. Chias population (today around 120.000) tripled since 1985 and nearly doubled between 2000 and 2012 (Bogota grew by 19% in the same period). And Chia is growing with the conjunto cerrado (=gated community) as a basic urban cell. The official policy is to cater mainly to higher social strata. For this article, we want to use Chia as a case study to understand the institutional and normative background of the gated community that helps define the role of the government in the creation of the Island City. Therefore we will analyse and design a fictional plot in the suburban zone in Chia, using the actual urban norms in place.
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1. a world for big developers.
no small developers
one big plot
The urban norm for our suburban plot in Chia has strict rules on minimal lot size and minimum frontages restricting lot to lot development. That means that if a private person wants to build a house, or a small developer wants to create a small apartment building, the law does not allow it. Only big developers with vast budgets can develop this land.
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2. the fragmentation of the plot or the destruction of the city block speed way + setback + additional laneยบ + setback GAP min. 20mt.
GAP min. 90mt.
what happened to the city block?
If we look at the urban norm that applies to our fictional plot it requires first, an initial setback from the road which should be followed by a mandatory access and deceleration lane, followed by an additional setback from the future building. In addition the norm states that residential uses cannot be built closer than ninety meters from the road and that they must be divided by a twenty-meter setback from any other use. First, the mandatory setbacks from the main road creates streets without bordering buildings and with awkward urban gaps preventing the urban quality created by block perimeter development. Furthermore, by forbidding block perimeter developments, the only way to divide public space from private space is by installing some sort of fence, gate or in the worse cases, walls.
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3. the monofunctional city GAP - min. 20mt.!
other uses monohousing
25% 50%
As explained before, a gap of 20m between housing and other uses is mandatory therefore, in our plot, mixed use development is impossible. Combining housing and other uses in the same building is generally not permitted. 4. the mandatory gap - or not.the inevitable urban form
isolated
row houses
The urban norms obliges us to leave wide gaps between individual buildings which automatically implies very low density. The solution of the developers in order to maximise profits: Rowhouses! 87
5. the car Kkngdom
1 CAR/1 house + 1CAR/3 houses= 1.33 CAR/house No space for green space, just for Cars.
The urban norm requires 1.3 parking lots per household, leading to vast areas used for parking. As underground parking in this suburban land is not common, huge spaces are lost for parking. Developers tend to offer even more parking due to market demands. 6. public space means money
private private
private private city
private
private private
private The national planning law obliges developers to generate a certain amount of public space for each development. Alternatively, in some areas there is the option to compensate this space monetarily. For this plot, it is mandatory to pay and it is not possible to fulfil the obligation by actually creating public space. 88
No new public spaces between gated communities.
So in summary, the urban norm obliges us to take the following decisions throughout the process of developing our land. We finally arrive at a development that favours big developers, that does not allow for lot by lot development, that is organised in a disperse way, that most likely consists of row houses, that has segregated uses and that will not create public space for the city but creates a car focussed environment.
If we combine at all the decisions we couldn’t take, we get a mixed use, defined block perimeter development activating the street and producing urban diversity. The type of development that is forbidden by the urban norms could create an urban environment that disengages from car use and that creates public spaces for the people living in and around the new development. In fact, all the forbidden elements in the current urban norm would make pretty much a desirable urban development. 89
conclusion The result of this analysis shows how the urban norm is promoting the basic cell of growth of the Island City. Taking into account all the decisions taken by the norm, all that is left to do is to install a fence and a gate and we have another gated community. An island that excludes public space and instead installs internal communal spaces; an island that turns it’s back to the outside and leaves an urban desert. Furthermore, in most cases this gated community has nothing to do with the suburban myth, an individual house with garden in the countryside, that so many Bogotanos´ dream of. In turn they get row houses surrounded by car lanes, parking lots and if they’re lucky, minuscule green spaces. This reality of Bogota is the product of a hidden obscure manifesto that is shaping the city.
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the suburban dream
the suburban reality
- House in the country side - Private Garden, nature and green spaces - Custom made house - Single owned plot - Car life style
- Small footprint, density - Open Spaces for cars - Standard Row Houses - Collective property of land - No green Space - No Garden
Logos of gated community projects in Colombia are promising a country lifestyle and an escape from the city. Gated communities are the antithesis to cities per se.
Sources: De la Carrera, Fernando (2014): Rejalópolis. Ciudad de Fronteras. Presentation at Universidad de los Andes, Bogota, 27 of August 2014. Koolhas, Rem (1978): Delirious New York, A retroactive Manifesto for Manhattan. In Rizzoli. P. 9 Image page 82: Proyecto Sabana Centro Universidad de la Sabana, Findeter. Bogotá 2015.
Sostenible.
[This is a preview of the visual essay: ISLAND CITY: A visual essay on Bogotá’s Hidden Urban Manifesto by Ramon Bermudez, Daniela Sanjines, David Kostenwein. For future publications of this project, check the Cities+ webpage!)]
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ARANG KEL by Yusra Amjad
Small towns exist in theory. Little village towns stretched a mile from end to end exist in my mind. As soon as I was young enough to think I thought up small towns. Where I could say let’s meet at the market the market, the fountain, the old man’s farm just one of each. Frugality is the charm of small towns. 92
You know as well as me That such towns are not drawn from life. The artists of quaint country scenes are city born and bred. For why would a villager stop and capture that shot – they’d have to run for miles and turn back squinting. They’d have to climb the peaks of skyscrapers to gain this birds’ eye view – this third person narration – of their own small town. Some city dweller learned in graphics and coding might pixelate a hometown. Hide the magic sword here the princess there for boys and girls in grey cement blocks to find. An abundance of small towns – In virtual reality. I have been to a small town. In minutes I ran from the monastery ruins to the government school to the place where they used water to grind wheat. I was a stranger and everybody knew my name. It was dark after six so we all lay down. The stars go better with silence but my own thoughts are supplemented always by city music.
Arang Kel is a small settlement in Azad Kashmir, Pakistan
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BASTARDIZED AND IDEALIZED: THE RURAL IN THE URBAN by Samantha Clements & Sara Bissen
1. The
cityi is based on irrationality and speculation. It is a productii that is packaged and given to us. A product deprived of originiii. Deprived of senses, and deprived of contentiv. The rural is given a role by the urban, a rolev that it is set to play. This rural playsvi a part within the product. This part is not seenvii as a problem, because the process of othering never seems to be a problem. Another othering is gainedviii and given to us. The waysxi of the product that we see remain generative. Yet what we getx is degenerative. 2. Bulldozers steamrolled into 14 acres of community-farmed
land in South Central Los Angeles. The farmers, who created a thriving community garden on that land, were evicted by the city that sold it (the land) to a private developer. What had been a response to unaided poverty was crumbling. The farmers were challenging the directional logic of the city and were arrested for it.
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3. Urbanization, as
cited by Baudrillard in his precession of simulacra, has unfortunately only aided in the degradation of rurality and nature. Therefore urban ‘farms’ are a reproduction of land use based on a dichotomous relationship that is dependent upon the population embracing an idealized, surface rurality. Farmers and consumers still actively participate—rather than resist. The capitalist cycle contributes to food insecurity and manifests a false sense of community. Bastardized urban agriculture refuses to get its hands dirty when it comes down to what is required to truly feed and house the urbanized masses. 4. Yet, the
“civilizing” attributes of urbanizing processes attempt to sanitize rural attributes found in the city. The more common process of othering—that of the subordinate rural lies within the urban center—an urban core that relies on its scattered pockets of peripheral rurality for labor and raw materials. Not only for day-to-day sustenance through food and clothing, but also through the creation and maintenance of its built environment—which actually exists as a site of resistance and newly defined rural. Brooklyn Grange in the Brooklyn Navy Yard provides a healthy local alternative to restaurants and those that can afford the luxury of paying for and accessing food in New York City. The DEP’s Green Infrastructure Grant Program helped finance the takeover of an ‘abandoned’ rooftop. 592,730 dollars. Praise from Mayor Bloomberg for the future of urban agriculture and its contribution to PlaNYC goals—as long as it doesn’t compete with developers. 5.
6. The
city bases use of space on economic / real estate values. Gardens and farms at ground level spring up in abandoned lots that are still categorized as ‘open lots’ by the city. The city owns those lots, and that demonstrates to developers that those spaces are not being commercially used and therefore up for grabs. Community gardens do not create as much value as the continual spread of built environment and destruction of remaining rurality. Farming on a neglected plot of land transforms that
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land and seemingly inhibits practices for a constructed urban in the rural as the current model of agriculture. Distance as a secret distances the dirty process. But the secret is distance collapses within. Not necessarily at the periphery, but in the mud of the rural in the urban. Rooftop gardens occupy an already commercialized, commodified space and then subsequently add cultural value to the location. Participation in such adoption of rurality allows its actors to access the trend of city agriculture, the vogue of the urban currently. Rooftop farms aren’t competition to existing industrial agriculture like the gardens and farms on empty lots are. Those lots are valuable. 596 Acres. Coney Island. Lower East Side. Bushwick. A mapping project determined to illuminate the city and its relationship to vacant lots. Open lots that are underdeveloped. Lots that could serve their communities. Lots that are purposely isolated from the environment in which they occupy because they could be used for the city’s purpose of building itself up. Rurality here is the starting point for development, not of rurality itself. It’s a blank canvas the people are not allowed to access. 7.
8. The
city’s degenerative procession smellsi. Voidii of content, the play is neither a logical set of operations nor a full sequence. Rurality entersiii to serve capitalism and maintain its perversion. Without question of sequence or logic, we operate in relationiv to the process. Beneath the obvious and into the void is a sensev, and a part of the product we do not see. Deprived by the ways that govern and control their accessvi, new senses emerge. Pointing a differentvii way, towards a different entrance. In reaction to fragmentsviii. Why do we respondix to what we do? And, howx? 9. Here
rurality, and subsequently nature, is fetishized and treated as the beautiful antithesis of the urban. It’s a dark romanticism that reduces rurality to a mere reproduction: creating a ‘best of two worlds’ situation at best and a degenerative utopia, articulated by Marin, at worst.
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Ron Finley of LA Green Grounds describes himself as a graffiti artist. Equates farming to his graffiti art. Thinks of his form of urban farming—planting food in land not typically used for food in order to change his food dessert—as the most defiant act you can do. 10.
South Central comeback. Buttonwillow, California. 85 acre worker-owned co-op farm. Farmers cultivate heirloom crops and bring fresh food to sell back to their communities. In conjunction with South Central Farmers Health and Education Fund the community can rely on their own food production. Partially. Their resistance is a reorientation towards community grown food and business. 11.
In the collapse and decayi of the urban simulacra lies an immediate challenge to its logic. Our relationship to the void is changed in the collapseii. In the exchange of roles emerges a practice where the rural staysiii. The rural takes hold long enough to change our relationship to the shatteringiv. Brought to the surfacev. Alive in opposition to the power erosionvi. In the absencevii of the rural and the denial of the rural decline, we are left with an undeniably present rural body. Change the system from withinviii the system. To play the part we are left with twoix options. A new imaginary enters to play the story we are givenx. 12.
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THE SEARCH FOR CLOUD 9.1 by Uzair A. Faruqui
Image: The Gardens of Vitruvia Digital Image, The Gardens at Versailles by Andre Le Notre (c.1661; engraving by AbbĂŠ Delagrive, 1746) overlaid with Vitruvian Man and Colors
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E
ver since I can remember I have wanted to be a scientist; an unending thirst for unanswered questions and conjuring up new questions only to wonder about what lay beyond. This love of the unknown led me to question myself, everything I did, and even God among other things. Still, a lot remains to be answered. The perpetual connection of dots seems endless but that, in essence, is what keeps me driven. So, naturally I found myself taking my next shot at, dare I say it? Science itself. Evolution. The thought that a tiny string of atoms can somehow replicate and evolve into something that can squabble about that very process is simply mind numbing. While the complexity of the average eye may have had many in awe, including Darwin himself, scientists have managed to break down evolution into bite sized steps, budding from a small light sensitive pigment, to a hollow depression that eventually filled up with clear liquid, grew a lens and then all the accompanying mechanisms and paraphernalia; a series of ‘mistakes’ leading from the very basic to the most intricate. Logical, and faced with a choice of God did it, we accepted it. But it would be easy to be fooled into thinking that these disagreements lie at the opposite ends of the same argument. The problem? Science is a straightforward discipline which ends up describing rather than explaining what really happens. Everything else is bundled off to the philosophy department. “Why does life want to live?”, “Why is there something instead of nothing and why is existence so important?”...are just some of the questions that should perplex us. Let’s face it, we’d rather marvel at a contraption made by Sony or wonder at the bizarreness of Michael Bay’s creations; but when nature does it in slow motion, it’s all too boring. And if you really want to get into the details, then how does a mistake create just the right structure, how does it get the perfect material, the calculations for the biomechanics, the fail safes, the software to run it and the endless data that needs to be filed, modified and retrieved? Perhaps a driven, conscious function is far more plausible; an ache to become more sentient and the search for the simplest informational order.
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Before we venture off into that thought, there is something to be said about mainstream science. It is not any different than any other ideology. It too leans on a belief; the belief that there is no God; and so lends itself to boundaries beyond which it cannot contemplate. From climate change to evolution, it suffers from its own sectarianism, fiercely protects its hierarchies and nurtures its delusions. In a tone set centuries ago, science and ideology are still pretty much at it today with much of our knowledge and potential lost in their battle for supremacy. Science, just like everything else on the humanscape, has not been able to escape our ideological trappings. Human. We are a driven species. We drove ourselves from the open expanses of nature into the confines of the collective. But this is also where something remarkable happened. Our minds once immersed in and in tune with nature found new environs in the kaleidoscope of personalities that occupy the cities, inspiring new thoughts and endowing new capabilities to the human mind. Religion may have been born of nature but the cities and settlements nurtured great eras of human knowledge and ingenuity and with every step that the human mind ascended so did our urban spaces. From tradition to political to information systems, our cities reconfigure and grow to accommodate the steady progress of humanity. Information is what can distinguish a building from a pile of rubble. From digital drawings, legislations, social locations to the choices of material, all of it is encoded into the fabric of the city. But it would be a folly to assume that this embedded information is docile, something to be discarded after its translation into space. These vast labyrinths of code manage and guide the city, tell you where you can tread and how you may do it. From little white lines on the road to that expensive entrance fee, if we were to color code our city for the spaces that you frequent you may find that it has a certain character, a certain social connotation that is indicative of you. This volume of boxes, tunnels, columns and people is where your mind is most familiar, comfortable and stable; a massive collection of edgy colored blocks all competing for space.
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Life used to teach you a lot, until it got replaced by sitcoms and magazines. We are bombarded with terabytes of information and propaganda day in and out only to be molested by adverts during the break. Can’t argue with the fact that psychiatric problems are on the rise but what of the generations who are born into these charged spaces, buying off-the-shelf personalities that they can keep trying on as long as they buy the product? We can’t possibly keep up will all that information but do we ever think of the effects of our choices on ourselves? Are we even looking for the some of the essentials that we need to sustain the very essence and stability of the human mind? When did we consent to this scientific manipulation and where will it lead our urban spaces where philosophy is as superficial as the memorials to nature we intersperse among our cities? …beyond this point, you may keep what you already believe safe… Consciousness. It is the name we choose to give our ability to contemplate and to place ourselves within everything we know. To the scientific mind, the very fact that it exists implies that it has to be a natural phenomenon of nature. We are so used to identifying only ourselves by it that we forget that consciousness is not necessarily a constant value. Much like the unfortunate indigent tribes in the age of expedition, other creatures too could occupy this realm, albeit at an unfamiliar level. Today, even amongst us, the disparities are great. Some build great cities, others destroy, while most provide the inertia that allows our slow meandering thread towards better days. Are most of us even conscious of what we’re thinking of anymore? Or has the absence of the philosophical moorings left us dead with little else but to follow the daily grind, proving ourselves to be that one cog that no one could replace. A shiny piece of tinkery destined to be worn down, but shinier still with every micron of luster shorn off ? If we were to accept that the human mind is a product of simple exchange of charges within a carbon based structure, the possibility that these quantum exchanges could exist on much dif-
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ferent scales and across elements becomes entirely probable; us, our communities, our cities, the Earth, the Universe? As fantastic as it sounds, scientists at the frontiers of science are already building bridges off into the night postulating in a new Integrated Theory of Consciousness whether the universe is indeed conscious. Is it really that hard to believe knowing you are here sitting reading this? Who is to say that there wasn’t an ultimate consciousness created at the moment of the Big Bang, devolving over 8 billion years to finally start manifesting itself as us, a tiny image of itself restricted within its apparent physicality and the occasional hormone induced outburst? Not exactly the romantic description of the soul we’ve been brought up to believe, but potent nonetheless. **** There exists a very discrete link between our urban spaces and the human mind and as long as the human mind is fractured so will be our urban spaces. For all their claims of saving mankind it is entirely probable that our future may not lie in either science or religion but something far more universal that converges in between. It is up to us to assess and to recognize that our greatest limitation is that we take sides rather than the truth as our compass. Who knows, perhaps one day, ‘God’ could be as ordinary and predictable as gravity; a cloud of conscious information that helps guide humanity from its destructive self towards an everlasting and sustainable future... :)
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Daniela SanjinĂŠs
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David Kostenwein
Shareen Elnaschie
EDITORIAL TEAM Ilustrations by Polina Koriakina
Sahar U Ahmad
Richard W J Shepherd Lia Brum
Lina Gast
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Ilustrations by Lina Gast