Transgressive Urbanism

TRANSGRESSIVE URBANISM Dr Cristian Suau Department of Architecture University of Strathclyde Glasgow UK

BORDER CITIES & INFORMALITY ALONG THE PAN-AMERICAN HIGHWAY

the game_plan

Mappa – Mettere al mondo il mondo, Alighiero Boetti (1984)

The PAN-AM Border Cities Informality

BORDERS

as frictional territories

Border conditions are connected to the establishment of socioeconomic forces that rule the production and occupancy of every-day spaces in cities This phenomenon creates a ‘new geography of centrality and marginality’, which is characterised by contestation, internal asymmetries, and discontinuous transgressions How do these urban dynamics operate and interplay between international, regional and urban frontiers?

Urban corridors_mega urban regions_city regions are emerging across national borders in the Americas The phenomena of border environments is analysed through (1) interurban (2) transurban (3) transregional levels

WHAT IS PAN-AM? A LEGENDARY AIRLINE?

PAN-AM IS THE LARGEST HIGHWAY ON EARTH

Panamericana, PERU

PAN-AMERICAN HIGHWAY

THE LARGEST TRANSPORT CORRIDOR ON EARTH

BORDERS

URBAN TRANSGRESSION VS. INFORMALISM Border cities perform like strategic economic regions gateways.These border conditions are defined by visible vs. invisible; hard vs. soft; formal vs. informal; isotopic vs. heterotopic environments Man-made borderlands are understood as peripheral or edge voids, buffer lands allotted between frictional political, ethnic, ecological and economic shores This study explores the ways in which political boundaries can be trespassed in order to develop subaltern forms of urbanism and edge conditions in the Americas This land transport corridor operates as a ‘grand linear urbanism’ (catalyst of emerging urban economies)

PAN-AMERICAN HIGHWAY SOFT & HARD BORDERS_GATEWAYS CHILE_PERU US_MEXICO

transgressive urbanism informal manifestations of commerce santiago_CHILE 3

3

2

1

BORDER TOWNS

INFORMALITY ALONG THE ‘PANAMERICANA’ ‘Instant urbanity’ constructs new urban conditions – transitory, intermittent or spontaneous ones- which flees from any conventional planning.

This study reveals new spatial principles and configurations of ‘informalism’ applied in border cities of South America, such as Tacna (Peru) - Arica (Chile) and El Paso (US) – Ciudad Juarez (Mexico).

What are the functional, morphological or environmental impacts of temporal activities in border cities along the main transport corridors?

How those informal systems mutate, resist or perish?

Border cities El Paso-Juarez

border cities

el paso_urban panorama

ciudad JUAREZ_main artery

CASE 1 COMMERCE

FOX FLEA MARKET

1991

1996

2000

FOX FLEA MARKET _ EL PASO EVOLUTION OF INFORMAL MARQUEE (domestic scale) IN A DISUSED CARPARK LOT FROM 1991 TO 2010

2005

2008

2010

Border cities Arica-Tacna

border cities’

tacna

barricades on the pan-am highway

TACNA_Informal suburbs (South)

ARICA_formal urban core (centre)

CASE 2 HOUSING

ARICA_informal settlement of immigrants

ARICA_SHANTYTOWN IN PHASES

conclusions

ON ‘PAN-AM CITIES’

‘transgressive informality’ performs as liquid landscape that fluctuates between the border cities and through the transport corridor, from core to rurality.

KEY SPATIAL FEATURES: - Elasticity. ‘soft’ exchange process adapted to unexpected dislocations or insertions alongside the corridor.

- Latent vesus active.

- Transformative. It is resilient with a view to changing any aspect of formal social layer.

- Transgressive. It provides a structure of resistance.

The formal support creates substitutive informality in order to continue to operate easily. This ‘safety-valve function’ offers a place where informal traders and dwellers plot out their strategies to destabilise the formal infrastructure.