INTEGRATING CITIES
From segregated city to an articulated one: towards an inclusive Caracas Strategic Urban Plan for the Socio - Territorial integration of Petare
EMU Thesis UPC / TUDelft March - June 2015
Nashira Covarrubia
Petare
Source: Flickr @Julio Cesar Mesa
Colophon Nashira Alejandra Covarrubia Machado Caracas, Venezuela nashiracovarrubia@gmail.com
Mentors: Prof. Miquel Corominas Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya Departament d’Urbanisme i Ordenació del Territori Ir. Daan Zandbelt Delft University of Technology Chair of Metropolitan and Region Design Readers: Prof. Viviana d’Auria KU Leuven Assistant professor in international urbanism Prof. Paola Pellegrini IUAV Venice Dipartimento di Architettura Costruzione Conservazione March - June, 2015
Index _Abstract _Acknowledgment _Introduction.
CHAPTER I
1. The topic. Segregation. What is Socio - Territorial Segregation? Why is it a problem?........... p 10 2. About Socio - Territorial Segregation in Latin America................................................................p 12 3. Caracas as a case of study............................................................................................................p 14 4. Process of social segregation through the history of growth......................................................p 18
CHAPTER II 5.Problem Diagnosis. 5.1 Driving Forces. What are the main causes of the socio - territorial segregation in Caracas?...........................................................................................................................................................p 35 5.2 What are the current effects of the socio - spatial segregation in the city?. How this is translate in Caracas?.......................................................................................................................................p 45 5.3 Catalysis. What is fostering the socio - territorial segregation? What is particular in Caracas?.......................................................................................................................................................... p 71 6. Synthesis of problem Diagnosis.......................................................................................................p 82
CHAPTER III 7. Problem statement...........................................................................................................................p 86 8. Research question............................................................................................................................p 87 9. Methodology....................................................................................................................................p 88 10. Theoretical Framework. Critical review of examples. What other cities have done in the field of socio - territorial segregation?....................................................................................................................p 90 11. Hypothesis .....................................................................................................................................p 106 12. Relevance of investigation..........................................................................................................p 107 12.1 Scientific Relevance 12. 2. Social Relevance
CHAPTER IV 13. Example of study. - Petare - La Urbina. Why this place and not other? ........................................................p 110 14. Analysis. Scarcity ..........................................................................................................................p 112 15. Analysis inaccessibility..................................................................................................................p 120 16. Main Problems..............................................................................................................................p 130 17. Strategies.......................................................................................................................................p 132 18. Strategic Urban Plan for the Socio - Territorial Integration of Petare......................................p 134 18.1 Corridors...........................................................................................................................p 136 18.2 Lines..................................................................................................................................p 138 18.3 Rooms...............................................................................................................................p 144 19. Three Strategic Projects...............................................................................................................p 148 20. Strategic projects. Redoma de Petare - The Front Door........................................................p 150 21. Strategic projects. Petare - El tanque - Transversal Section ...................................................p 156
CHAPTER V 22. Evaluation of the proposal. Overcoming segregation 22.1 Evaluation 3 strategic projects......................................................................................p 164 22.1 Evaluation of strategic urban plan...............................................................................p 166 23. Framework for socio - territorial integration spatial planning and development. Implementation to any slum in Caracas, Venezuela, or the world..........................................................p 168
24. Governance and stakeholders...................................................................................................p 170
25. Final Reflexions..............................................................................................................................p 172
26. Bibliography..................................................................................................................................p 174
Postal of identity of Caracas Source: Ciudad Evolutiva
Abstract The process of socio - territorial segregation has been present and growing in the city of Caracas since its institution and expansion. This differentiation between people and space has generated strong inequalities, banning inhabitants of the same city to reach the same opportunities depending on the geographical location and social status. The manifestation of these inequalities have been transferred to the urban space, and Caracas today can be read as a dual city, between the formal and informal city, slums and buildings, low income and high income population. The confrontation of these two are the physical manifestation of socio - territorial segregation, areas of deprivation, violence and informality. In this sense, the research and design proposal seeks to understand the causes, effects and catalysis of the segregation in Caracas, in order to improve the conditions of these areas through a strategic urban plan of socio - territorial integration. The ultimate intention is to achieve a more integrated and equal society, and to offer better quality of live to everyone.
Key words: socio territorial segregation; inequalities; dual city; informal settlements.
Acknowledgment First I have to thanks to God; to my lovely parents, for making this master and work possible; to my sister, and grandmothers for the faith in me; and to my partner for his faith in my abilities, and to always seek the best of my professional experience. To my tutors, for their guide through all the process, and constant questioning to nurture the project. To the UPC and TU Delft for the opportunity provided to grow as a professional. To a wonderful master group, always compromised, united and for the support in the past two years. And to Venezuela, even from distance and conflict, it generates urban issues of great academic interest and social relevance, creating an ideal field to generate new ideas.
El Avila
Source: Flickr @Alexis
Introduction Behind every episode of expansion, Caracas has been constructed under the segregation of social classes and different and antagonistic urban forms. In this regard, today the city can be read as an aggregation of disjointed parts, which are a spatial expression of social and economic inequality. During the twentieth century Caracas urban structure went through an enormous change, due to the accelerated growth of population. Around 1935 the city counted with 160.000 inhabitants, and by the end of the 80’s it has almost 4,2 million of inhabitants. This change was driven by the discovery of the oil; meaning the shift from an agricultural to an oil-based economy. Thanks to the new income derived from oil revenues, the state spent a large amount of resources in public services, improving the conditions of the city significantly (Myers, 1978). All these made the countryside an even more unattractive place, causing rural exodus. People started emigrating from the agricultural land to the cities, looking for a better life and opportunities. However, by this time the historic urban fabric of Caracas had
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already reached its maximum capacity. Therefore, the growing population was forced to occupy the territory in other areas, with an emphasis in sub-urban ideas. In this sense, the city was promoted by two opposite trends. The first one from the top, under the influence of models such as the “garden city� (for the elites) and modernistic models (social housing). And the second one from the bottom, as an alternative response by those who were excluded from the market. This part of the society began to form different informal zones, spontaneously and self-constructed (slums), that is, outside of formal plans and designs. The main causes of the creation of these informal areas were the economic imbalance, the urbanization lead by the real estate market, and the lack of planning from the state, how were unable to control and provide houses for low income population. This parallel growth created a city of several urban structures, where the historic city, the garden city, the modernist city and the informal city coexist. As a result, nowadays the city consists of a sum of different patterns, and Caracas can be read as a mosaic of different urban logics. Nevertheless, these different urban structures are the manifestation of a bigger problem that the city has been facing: exclusion, inequalities and segregation, with two different societies.
This social gap has been increased by the difference incomes in the population, excluding housing markets, job informality, and poor state action in housing, leaving few options for the structurally poor, who assume segregation as their way of life. This social segregation between inhabitants of low income and high income, has had an enormous influence in the urban structure of the city, shaping where we are living today, producing a city of inequalities, different dynamics, urban discontinuity and peripheries. At present, the urban population in Venezuela accounts for over 90% of its total population, of which more than 60% live in precarious human settlements (Bald贸 and Villanueva, 1994), so we could say that talk of social development in Venezuela is talking about the urban, while speaking of the urban becomes impossible not to refer to the urban popular, to slums. In the work of Soja (1998) about socio spatial dialectics, he states that segregation can be understood as a socio spatial phenomenon, and as a factor in marginality and inequality, with implications in both the people and the city. In this sense, society creates a certain urban structure that reflects its values and power relations. However once the urban structure has been created it influences the life of its inhabitants, either benefiting them or limiting their opportunities, thereby perpetuating
the social structure which created it in the first place (Schoonrad, 2004). Today, this segregation is growing with the city, amplifying the existing structure of inequality, but also duplicating the problems. Caracas is still increasing in exclusion, not only banning parts of society from the formal city, but also disconnecting users from the spaces in the city. Therefore, it is crucial that urban planners and designers dedicate themselves to this problem, in order to articulate different urban patterns that may facilitate and allow an inclusive city and society. This is an opportunity to look for spatial justice and the right to the city, looking for a fair and equitable distribution in space of socially valued resources and the opportunities to use them (Soja 2009). Also it seeks a fair distribution of opportunities, privilege and advantage for everyone, leaving apart the discrimination due to geographical location. Therefore, the aim of this research and design proposal is to improve the physical conditions of the existing informal city, where the ultimate objective is to move towards a permeable structure that creates a greater access to opportunities and promotes social inclusion.
El Avila y Petare
Source: Flickr @Alexis
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CHAPTER I
Socio - Territorial Segregation
1. The Socio - Territorial Segregation. Theoretical
Understanding.
What is Socio - territorial Segregation? Why is it a problem?
2. How is the socio - territorial segregation in Latin America? 3. Caracas the case of study. 4. Process of social segregation through the history of
growth.
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Chapter I Socio - Territorial Segregation
Main HIghway - San Agustin Socio - Territorial Segregation
Source: Flickrs@Julio Cesar Mesa
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1. The Socio - Territorial Segregation.
Theoretical Understanding.
What is Socio - territorial Segregation? Why is it a problem? The study of segregation in society and city is not a new concept, since almost a century ago the urban fields has try to fine the causes, consequences and possible solutions of it. Nowadays the socio - territorial segregation is a concept used to indicate the distinction between different social groups in an urban environment. It also refers to the disparities between groups of inhabitants, usually led by the differences of race, nationalities, education level; and especially by the free market economies and welfare states (Clark, 1986; Murie & Musterd, 1996; Johnston et al., 2001). All these disparities have a manifestation in the city, that
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creates different types of urban spaces related to the social status (Feitosa et al., 2007). This differentiation has been accelerated in recent years, due to the processes of globalization and internationalization, where cities are experiencing enormous changes and transformations (Sassen 1988, 1991). In many cases a society with different social strata can bring diversity and variety to society as well as to the city. Every social segment is engaged in certain tasks, creating a complementary strand of dependency between them. This social differentiation is manifested in several forms in the city, providing diversity and breadth of options for residents. However, when the social differentiation is very noticeable and it is reflects on spatial perspective, it results unequal distribution of population groups across space (Madrazo and Van Kempen, 2012). Other similar terms such as “polarized cities”, “dual cities” (Mollenkopf and Castells, 1991; Marcuse, 2000), “fragmented cities”, ‘partitioned cities’ (Marcuse and Van Kempen, 2002), are all intended to describe the segregated phenomenon in cities.
Chapter I Socio - Territorial Segregation
Socio - territorial segregation can brings a strong and demarcated inequality between people and city, as well as disparities in the opportunities between them. In this sense, social segregation is referred to the strong differentiation between one part of the society and the other, promoting a strong differentiation between groups of people. This social polarization affects the way the places are structured and lived, having two strong consequences in the city: a substantial demarcation in the quality of urban spaces, and the overlap of different modes of live and dynamics, both corresponding to social segregation. These process of territorial segregation of people and place began to express inequality in its various dimensions, denying to the disadvantaged part of the society to the variety of opportunities, spaces and services of the city; as well as process of social inclusion and acceptance. People living in different parts of a city often get unequal access to basic public services (Feitosa et al., 2007), meaning that the two parts of the society do not share the same benefits and opportunities of the city. Living in certain spaces can determinate the good or poor quality of infrastructure, housing, public space, education,
exposure to violence etc. (Bolt et al. 2009). Furthermore, the segregation may limit one’s access to information, resources and chances to contact with other groups. This can lead to intense prejudice and discrimination and incomplete participation in society, such as labor market participation and others like education, politics and culture (Musterd, 2005). The concept of social - territorial inequalities is also related to the accessibility to opportunities that the inhabitants can make, the cultural capital (in relation with level of education) and spatial capital (in relation with the systematic social relations with people on highest social levels) (Secchi 2010).
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Santa Teresa. Rio de Janeiro Brazil.
Source: Jeffrey Yuen
What is Socio - Territorial Segregation?
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2.
How is the socio - territorial segregation in Latin America?
Since the second half of the twentieth century, Latin America cities became more important and with them the configuration of urban space, usually built informally. This does not mean that previously were not informal settlements, on the contrary, these have been the most characteristic form of urban development from pre-colonial times to the present (Research Group processes Urban Habitat, Housing and Informality, 2009: 43). The informal settlements (slums) in Latin America have an urbanization rate of almost 80%, higher than most developed countries (Diana Moreno, Municipality of Medellin 2006). A characteristic of the phenomenon is the rural-urban twist occurred between the 1950s and 1990s, with an accelerated rate that has been described as’ urban explosion “(UN-Habitat, 2012: 18). It is estimated that, by 2015, 22 of the world’s 26 megacities will be in developing countries, and several of them will have populations of 20-30 million (Williams 2004). In addition, according to the United Nations (UN) it is estimated that the population of slums in Latin America will grow from 134 million people in 2005 to 162 million 2020 (Torres, 2009). In general, these areas are linked to the problems of poverty and social exclusion, marked by instability, deteriorating, and exclusion. The great poverty rates in these cities mark a background of lack of opportunities, spatial exclusion, and social exclusion that increase this precarious situation. In spatial terms, the informal city is a creative response to the socioeconomic conditions offered by the contemporary city in developing countries. The pressure on urban land and housing demand have led to unplanned urban development, usually not served by urban basic services such as infrastructure, roads, public space, etc. The clashes between different urban typologies become the physical manifestation of the great differences between low income and high income populationr, where the welfare distribution takes place through spatial devices that have relevant consequences in the social inequality (Secchi 2010),
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Chapter I Socio - Territorial Segregation
Vila Esperanca, Brazil.
Source: Jeffrey Yuen
How is the Socio - Territorial Segregation in Latin America?
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3. Caracas the case of study. For the research and design proposal of this work, the city of Caracas is taken as the study case. In this regard, Caracas is the capital city of Venezuela. It is located in the north central coastal area of the country, and it is situated in a mountain valley, 15 km from the coast of the Caribbean Sea. It is the most populous city of the country, and according to the census of 2011, it has a urban population of 3.275.000 millions, and a metropolitan population of 5.350.000 millions. It has approximately 20 km in its longitudinal dimension and 10 km in its transversal axis. In combination with other sub regions such as Los Valles del Tuy, Guarenas, Guatire, Los teques and San Antonio, Caracas form the Metropolitan Region of Caracas - AMC. During the twentieth century, Caracas urban structure went through an enormous change, due to the accelerated growth of population. Around 1935 the city counted with 160.000 inhabitants, in 1950 with 700.000, and by the end of the 80’s it has almost 4,2 million of inhabitants. This dramatically change was driven by the discovery of oil; changing from an agricultural to an oil-based economy. La Guaira
Caracas
Guarenas - Guatire
San Antonio
Los Teques
Santa Teresa
Charallave
1922 Oil discovery 55.000 inh.
1880 1
14
Cua
92.000 inh.
1920
160.000 inh.
1935
Chapter I Socio - Territorial Segregation
Caracas - Venezuela 15 km from the coast of the Caribbean Sea Urban population 3.275.000 millions Metropolitan polulation 5.350.000 millions
5.350.000 inh.
4.000.000 inh.
First Slums 700.000 inh.
1950 Caracas as a Case of Study
1985
2010
15
50%
75%
Formal city vs. Informal City By: Covarrubia_Nashira
Informal settlements
Population
Formal settlements
50%
Rio Guaire
50%
Land Ocupation
25% 75%
Main Roads
1
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Chapter I Socio - Territorial Segregation
The concept of social - territorial segregation has been present since the institution of the city, when the high - income population decided to grow in a different part of the city in order to have more space and distinguish themselves from others. This differentiation grew with the people and urban structure, and today Caracas is a segregated city. The most clear sign of this is the expression of its urbanity as a divided city, between what we call the “formal city”, with a center, sub center and neighborhoods; and the “informal city” formed by “slums” (called barrios in Venezuela), extensive zones of self - constructed urbanizations, in the periphery of the city. This is evident when more than 50% of the urban population life in slums in the 25% of land, without lawful possession of the land, unstable soils, with missing or deficient services (Cilento, 1996). These areas are characterized by a higher rate of unemployment and poverty; receive worse water service; its people have a lower level of education than other sectors; fewer schools and health centers; mortality and morbidity is higher; and exceeds the homicide rates. This is the evidence of a segregated city, fragmented and denied to the majority of the inhabitants. In order to understand better this process of segregation in the city, it is important to study the process of growth through the history.
1895
1935
1950
196 5
1995
2009
Caracas as a Case of Study
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0 km 5 km 10 km 15 km
1985 P.S Train Main Axes Rio Guaire Topography
1895
By: Covarrubia_Nashira Data: recopilation
First Caracas Map
Source: Juan de Pimentel
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Caracas 1821
Source: JFundacion de Caracas
Chapter I Socio - Territorial Segregation
4. Process of social segregation through the history of growth. With the intention to identify, analyze and react against specific urban features of Caracas disparities, it is compulsory to understand the process of urbanization of the Caracas and the ideals behind the construction of a city that changed from rural to metropolitan scale in a historical period led by confrontation and division. In this regard, the current conditions of the Caracas can be explained through the history of growth, where we can fine segregation of the society and the space in several stages.
1830-1920: Agricultural Society. Rural city. First and initially, the city grew from the historic grid, a reticular structure with a continues growth from this urban grid. The society of this period was mainly rural, with almost no differentiation between the city and countryside (Henry Vicente 2002). The economy of the country was based on agricultural exports, mainly of coffee, sugar cane and cocoa. In the case of Caracas, the agricultural activity was important, however as the capital city and due to its closeness with La Guaira Port, it was a place for international trade, where the goods arrived from the rest of the country in order to be commercialized.
Process of social segregation through the history of growth
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0 km 5 km 10 km 15 km
1934 1985 P.S Train Main Axes Rio Guaire Topography
1935
By: Covarrubia_Nashira Data: recopilation
Plaza Altamira
20
Source: Funda Memoria
Aerial view of Caracas Country Club Source: Funda Memoria
Chapter I Socio - Territorial Segregation
1920 - 1935: The first expansion. First signs of segregation. This situation remained constant up to 1922, when the oil was discovered, changing the social, economical and territorial trends of the whole country. The emerging oil industry began to replace the agriculture industry as the major national economic power. Soon, the principal economic activity of the country was the oil business, since oil revenues outweigh by far the agricultural incomes. This process also generated a change in the society, since new social sectors were introduced, such as “specialized working class” (workers from the field), “suburban citizens”, a new social composition detached from the traditional agriculture landlords, and others (Luna, 2014). Nevertheless, the change of the economic activity and society were not the only massive changes derived from the oil discovery, since the city was about to suffers the most drastic change of its history by the time. The increment of the economic profits were felt all over the country, not always in a positive direction. Cities such as Maracaibo and Maturin changed and improved drastically since they were the areas where the oil principally came from, and many oil companies were based there. Although Caracas was not directly in the oil extraction, there was a big concentration of capital on it, since from here the business was administrated. The rent of this sector allowed the State to spend resources in the improvement of the infrastructure and public services of the city, such as roads, schools, health institutions, etc; with a particular attention in the capital city of Caracas (Myers, 1978). All these improvements in the cities made the countryside an unattractive place causing rural exodus. People started emigrating from the agricultural land to Caracas, looking for a better life conditions and opportunities. In this regard, Caracas had a positive change during this period, improving almost in all sectors. However, the country side suffered from neglect and progressive deterioration, making more attractive to move to developing cities. As a result of the rural exodus, the demography of the city changed, and a process of expansion of the city began. At the beginning it grew from the center, until it reached its maximum capacity and began to saturate and densify. For this reason the high-income inhabitants started a process of differentiation, since they began to establish detached from the center, in a process of suburbanization, with a new urban centers developed beyond the colonial limits (Marco Negron, 2009). These developments were looking for better land, less crowded environment and more comfortable place, with more open space for the elites, and apart from the congestion and population density of the center. At this moment, the agriculture declined drastically as a profitable economic activity, transforming in a obsolete activity in relation with the oil. This situation let a big proportion of land in Caracas underused, that soon was replaced with new activities. For this reason, the suburban expansion grew eastward, based on real estate strategies, marking the starting point of a social - economic and territorial segregation. The “haciendas” were replaced by new streets, squares, and buildings, in order to assume the expansion of the city (Gonzalez Casas, 2001). In this sense, new urbanizations started to appear with a new and innovative design for Caracas culture, since them were designed under the ideas of “Garden City”, never seen before in the country. In late twenties, residential districts such as Caracas Country Club, Campo Claro and Altamira stared to developed as one of the first suburban extension of the city. This new urban structure constituted the first steps in the urban transformation and social segregation of Caracas, since the high income people started to be apart from the rest of the city and to construct their own environment, in commodity enclaves with gardens and private clubs, which cannot be accessed by outsiders, very different from the life of the historical center.
Process of social segregation through the history of growth
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0 km 5 km 10 km 15 km
1950 1934 1985 P.S Rio Guaire Main Roads Topography
1950
By: Covarrubia_Nashira Data: recopilation
Torres del Silencio 1950
22
Source: AF Venezuela
Aerial view of Caracas 1950
Source: AF Venezuela
Chapter I Socio - Territorial Segregation
1936-1950: Modernity Becoming a city of inequalities The capital investment by the state was a strategy not only to improve the physical and living conditions in the Caracas, but also to generate working places needed for the population. In addition, a large investments were made in infrastructure, following national plan of integration. However, at the same time this investment generated a speculation in the land prices, due to the lack of control by the State on the suburbanization process explained before. The expansion of the city was driven by a market logic, led by the real estate market, where the national state was not involved, nor to regulate prices or growth form. There were not regulatory mechanisms for promoters, who continued to urbanized in a urban sprawl form (Luna, 2014). This suburbanization process was characterized, not only by its unique structure of “garden city” ideas, but also by their high prices and autonomy, with their own urban structure very dissimilar to the center one. While the city center was a very pedestrian and structured place, the suburban developments were based on the use of the car, starting a new logic of organization of the city. By the end of the thirties, this approach of building the city led the process of growth by the time, dispersing along the valley these type of urbanizations. They represented a new independent center, detached from the original mobility infrastructure. However by the same time, the State made an effort to control and regulated the growth of Caracas, with two master plans with an important debate about how the city should evolve to. The first was developed in 1936, in a process of modernization of the city under the ideas of the Modern Movement, where the continuity of the urban fabric was the main pattern of growth. In parallel to the sub-urbanizations still growing in the eats, the plan searched for continuity in the expansion from the city center in two different scales. First in 1941 the local scale was developed, and Carlos Raul Villanueva design the urbanization “El Silencio”, transforming a piece of the center into a social housing enclave. This project took in consideration the existing urban and social structure, since it was highlighted the importance of the mix uses, and the traditional street as a generator of urban life, in combination of traditional elements with modern ideals. And second, in the macro scale the “Rotival Plan” was design by a French urban planner, Maurice Rotival, who proposed a monumental avenue that traced the growth from the center towards the east, in a process of articulation of the two models. The plan was not entirely built, though the main avenue and building were constructed. The “Avenida Bolivar” was the main axis of the plan, going from the center in direction to the eat, whose starting point is the “El Centro Simon Bolivar”(1950). This artifact represented “the truly visual and urban modernity” (Lasala 2002), a masterpiece of the modern movement in the city by the time. In parallel to the construction of this plan, many issues emerged due to the congestion produced by the use of the private automobiles. In the search of expert advice in this field, Robert Moses went to Venezuela on 1948, to make recommendations in the public transportation system. Nevertheless, he ended doing more than a recommendation, and proposed a plan of a road hierarchy system to relieve the traffic, and a plan of new structure of highways, three express ways, specially between Caracas and the trade port of La Guaira. Even though the Rotival Plan and Moses plan where design around the same period, they were not abruptly different, since both had the same basic lines. However, Moses plan was more concern by the car issues, replacing parks and squares by boulevards and squares (Gonzales Casas, 2001). The monumentality of the avenue was replaced by hierarchical functionalism of the motorway, and the urban continuity by the suburban connectivity (Luna, 2014).
Process of social segregation through the history of growth
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0 km 5 km 15 km
10 km
Slums 1965 1950 1934 1985 P.S Rio Guaire Main Roads Topography
1965
Bello Monte 1960
24
Source: Unknow
El Silencio 1960. First Slums Source: Unknow
Chapter I Socio - Territorial Segregation
1950-1959: Caracas between Metropolis and Slums. Confrontation of extremes. The next period of Caracas represent the metropolitanization of the city in two modes. On one hand it is the time of mass culture, infrastructure networks and mass construction, a reference of prosperity nationally and internationally. And on the other hand, because it represent the biggest expansion of the city, receiving immigrants from Europe and the biggest rural-to-urban migration. This two facts, and specially the sudden growth transformed Caracas into an “instant metropolis (Lorenzo Casas 2001). Due to this massive expansion, in 1951 the second master plan was developed, suggesting a model based in motorways, that by the time had became a feature of the spatial character of Caracas. This characteristic gave a relative condition of connectivity by a model of flows and mobility that were exclusively for cars, de-linked for pedestrians (Roberto Puccheti 2004). This car based urban structure was supported by a new typologies and functions, such as shopping centers, supermarkets, and large commercial stores, working as the main urban attractors, icons of the economic and cultural transformations (Lorenzo Casas 2001). Around 1955 the limits of the city started to change, and due to the pressure on the land, the growth started to be directed to the hilly areas of the south. However, the immigrants from the countryside continued arriving, pressing the developing of a city that could not respond effectively. By this time, some public project were designed in order to respond to a social need, with some housing project designed such as urbanization “2 de Diciembre” (today known as “23 de Enero”), by Carlos Raul Villanueva. The project, based on Le Corbusier’s Unite d Habitation, contains 55.000 inhabitants and 8.206 dwellings, built in three phases between 1955 and 1957. However, these modernistic developments became ghettos, for the existences of social and cultural difficulties and the contribution to social segregation. This segregation was evidenced by the immediate “informalization” of the “modern spaces”. The confrontation between planned and un-planned structures, represented the manifestation of contradictions between autocratic planned structures and the social and cultural reception (Simone Rotts). Despite these public responses, the growth rate was faster than those acts, forcing the new inhabitants to occupy illegally the vacant land of the mountains to construct their own places. Based on self construction houses, this process of informal urbanization transformed the process of urbanization and urban structure, since these areas were detached from the urban continuity, with any services, and it has a concentration of poverty. A process of inequality and disparities began. The city was about to face the results of a confrontation of extremes; extreme top-down developments driven by public projects and real estate speculation and extreme bottom-up developments through spontaneous urbanization by those left in the margins of planning (Luna 2014). In the beginning of the fifties Caracas counted 700.000 inhabitants, and by the end of this period it had already reached a new scale, where it was recognized for the first time the existence of the metropolitan area as an entity (Marco Negron 2009).
Process of social segregation through the history of growth
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0 km 5 km 15 km
10 km
Slums 1994 1965 1950 1934 1985 P.S Rio Guaire Main Roads Topography
1995
By: Covarrubia_Nashira Data: recopilation
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Av. Romulo Gallegos. Slums in the end Source: Caracas en Retrospectiva
Boulevard de Sabana Grande 1970
Source: Guia de Caracas
Chapter I Socio - Territorial Segregation
1960-1983: The city of progress and socio - territorial segregation This period of Caracas was characterized by the drastic demographic change, since it went from one million inhabitants in the mid-fifties, to more than a 3 millions in the beginning of 80s. This change was driven by the increase in oil prices, allowing high levels of economic growth in the beginning of the 60s, completely renouncing to agricultural export. Thanks to that, a gave of prosperity over went into Caracas, boosting the commercial expansion and the construction boom all over the city. In terms of commerce, the center had been the historical place for it, nevertheless with the era of massive commerce, this activity was extended to new developments in the east and west, reinforcing the structure based on different centralities distant from each other. The city started to move faster than ever, in terms of economy, society and physical movements, becoming a city of flows and not of objects (Lorenzo Casas, 2001). In terms of the construction boom, this city of flows was manifested in the urban structure, with the construction of more highways. This strategy adopted for the expansion of the city was always based on car infrastructure, leaving the pedestrian mobility and the promotion of the public space aside without much investment. In addition, the boom in the construction sector was evident in private promotion of horizontal property, transforming Caracas from a city of houses and haciendas, to a city of apartments buildings. As happened earlier in the decade of the 30s and 40s, the construction was largely unregulated by the state, and the densification of Caracas was lead by the construction market. This situation provoked the creation of institutions in order to promote urban and territorial plans in order to prevent and guide the uncontrollable expansion. These plans tried to designate some protected natural areas, the promotion of satellite cities, the redistribution of activities, and the creation of a green belt to give a framework for the metropolis (Luna, 2014). The Avila and the Protected Zone of the Metropolitan Area gave a limit to the city, drawing a thick ring of open space that surrounded the metropolitan area. In addition, new cities beyond these limits where promoted by the state, as dormitory town to promote the growth outside the chaos. In parallel to this dynamic, un-planned urbanization kept occupying progressively in vacant land. By the beginning of the 80s, this spontaneous urbanizations had appropriated all the natural and non-protected areas inside and in the periphery of the city. Neither the government nor the housing market were able to answer the impoverished society, so the expansion of slums were imminent and uncontrolled. In this moment the socio - territorial segregation was more evident than ever: spatial conflicts between “urbanizations� are evident, especially because the informal settlements are already inside the urban fabric. Their previous conditions of periphery not longer exist, since the formal city grew enough to touch the slums. They are now inside the urban fabric, in the borders between formal urbanizations, limited just by topography and highways, working as walls with no dialogue between. The inhabitants were living, at the same time, the dream of progress and metropolis, confronted with highways and slums.
Process of social segregation through the history of growth
27
0 km 5 km 15 km
10 km
Slums 2014 1994 1965 1950 1934 1985 P.S Rio Guaire Main Roads Topography
2009
By: Covarrubia_Nashira Data: recopilation
La Vega
28
Souce: Flikrs@Numa Roades
Chapter I Socio - Territorial Segregation
1983-2009: Second Stage of segregation. By the beginning of this period the city had 3 million inhabitants, demanding public investments in culture, entertainment and public mobility. In this regard, the “Teresa Carreño” theater was inaugurated in 1983, as well as the first phase the “Metro de Caracas”. This last operation was an act of urban planning, in order to integrate the metropolis with connection and social interaction through a modern system of underground public transport, characterized by the quality of the service and the spatial attributes of the stations (Luna, 2011). This strategy was also taken as an important agent for urban renewal in some key locations of the city, as an opportunity for creation of new public spaces, such as the commercial boulevard “Calle Real de Sabana Grande” (Marco Negro, 2009). However, the decades of the 80s onwards represents a stage of slowing economy, developing models which come into crisis, and a era of corruption. In February 1983 the “Black Friday” knocked the economy, and as a consequence there was a abandonment of public policies and urban plans on hands of the state. This situation left back the urbanization in the hands of the private sector, who developed again large dense projects detached from the city structure of services, public space and transport networks with negative results for urban development. This can be consider a second stage of suburbanization, where the expansion of the 30s are now part of the central city, and new projects such as “Juan Pablo II” insist on a densification of the suburb isolated areas detached from the urban daily life (Enrique Larrañaga, 2002). By this time nothing had been done in the slums, where the population had reached 1 million but completely ignored. Also the economic crisis further impoverished to this part of society, making more drastic and polarized the difference. The mixed of these situations not only reinforces the original fragmented physical structure of the city, but also promotes exclusion, segregation and the increase of inequalities on an urban environment of anguish, congestion and social tension (Luna, 2011). In addition, in this period the cities all around the country experimented a change due to a natural disaster. In December 1999 natural disaster occurred in Venezuela, when landslides and flooding took place along the Caribbean coast, especially in the Vargas state, next to Caracas. Thousands of people were displaced, and a process of reconstruction of towns had to take place. However, this process was approached from segregation, since a number of “new cities” were built disconnected from the urban fabric, mono functional, without adequate public facilities, and without any link with the places of origin. Again a process of sub urbanization took place, breaking more and more the city.
Process of social segregation through the history of growth
29
Historical Center
Original Image: Ministery of Habitat
Tiuna El Fuerte Construction Source: Ministery of Habitat
30
Chapter I Socio - Territorial Segregation
2010 – 2015: Social Cities The last stage of growth of Caracas has been characterized by a enormous intervention of the State in relation of social housing. In 2010 several areas of Venezuela were affected by a heavy rain phenomenon known as “La Niña”, where more than 90.000 people were displaced, damaged infrastructure, fully isolated villages and urban areas. This time the national government decided to take this as an excuse to work on the problem of social housing deficit of the city, accumulated for more than 10 year. In this sense, a census was released to know the real deficit and worked on that, revealing that the country needed 3 million housing units to cover all people living in informal settlements. In the beginning of 2011 the government announced the construction of 3 million houses between 2011 and 2019. The Great Mision Housing Venezuela (GMVV) was released as an act of urban planning, where the state was the controller of the whole process, from the design and construction up to the economic investment of the completely operation. However, the plan does not seem to follow a clear global strategy for urban growth that involves the city as a whole, but a isolated projects promoted in different ways. Projects such as “Ciudad Tiuna” and “Caribia Socialist city”, are being built in the environs of Caracas, on isolated available land which does not belong to a collective memory, close to a national infrastructure, highway or road, but completely unlinked with existing urban fabrics. In addition the plan (or no plan) is constructing social housing buildings all over the city, detached from existing urban structures and in any empty plot they can expropriate. It is evident that there is an enormous lack of planning in the interventions, based on random expropriation of land promoted directly by the presidency of the republic, without prior consideration to the owners and without the participation of local authorities. The potential behind these projects could transform Caracas in a radical improvement of the existing city. However, it has produced several damages in the existing city, and even in the society. This project is also part of the next chapter, being a catalysis in the process of socio - territorial segregation, in the point 5.3.3 Planning as a political tool.
Process of social segregation through the history of growth
31
CHAPTER II Problem Diagnosis
5. Problem Diagnosis In order to find possible solutions to the segregation in Caracas, it seems very relevant to understanding why and how exclusion and inequality was expanded and reflected in the city. These processes will make us reflect in how the city has been built, and the processes that are important to avoid in order to go towards an inclusive city. In this sense, first it has been studied what were the driving forces or main causes os segregation in Caracas; second a spatial diagnosis of the current effects of the socio - spatial segregation in the city, and how these problems have been translate in the place; and third, the main accelerators, what is fostering these issues.
5.1 Driving forces. What are the main causes of the socio - territorial segregation in Caracas? Economic Imbalance, Urbanization lead by the real State Market and Lack of planning.
5.2 Diagnosis. What are the current effects of the socio - spatial segregation in the city? How this is translate in Caracas?
Inequalities, Different Dynamics, Urban Discontinuity and Peripheries
5.3 Catalysis. What is fostering the socio - territorial segregation?
Institutional Fragmentation, Fear, Planning as a political tool and Globalization
6. Synthesis of Problem Diagnostic 32
Chapter II Problem Diagnosis
Caracas City Center. Supperposition of realities Souce: @Donaldo Barros
Problem Diagnosis
33
Source of all pictures: Caracas en Retrospectiva
34
Chapter II Problem Diagnosis
5.1 Driving forces. What are the main causes of the socio territorial segregation in Caracas?
5.1.1 The economic imbalances As it was explained before, the discovery of oil in 1922 allowed the economy to grow rapidly thanks to the oil exportation. The large revenue of this industry made Venezuela’s economy changed, from agricultural producer to oil exportation. Thanks to the income brought export of oil, the state spent much of the public resource to the construction of infrastructure and public services in cities and oil fields. This made the countryside an unattractive place, causing a rural exodus, where rural population migrated to urban areas to find better living conditions in large cities. This caused profound changes in the Venezuelan population, sharply accelerating its transition from a rural to an urban society. The new inhabitants of the city came mainly from the agriculture sector, with no formal education since jobs were in the primary production of food, and no more than that. In general, they did not know how to write or read, thus the jobs that they could found in the city were low-skill labors, such as in construction sector, as housewives, housekeeper, helpers, in the cleaning sector, etc. This differentiation between the educational level, working skills, and positions, from the immigrants and people in the city made the first social distinction. This was reflected in the gap salary, since a person working in the oil industry or service was receiving much more incomes that a person in the construction sector or other in this branch. However, the issues was not just the salary gap, but that the salaries of low-skilled jobs were not enough to cover the basics needs of a family (España, Luis 1997). A basic salary was below the basic services needed for a family, such as rent, food, transportation, etc, forcing to the immigrants to search for other alternatives to keep living. Since this process of economic imbalance of salaries began around 1920 and up to 1050s’, it did not have severe consequences in the city. However around 1960s’ the city started to feel the negative consequence of the imbalance, since slums began to appear as a spontaneous response to have a house, a roof and a place to be. The response to this situation was the urbanization by self construction of houses, and the appearance of the informal economic sector, tight to poverty (Rosenbluth 1994). In addition, wealth and oil revenues were only expended to facilitate the life of the middle - upper social sector, since the money was mainly expended in infrastructure and facilities for this sector and not for the needs of the poor sector. Economic recourses were not distributed fairly. This situation generated a upper - middle class with great potential to purchase a great variety of housing, cars, travel, etc., and an impoverished society with a salary that was not even enough for the minimum requirement of a family. Driving Forces
35
The situation of several macroeconomic imbalances experienced by the Venezuelan economy in the last two decades, has led various governments to the implementation of structural adjustment programs. In some cases, these adjustments were implemented with political intentions to win votes. However, they end up deepening inequalities in the distribution of income, huge rates of inflation and the levels of unemployment were maintained or increased, showing the ineffectiveness of these adjustment programs (Padron 1999). The large differences in salaries and the unequal distribution of wealth has been dragged from those days up to these days in Venezuela, where nowadays the gap between salaries is abrupt. In the chart of the right, can be seen that a family needs around 3.5 a minimum salary to afford the basic food basket. In addition can be seen that the gap between minimum salary and the average salary of a engineer with 15 years of experience is around 7 times more. And if we take the minimum salary and the average of a CEO, we see that this differentiation reach up to 90 times more. In this analysis, we can see two problems: first that the salary difference represent a problem in the disparities of things that a part of the society can achieve; and second that the minimum salary established is totally disproportionate in relation to the basic needs of a family. This economic imbalance and disparities of salary leads to the imbalance distribution of different social groups living in different housing areas according to their economic position. Those with higher income can choose from a diversity of places and types, usually commodity enclaves with higher quality in the environment; and those low-paid workers who cannot afford better housing, have no choice but live in slums and degrading work-unit compounds.
Plastics
Source: R.G Ersje
36
/ glasses /
minimum salary
Source: Maria Sandoval
Chapter II Problem Diagnosis
90 times more
For drawing reason this chart is not in proportion with the value of its measue
FOOD
RENT
OTHERS
7 times more
Price Basic Food Basket 20.000 bs. February 2015 Data: CENDA
Average Housing Rent
10.000 bs. February 2015
Minimum Salary
5.660 bs/month February 2015 Data: INE
Average salary of house a cleaning lady
13.000 bs/month April 2015 Data: Interviews
Average salary of a engineer with 5 years of experience
Average salary of a engineer with 15 years of experience
Data: CIV
Data: CIV
27.000 bs/month January 2015
40.000 bs/month January 2015
Average salary of CEO 510.000 bs/month January 2015 Data: Interview
By: Covarrubia_Nashira Data: recopilation
Data: Interpretation of INE
Driving Forces
37
Urbanization of inofrmal settlementsFirst Slums Source: Juan Dominguez
38
Urbanizaion of formal city Source: Juan Dominguez
Chapter II Problem Diagnosis
5.1.2 Urbanization lead by the real estate market. The urbanization process in Venezuela is the result of an oil rentier model that produced a distortion in the society, economy and in the contemporary urban space (Leon, 1990). In the process of expansion of Caracas, real estate development was permissible only from the logic of the land market. In this regard, housing production was lead by a promoting agent where only the sale or rental was allowed, seeking the greatest possible profits. This constituted to the inability from a large part of the population to access a house, since, as explained previously, they did not have the economic resources fue to their salaries. As a result, social inequalities in urban space are a reflection of inequality in the ownership and management of the means of production. The market for urban land acted as a major factor in this process of segregation, as only the social sectors with greater resources had access to housing with good locations with the necessary services to ensure a good level of life. The real estate market was devoted almost exclusively to develop for the middle high class, as it was the sector which could achieve greater economic benefits. In this regard from 1935 developments were built, such as the Country Club and Altamira with the idea of “garden city�, with more space for the upper classes. This process of expansion according to the profits of the real state market left a important part of the society out of the market, as they could not afford what was offer, constructing the slums as a respond to the lack of attention to them. Through the pass of the years, up to nowadays, a gigantic deficit of affordable housing was generated, creating an urban system of two cities, with its dramatic imprint of a formal and an informal city, the city of excluded and marginalized, lacking public spaces, and the structure and urban form is a result of the struggle of social classes existing in the country.
Driving Forces
39
5.1.3 Lack of planning and policies. Caracas has shown a historical process of urban and social segregation, with an accelerated expansion of slums areas from late 50. In this regard, the third driving force of the socio - territorial segregation has been the lack of public policies as a respond from the state to the housing demand of the popular sectors. When we analyze and study all plans that were developed in Caracas from 1920 ‘till the 1990s (when the slums developed and expanded the most) , we see that urbanism plans were generally focused on mobility systems and in the general function of the city, where any of them pointed out the problems of the informal settlements. The biggest concern of planning in Caracas has been how to connect the city in a city scale by road systems, as well as providing services for the formal expansion of the city (water supply, sewerage, etc). Moreover, these maps reveal that they regulated the land uses, as well as draw again and again the existing situation. There can be seen that the plans did not concerned for the informal areas, neither regulated the expansion of them. When slums appear were ignored from the urban form, since no spatial plans were done to regulate their growth or form, or to improve their conditions. Slums were ignored by the state, since interventions in these places was minimal, despite they knew that this was their competence (Antillano, 2005).
1936. Growth of town then.
In addition to the poor planning in the urbanism plans for the whole city, there were also a lack of affordable housing projects in order to prevent the expansion of slums. During the 50s’ and up to 80s’, some of the governments of turn tried to improve these living conditions of the poor part of the society with social housing developments, since there was a big discontent of the inhabitants with the government, and because the slums areas were affecting the normal function of the city (safety, public space, traffic, etc). In this regard, plans as “Plan de vivienda” Government of Pérez Jiménez, and “Cerro Piloto” were developed (Meza 2008), with the construction of large housing complexes in popular areas and super-blocks, with apartments for middle and lower classes of Caracas. These projects were developed with ideas of the Modern Movement, such as “Urbanizacion 23 de Enero” and “Parque Central “, among others. However, these attempts were not enough for the speed of growth of the population, and despite giving home to a considerable part of the population, the majority was still lacking. In addition, the lack of planning in the contact of them have led to a physical segmentation of Caracas in many points, and even thought there were plans to try to control the growing , to solve the continuity of the city, and to articulate the systems (Rotival Plan and Moses Plan), they were never implemented in their totality, leaving a city of many fragments.
1965. Plan Growth Regulator Maps source: Alcaldia Metropilitana de Caracas
40
Chapter II Problem Diagnosis
Driving Forces
1935. Master plan, current uses.
1950. Plan Growth Regulator
1995. Mobility System. Metro Lines
2010. Caracas 2020. Mobility System
41
Construction of Parque Central office Towers Source: Caracas Vive
Constrcution of Parque Central Social Housing Complex Source: Venezuela en Retrospectiva
42
23 de Enero Social Housing Project Source: Diario Tal Cual
Chapter II Problem Diagnosis
Due to the silence of the estate in this matter, people moved to underserved areas with any infrastructure, located outside the urban neighborhoods where the land was available (Cilento, 1996). Due to the topographic condition of Caracas, growth has always been directed at the center and along the valley. This condition has been consolidated due to the fact that in the central part of the valley and along the east-west axis, the most desirable and flat part of the land is located, bordered by the mountains where construction is more difficult and tedious. In this sense, the abandoned society used the hills and mountainous areas where the topography was high enough to prevent build them. From this there can be seen that all the slums areas in Caracas are located in hills, where they built subject to all kinds of risks. These areas are characterized by poor planning and land management, individual appropriation of public space and insufficient government investment. These illegal and unplanned developments were the product of illegal sale of land and buildings by successive selfconstruction. Besides the phenomenon of invasion, result, usually illegitimate occupation of land by a group of low socioeconomic status without the resources to access housing or batch.
Topography of Caracas and Slums Location
Driving Forces
43
Informal settlements Formal settlements 0 km 5 km By: Covarrubia_Nashira Data: Alcaldia Metropolitana
Figure 1
Public Spaces Metropolitan Public Spaces Parks and Squers
Educational Institutions Kindergarden Schools Universities
Proposal of Municipality Public Space
0 km 5 km By: Covarrubia_Nashira Data: Alcaldia Metropolitana
Figure 2
44
Chapter II Problem Diagnosis
5.2 Diagnosis. What are the current effects of the socio - spatial segregation in the city? How this is translate in Caracas?
In order to understand in what way socio - territorial segregation has influenced and shaped the city, a diagnosis of the spatial features of the city was made. In this way, this chapter seeks to study the function and characteristics of Caracas derived from the segregation. Moreover, to understand the dynamics and structures of the formal and informal city. In this sense, 4 main problems were detected derived from the segregation: inequality, different dynamics, urban discontinuity, and the peripheries. These problems are considered as the principal barriers in the social and spatial integration.
5.2.1 Inequality: Offer, quantity and quality, and housing typologies. When analyzing facilities and services of the city, and the way they are structured, it is clear that there are enormous disparities and inequalities between one fragment of the city and the other. The disparities between social and spatial sectors in Caracas are one of the evidences of the segregation at all levels. This can be understood through an analysis of the whole city in terms of the offer, quantity and quality of: public spaces, commerce and services, educational institutions and health centers, culture and social services; and housing typologies between different areas of the city. These analysis are based on data registered and provided by the Alcaldía Metropolitana, Alcaldía de Sucre; moreover, are based on personal interviews, personal experiences and field trip to the city of Caracas.
1_PUBLIC SPACE (Figure 2) In this analysis can be clearly seen the concentration of formal and constituted public spaces and green areas in the center area of the city, especially along the two transversal axis, where the majority of the formal city population is located (Figure 1). In the same way, it can be observed that within slums there are not many recreational and public spaces. Understanding that the public space is a fundamental area in the development and leisure of the inhabitants (Borja and Muxí 2000), we see big inequalities between areas in the city. However, the public space is not conformed only by formal spaces such as parks and squares, but also by the space on the streets, which is the public spaces of major exchange and dynamics in the city (Borja and Muxí 2000). Nevertheless, this space is also very different in quality and quantity from one city to another. By analyzing 3 fragments of the formal city and 3 of the informal city (Figure 3), we see that the first 3 have usually between 30% to 50% more street area than the 3 fragments of the informal city, reducing the dynamic and movements within slums. In addition, in the example of Centro Sur, Santa Fe and Sebucán, the sidewalks typically range between 6 to 3 meters wide and the street space between 6 to 10 meters; while in the examples of Antimano, Catia and Petare, the sidewalks are between 0.60 to 1 meter, and the street space between 3 to 6 meters, proving a enormous difference in the amount of street space and section. We also can observe by a photographic comparison between formal and informal city (Pictures from 1 to 6), that the streets in the first 3 are wider, formalized with sidewalks, commercial stores in various cases, and maintained. In contrast, in the informal city pictures these spaces are very narrow, improvised, highly dynamic but reduced in quantity and quality, though it is a place very appreciated for being the only free space.
Inequality
45
0km 0,5km
Finally, from these analysis we can see that the urban tissues of each area are very different. The formal city has a structured urban tissue, reticular, and often with a linear design or network, characterized by a road axis with many connections. This fact makes much easier and accessible to go into the constituted city, since its structure favors the access into the interior through a layout of streets of regular distribution. Meanwhile, slums have an organic structure as a result of a progressive invasion without a particular order, in general with one main and structuring road with lot of branches in order to access the houses. This morphology of the urban structure causes that the mobility and accessibility to the interior of these areas is much more tedious and difficult, since the lack of regularity causes that in many cases there is a unique way to get to the places. It’s observed that both areas have different urban structures, thus the overall structure of the city is fragmented according to each area. Furthermore, it is understood that the difference in the structures supposes an inequality in accessibility and the way to move within each area.
Formal City Structure Formal City Structure
2km
1,5km
1km
Figure 3
46
Chapter II Problem Diagnosis
10% Santa Fe Sebucan
17,2%
27,5%
7,8%
10%
City Center
27,5%
Petare Antimano Catia
Percentage of street space of each piece in relation to the total of these fragments
(1) Francisco de Miranda Av.
(2) Av. Bolivar
(3) El Silencio
(4) Slum street
(4) Slum street
(5) Slum street
Inequality
47
(6)
Food Commerces
Land Uses
Shopping Centers
Unifamiliar
Mini market
Multifamiliar
Super Market
Unifamiliar Slum
Barery Restaurants and others
Commerce
0 km 5 km By: Covarrubia_Nashira Data: Alcaldia Metropolitana
Figure 4
(7)
Industrial Education Militar Uses Public Spaces
(6)
Land Uses Unifamiliar
(4)
Multifamiliar Unifamiliar Slum Commerce Industrial Education Militar Uses
(4)
Public Spaces
0 km 5 km By: Covarrubia_Nashira Data: Alcaldia Metropolitana
Figure 5
48 (4)
2_COMMERCE AND USES (Figure 4 and 5) This map shows the differences commercial areas and services, and land uses in both parts of the city. The formal one is characterized by an abundance of supermarkets and shopping centers, being the main commercial units with the biggest variety of products and prices. These tend to be concentrated on different commercial avenues and areas of agglomeration of offices and shops, such as the Francisco de Miranda Avenue, Las Mercedes, Bolivar Avenue, the historic center, El Rosal, among others. In contrast, we see that within slums there is a lack of formal commerce, and the trade is associated to the informality and spontaneous trade, not registered, with no regularized price and often illegally. In slum, the commerce is not formalized nor organized, and people often have their own shops inside their homes, where they sell and provide services to the surrounding community, as well as informal markets in the streets and improvised peddlers. Inside these structures there are informal markets providing low-end products for residents; and small stores with over-price products, since it that’s what they have available. The majority of them are temporally set up along main pedestrian routes, companied by poor spatial quality. The economy of the informal city depends largely on activities in public spaces, such as street vendors, street markets, informal transportation, among others. “Poverty is a state of deprivation of welfare, not only physical (food consumption, housing, education, health ...) but also referenced in other areas of life: personal insecurity and property; vulnerability; social and political exclusion, among other factors “(López Méndez Núñez and Brown, 2007: 39). Recently, the government implemented a subsidized trading system so that low-income people could purchase basic goods suited to their economic possibilities: PDVAL, Bicentenario market and Mercal market. However, these commercial establishments are located mainly the center of the city, away from the slums; or within the slums but rather informal, rudimentary and unstructured; or formal establishments of very low quality within the slums. In all cases, these establishments are scarce and are not capable to supply 50% of the needs of the population, therefore, the informal, improvised and unstructured economy continues to be the main commercial dynamics. Moreover, in the map of use (Figure 5) we see that the longitudinal axis of the city is characterized by a mix of uses with large areas of commerce, housing and services. However, slums and some areas of formal city in the southeast, are characterized for being mono-functional residential areas, where is necessary the forced mobilization to acquire other goods and services. This does not represent a big problem for the people in the formal areas, since the majority have private cars to access to the center of the city. Nevertheless, this represent a big problem for low-income population, since the mobility from slums to the center of the city is poor (explained in the effect of peripheries). In the photographic comparison, it is also observed that the spatial quality of commercial spaces of both cities represents clear inequalities, where the markets of the formal city are structured, clean and with space, while the others are informal, dirty, on the streets without healthy conditions and measures. In addition, the low-income population suffer from the lack and variety of goods that can be accessed, since they are often limited of what is in the informal businesses. Also, in many cases the price of basic products is higher in the slums than in supermarkets, since getting goods to the center of the slums has a higher cost than to the center of the city; and the access to goods in the formal city involves much more effort because it involves personal transportation of large distances in order to purchase goods.
Inequality
49
(8)
Educational Institutions Kindergarden Schools Universities
0 km 5 km By: Covarrubia_Nashira Data: Alcaldia Metropolitana
Health Centers
(9)
Private Health Centers Public Health Centers Public Health Ambulatory
(10)
Figure 6
(11)
Health Centers
Road Hierarchy
Private Health Centers Public Health Centers Public Health Ambulatory
(12)
0 km 5 km By: Covarrubia_Nashira Data: Alcaldia Metropolitana
Figure 7
50 (13)
EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIONS AND HEALTH CENTER (Figure 6 and 7): (14)
(15)
(16)
(17)
In these analysis, private and public institutions of different levels of education and health were studied in order to measure the spatial characteristics of each. In this sense, the residents of the formal city often go to private institutions in both cases, as these tend to have better quality and are less saturated. This is evident when we analyzed the density of educational and health institutions, that there are not many basic educational institutions and ambulatories inside slums. From this can be seen that the majority of both institutions are located in the central part of the city, with a especially emphasis in the center, where the Universidad Central de Venezuela is located. The universities, professional institutions and hospitals are all located at the center, making them not that accessible from slums. In addition, by comparison can also see that in the slums areas the quality of these institutions are very different. In the case of the education, the spaces that kids have to play is very different as well. In general this is because middle class residents go to private kindergarten’s and schools since the level of education is better, and people from slums are condemned to public schools where the level of education is lower. However, in the university levels, both of the inhabitants tent to go to public universities. Nevertheless, by the point when kids have to go to universities, kids from private schools have better chances to be admitted. This represent a big disparity and inequality since they don’t have the same opportunities. In some slums there are no schools, in some of them there a few, and there are any professional institution nearby. One of the principal reasons why these people cannot reach to a better jobs and positions in their working places is the lack of formal education, since due to their poor conditions, they have to abandon the school before completing even high school. In general, residents of the informal areas count with a lower level of education, lower than from other sectors, in addition to the highest mortality and morbidity index (Antillano 2005).
(16)
51 (18)
(19)
Community Services Firefighters and Police
(20)
Nursing homes and home help Other services
0 km 5 km By: Covarrubia_Nashira Data: Alcaldia Metropolitana
Figure 8
(21)
(22) Culture Churches Municipalities Libraries Art Centers Museums
(23)
Theaters
0 km 5 km By: Covarrubia_Nashira Data: Alcaldia Metropolitana
Figure 9
52
Chapter II Problem Diagnosis
(24)
3_CULTURE AND SERVICES (Figure 8 and 9) Finally, with regard to cultural infrastructure and community services, there can be seen that as in previous cases, there is important concentration of these infrastructures in the historical city center. In this sense in this area are the major theaters of all city, including the Teresa Carreno Theater (Picture 19 ), the National Theater of Venezuela, and the Ateneo de Caracas; museums such as the Kinds Museum (Picture 20), Fine Arts Museum, Science Museum etc; besides the largest public libraries (Picture 21, art centers, and municipal homes. It can be seen that within all the informal settlements, the only and mostly elements are religious centers, internally being devoid of any other cultural facilities. Likewise slums are devoid of variety of community services, since shows that apart from police stations, no other variety within these areas (Picture 22, 23 and 24)
Inequality
53
4_HOUSING TYPOLOGIES The inequality between the cities is also evident in the differentiation of the housing types, since there are 3 very different types coexisting inside the city and showing a big gap between social groups. Low-income people lives in “ranchos� which are the self-constructed units of the slums. These usually start as one floor houses, that with the past of the time, and joined to family growth and lack of economic opportunities, they grow in height up to 4 floors. Furthermore, it became clear the existence of various problems and housing trends according to the diagnosed sector. In general, as the housing occupation penetrated and invaded the natural ecosystems, it was present the deterioration of the physical conditions of housing, associated with a state of precarious of the direct environment, unsafe and uninhabitable issues. In addition, problems associated with low levels of housing standards and shortage, which are reflected in the trends of overcrowding, housing presence in high-risk areas of construction no conventional and inadequate, housing construction in poor spatial and structural conditions, poor sanitation of the zone and unpopulated areas, enabling zones or areas unsuitable for construction building,also the fraudulent connection to public utilities services. On the formal side of the city people usually lives in apartment blocks, tall housing buildings. And the third typology are the houses with gardens and spaces. This differentiation brings diversity to the city, but also is a manifestation of the segregation, since the differentiation between typologies is enormous.
Source: Flickr@Alejandro El Tecnorra
Source: Flickr@Rogers Alzualde
54
Chapter II Problem Diagnosis
ante
Source: Flikers@Daniel Enrique Prado
Source: Flickr@Julio Cesar Mesa
Inequality
Source: Flickr@Rafael Rodriguez
Source: Rodrigo Guerra
55
Axis Main Axis: Catia - Petare Secondary Axis: Caricuao - El Centro Secondary Axis: El Valle - UCV
By: Covarrubia_Nashira
56
Chapter II Problem Diagnosis
Inequalities Through different spatial and photographic analysis is evident the inequality context that is inserted the city of Caracas. By interpreting the 4 previous analysis, it is understood that Caracas has two structures, one is exclusive to the other, creating an abrupt imbalance of opportunities. The first related to the formal city, which constitutes a main axis Catia-Petare, and two secondary axes that intersect the main, Caricuao - El Centro and El Valle - UCV. On these three axes is usually established the greatest mix, dynamic and diversity of the entire city. The second structure belongs to the informal city, that due to its spontaneous and irregular formation, a general and common structure cannot be defined. However, as seen previously, this fragments of territory can be understood as a depended structures of the first one, and in certain way and punctually touches it. This situation of dissimilarities denying a part of the society to enjoy all the benefits that Caracas offers, reducing its growth opportunities and social mobility (Filgueira 2001).Through these we can see that there is a big scarcity in the informal city, and s well as are very poor and very different in the informal city. There is a scarcity in the fundamentals elements that compound a city, and that can give a certain quality of life of these place.
Inequality
57
DINAMICASDINAMICAS CULTURA YESTUDIOS RECREACION
10
1
6
9
11 6
3
4
3
4
7
8
5
12
5 12
2
2
MICAS SALUD Identification Families
DINAMICAS DINAMICAS ESTUDIOS TRABAJO Culture and Recreation Dynamics Public Spaces Metropolitan Public Spaces
10
9
11
10
Parks and Squers
6
9
11 6
3
4
3
4
7
8
7
8
5
5
12
12
2
2
Health Dynamics MICAS TRABAJO
Education Dynamic CULTURA Y RECREACION DINAMICAS DINAMICAS COMPRAS
Centers
Educational Institutions
vate Health enters
Kindergardens
10
10
9
11
9
11
6
6
3
4
3
4
7
8
7
8
5
5 12
12
2
2
Jobs Dynamics
58
Centers
onstruction orker
Commerce Dynamics Food Commerces Houses stores
Chapter II Problem Diagnosis
1 - Altamira
2 - La Trinidad
3 - La urbina
4 - Bello-Monte
5 - Macaracuay
6 - Centro Sur
7 - Petare
8 - Antimano
7 - Petare
5.2.2 Different dynamics. How do they move, where do they buy, where do they study, etc.? 8 - Antimano
“... It is not possible to study the subjectivity and identity of our multiple metropolis without considering the everyday, practical life, day to day doing of the individual, because it is 9 - Chapellin here where emerge the identities and social subjectivity, the imaginary fragmented. (...) Put in another way, this way of studying the metropolis involves performing a displacement from ‘analysis of aggregates’ (population, jobs, infrastructures, housing) to the analysis of the urban 10 - Los Magallanes experience, the situations of urban life, the beliefs established in the metropolis, the urban imaginaries and the memory of places and the city, even if they are fragile, fragmented and recent memories “ (Lindon, 2001: 55) (original language Spanish) 11 - 23 de Enero
Although the spatial analysis give us a good notion of how the socio - spatial segregation has affected the structure of the city, also, it is important to understand the dynamics in which - Jardines del these two12move toValle see if they are very different and where they are. For this, interviews were conducted with five families living in different areas of the formal city, and 5 families living in different slums of Caracas. In this way, the different dynamics were mapped in relation to places and work sector, places where shopping, recreational, educational and health were frequented. In this sense, we can observe that in all the analysis there are points of coincidence between both social sectors. It can be observed that the metropolitan uses are the major attractors for both, such as the Central University of Venezuela, Francisco de Miranda park, Los Proceres axis, Los Caobos park, Teresa Carreño theater, Los Niños museum, Quinta Crespo market, Guaicaipuro Market, Cementery market, among others. In addition, we see that the mayor meeting place is work, that despite of, much of the population of low-income belong to the informal sector of the economy, the other part belongs to the formal sector with jobs, such as workers for the cleaning sector, etc. However, the lack of social bonds and interaction, the increase of social conflict between different social groups has been revealed in lots of segregation-related studies (Atkinson & Kintrea, 2000; Wood, 2003).
DINAMICAS JUNTO 9 - Chapellin
e
10 - Los Magallanes
ay
11 - 23 de Enero
12 - Jardines del Valle
By: Covarrubia_Nashira Based on interviews
Different Dynamics
59
RECORRIDOS In addition, an analysis was conducted of the different processes of the mobility of two persons living just 400 meters from each other, but one living in the formal city and another in the informal city. From this analysis, can be observed that the chains are very different, besides, they do not intersect. The person of the formal city employs 50% less time to reach the same point as the person living in the slums. In addition, the first makes the trip in a private car, while the second takes up to 4 different ways to achieve to the final destination. The habitants do not move the same way,in general 54% of the population employ nine times more time to move within the city (Arepa, 2013). From this analysis we can see that Caracas has grow as a dual city, with two different socio - territorial scenarios mutually exclusive by the social polarization. The metropolitan area is characterized by the coexistence of two realities, where different social groups coexist with exclusive ghettos, the first one for the high and middle residential sectors, with new commercial districts linked to globalization, and second the areas of poverty (Cariola and Lacabana 2003). This social behavior of segregation have had strong influence in the building environment of the city, since different spaces, included the construction and appropriation of the space have changed. The socio - territorial segregation has provoke disparities in the life circles or the dynamics of the city, since each part has its own movement and different forms and supplies. The two cities have a very clear image and dynamic, very different from each other, where is easy to recognize to “who it bellows�. The slums, luxury residential properties, and tall office towers dominates the landscape of Caracas, never combined, never related, but segmented into uses and movements. This social segregation has led to the inequality of opportunities for the poor sector, since the connectivity between sectors is very reduced. This inequality in the structure of the city, socially and spatially, is limiting to the poor part of the society to the access to information, education, better jobs, public spaces, resources, etc.
Altamira
Source: Flikers@Trinitro Tolueno
60
Libertador
Source: Flikers@Jose Manuel Azcona
54% of population takes 9 times more to go from one point to the other By: Covarrubia_Nashira Based on interviews
Petare
Source: Flikers
Chapter II Problem Diagnosis
@Engelbert Romero
Different Dynamics
61
Petare
Source: Nicolas Rocco
Petare - La Urbina Source: Unknown
62
San Agustin
Source: Unknown
Petare - La urbina Source: Ramon Lepage
Chapter II Problem Diagnosis
5.2.3 Urban discontinuity: lack of integration.
As it was seen before, through the history of urbanization in Caracas, each model of city grew independently and in parallel, without much problems than individually solve how and where to expand. However, when models were developed enough, they began to come upon each other. These encounters were not planned in a systematic and regular way, and in almost all cases, any of the pats made an effort to articulate, therefore the contact is the result of natural and unplanned growth. This physical segregation in the majority of the cases has been reinforced with the massive expansion of Caracas in the 1950s, mayor infrastructure works were constructed. This reality was seen as the shift from a city to a metropolis, and as a signal of prosperity. The center of this transformation were the highways and avenues, becoming an important representations of the formal character of Caracas. This new networks gave to the city a sensation of connectivity (Lorenzo Gonzales Casas, 1996), since it was easier and faster to reach the suburbanization inside the region. The construction of this city for car structure was enhanced by new architectonic typologies, such as shopping centers, supermarkets, department stores, and car showrooms, being the main urban attractions for mass consumption. Both the highways and the commercial pieces were the icons of the new city, showing the transformations of the economy, urbanity, and society of Caracas. However, this change started a process of disconnection between the city and the pedestrians, since the flows and mobility were exclusively for cars. This road system denied the public space and the local pedestrian connections, refusing in many cases the places of contact between people. At the beginning, these routes were placed in the territory to communicate in a fast way the peripheries of the city. However, the expansion of the city, and especially the construction of the slums spread beyond the highways, assuming a problem in the pass of these infrastructures. To understand the consequences of this to the city, and to what extent urban discontinuity is a problem, an analysis was made on the road hierarchy map, where roads were classified by their function and condition of accessibility, associated to its hierarchy to the city level: first fast urban arteries those communicating the city at a global level characterized by a wide infrastructure; second mayor vial arteries which make the main penetration system to the city; and local network for neighborhood distribution that allows the vehicular and pedestrian connection into the interior of the slums and allow external connections of secondary type.
Urban Discontinuity
63
Road Hierarchy Urban Discontinuity
Food Commerces
Express Highway
Shopping Centers
Principal Arteries
Mini market
Secondary Arteries
Super Market
Local
Barery Restaurants and others
Discontinuity by highways Continuity by highways
0 km
5 km
By: Covarrubia_Nashira
64
Chapter II Problem Diagnosis
Over this map were highlighted two critical and important points to identify the urban discontinuity: where the main roads and avenues have continuity despite of intersecting with highways and expressways; and the points where the road continuity is interrupted to meet these roads, assuming a physical barrier and an interruption in civility. The last ones suppose an interruption in mobility, which is reflected in the tendency to overcrowding and discontinuity, expressed in the long travel times of displacement and the inefficiency in the routes. Moreover, in this analysis can be observed that most of the gray dots are located on the edge of the slums, where the highways act as physical barriers in contact between the formal and the informal city. These limits act as spatial barrier between the two realities, which difficult both mobility and accessibility to the area as the city, plus an insufficiency of public spaces and facilities. It is evident that this problem is even more drastic when the formal city touch the spontaneous city, and despite the physical proximity between them, there is no interaction. The collision between slums and formal infrastructures do not communicated each other, and the line of the meeting point between systems are transformed in a barrier of silence, in a hermetic limit. This “in-between� spaces are the physical manifestation of the inequality, principal places of urban segregation, inaccessibility and confrontation. This particular way of building the city has led to a major problem of encounter, in the connection of the parts, since the contact between them is translated in inaccessibility, isolation and hermetic limits. In many cases this infrastructure works as a strong division of the different urban patterns, acting as a physical manifestation of the segregation. It is the consolidation of the differentiation of patterns, and instead of working as a intermediate space and to integrated the patterns, it works as a line of delimitation, division and fragmentation. This has led to the poor attention to the pedestrian needs, translating in lack of public spaces. This problem has been carrying out through the time, and nowadays several areas can only be reached by car, assaulting with the freedom of the citizens to have free access to the whole city. The traditional streets of local commerce now is filled of cars, and now the distances has forced to use the car or public transportation. The sum of the cutting infrastructure, the no-pedestrian distances and the lack of access to some areas, are fact that nourish the segregation of the city. The radical confrontation of the neighboring systems, emphasize in their borders the differences in disjointed urban patterns. The urban condition of Caracas has led to strong inequalities related with the quality of the living environment which become increasingly important when defining and differentiating social groups. Thus Caracas grew as a sum of parts, and already in the genesis of the city fragmentation was present.
Urban Discontinuity
65
5.2.4 Peripheries. Since the conformation of the city of Caracas, we observe that there has been a process of growth in the peripheries, not only from the impoverished sectors, but also from the upper and middle class sectors seeking space. The installation of the privileged sectors in the periphery, it is due to look for a pleasant living place, based on the possession of a house with garden and private cars that allows them to connect with the activities and a dispersed social life (Jorge Mario Jรกuregui 2010). The popular sectors, at the same time, are also installed in the periphery but for reasons quite different. As it was seen in the chapter I of the history of growth, the newcomers to the city, who do not have resources are located where they can, normally on land free residual and are dependable on roads and public transportation that connects them to the rest of the metropolis. This determined a process of suburbanization in both cases, with different characteristics of connectivity - dis-connectivity. In the case of the wealthy sectors, the process is based on the low density and the use of facilities and services spread over the territory. And in the contrary, the popular sectors are characterized by the high density in a grouping mode dominantly horizontal, based on contiguity of small housing units around basic services such as the school, local commerce and precarious social services (Jorge Mario Jรกuregui 2010). The problem with this process of expulsion from the center to the peripheries, not only suppose issues by the lack of communication between the parties, and for the segregation processes, but also because, as previously studied, the east-west axis of the city is the one that has greater diversity. In addition, this center concentrates the highest density of jobs, thus it is important the connection with this area. This fact implies a daily movement of the residents from the peripheries to the center of the city. The middle class residents can easily reach this area by highways with their private cars. However, the poor sectors only have available the public transportation system to reach the center, transportation). In this sense, it looks like the massive, rapid and major reliable transportation is concentrated in the city center. The regular, formalized and massive subway and bus systems are serving more than anything to the formal city. However, the informal city there are other methods, less reliable, more insecure, more irregular, although they have routes, there are deteriorating units, which establish the price they want, and park where they want, etc.
66
Chapter II Problem Diagnosis
Informal settlements Formal settlements 0 km 5 km By: Covarrubia_Nashira
IDAD POBLACION
Population Density inh/hec 260 - 370 195 - 260 135 - 195
IDAD EMPLEO 85 - 135 30 - 85
0 km
9 - 30
DENSIDAD EMPLEO
Employment Density inh/hec 250 - 480 150 - 250 70 - 150 27 - 70 MOVILIDAD 6 - 27 1-6
5 km
By: Covarrubia_Nashira Data: Alcaldia Metropolitana
Peripheries
0 km 5 km By: Covarrubia_Nashira Data: Alcaldia Metropolitana
67
Public Transportation Lines Metro Line 1 Metro Line 2 Metro Line 3 Metro Line 4 Metro Petare Metrobus other official lines
0 km 5 km By: Covarrubia_Nashira
DIAS
Cabel Train
68 Source: Flikers@Isidro
Metro
Source: Flikers@JCastm
Metro Bus
Chapter II Problem Diagnosis Source: Flikers@ncc
These systems have meeting points and exchange, but they do not often complement both. In addition, the public system is oversaturated of use decreasing the quality of service (Lizagarra 2012). This also involves a daily expense and high use of public transportation, which expenditure usually represents 12% of the salary of a person. Nevertheless, if we count that the average family in a slum are 5, 2 works and 3 are children without a job but also requires to move, the family budget for transportation easily reaches between 15 to 30%. This has left a big part of the city segregated, concentrating and centralizing the largest movement in the center of the city. This generates inaccessible and lonely peripheries, losing urbanity and street life. These three factors describe the centralization of Caracas, which has encouraged the process of physical and social exclusion. The center is the area with greater opportunities, segregating areas outside this axis. This has nurtured the fragmentation of the territory, since not only it is secreted by different patterns, but also by a difference of urbanity, activity, applications, services between the axis and the peripheries. The center of the valley concentrates the best opportunities for jobs, but the accessibility from the slums is very poor, and a person from this places can take more than the double in time than someone living in the formal city. The poverty, inequality and exclusion consolidated a new meaning to the urban segregation, reflected in the confinement socio-territorial of the groups, adding the lost of the integrative role of the public space and the collective memory.
Diagnosis. Peripheries
Metro Cable
Source: Flikers@ICaracas Refurbished
Informal Transportation Source: Noticias24
69
Municipalities 1989
Municipalities 1986
ALCALDIAS
Municipalities of Caracas Chacao Libertador Baruta Sucre Hatillo Slums areas
Municipalities 1992 until today
El Hatillo
Source: Flikers@Haydelis Arias 70
0 km 5 km By: Covarrubia_Nashira
Sucre
Source: Flikers@Francisco Goncalves
Chacao
Source: Flikers@Paulino Mora
an
5.3 Catalysis. What is fostering the socio - territorial segregation?
As it was studied before, Caracas grew as a historically unequal city in terms of territory, people and opportunities. Nowadays, there are several factors that have promoted and increased the segregation, fostering the disparities. These are the institutional fragmentation of the governance structure, leading to a unbalance city; the lack of planning from the State; and the resent sensation of fear between social sectors, leading to a close urbanity.
5.3.1 Institutional Fragmentation: Unbalance In the beginning of the 20th century, in Venezuela, and specially in Caracas, urbanization was closely tied to the nation’s government, since they promote the city growth as they controlled petroleum industry (Machado de Acedo). This provoked the dominant role of the state, contributing to an extreme centralization of the Venezuelan urban structure (Negrón, 1982). Just one governmental organism decided the evolution of the city, controlling and developing the Caracas in its totality, shaping patterns of urban development. However, in 1989 were established policies promoting decentralization in Caracas, in order to facilitated the fragmentation of the institutional structures in municipal government. In this year the Libertador Municipality, Sucre Municipality and Baruta Municipality were created, covering the whole city, and in 1992 two more municipalities were incorporated to the governmental structure, Chacao and El Hatillo. In addition, the city is divided in two different states with different jurisdictions: Miranda State with Chacao, Batura and Sucre on it; and Distrito Capital with Libertador Municipality on it. All this 5 entities conform the Metropolitan Region of Caracas, with its own jurisdiction and laws. In this sense, decentralization was the flag of the government of turn, since it has been linked with democratization in Latin America (Eliza Willis 2009). In this process social groups perceive fewer barriers to participated at more local levels of government, and shifting from real power to local branches make easier the access social representation in politics.
Libertador
Source: Flikers@Julio Cesar Mesa
Baruta
Source: Flikers@Joao Abel
71
Municipalities of Caracas Chacao Libertador Baruta Sucre Hatillo Slums areas
0 km 5 km By: Covarrubia_Nashira
Distribution of population of Municipalities. Total of inhabitants of AMC 3.275.000 total
Libertador
Sucre
Baruta
El Hatillo
Chacao
Chart of population by Municipality
72
Chapter II Problem Diagnosis
Nevertheless, this institutional fragmentation has been causing significant changes in the urban geography of the metropolitan area, generating a segregated urban structure (Negrón, 1996). These decentralization policies have created an incentive for the segmentation into the municipalities, facilitating an increasing social differentiation of urban space. Each section function relatively independently from other areas of the city, forming segments that are disjointed from the city as a whole. This strategy has been limited the city to work as a whole, and to share and redistribute burdens and benefits. This characteristic of the city is more evident when we study the wealthiest of each municipality, where Chacao is the richest place with the fewest inhabitants, having more resources to spend in public space, education, infrastructure, facilities, etc. In the contrary Sucre Municipality has the lowest incomes in relation with the amount of people of this place, leaving less resources to give to people. This differentiation determines the quality of urban space, provoking that the higher the quality of the environment, the increment of the housing prices. This process has expelled the low income class from the places with bets opportunities to emerge and to move socially. In addition, the decentralization has changed the logic of urban morphology, with adverse effects for the efficiency of the metropolitan system. Caracas’ land use patterns are highly uneven, and municipalities like Libertador or Chacao have the highest employment density, thus recollecting more taxes to expend, leading to a big inequality in the capacity for revenue generation. In fact, the emergent structure of Chacao is multifunctional, combining residential, commercial and business facilities; and rather than integrating the district within the broader metropolitan context, Chacao is instead developing the infrastructure necessary to satisfy all of the demands of a single class of citizens. This strategy has generated an interest to organize the municipalities with their own environments in a manner that, rather than integrates, it disintegrates the space within the metropolitan community. In this sense it is clear that the delimitation of this government institutions has played an important role increasing the social segregation, promoting some zones for high income population, other very different with different infrastructures, facilities and opportunities for the low income inhabitants. Moreover, the prevailing management model of the city, characterized by the lack of a global vision and a multiplicity of isolated interventions undertaken by local authorities and central government, has nourish the situation. This has helped reinforce the territorial fragmentation, and at the same time, the lack of spaces for negotiation to resolve conflicts over the use and appropriation of urban space facilitates the privatization outputs they adopt. All this process makes Caracas a very complex governance, and multiple stakeholders. This has hampered the governance of the city as well as the ability to go towards a socio - urban equity. Similarly, the values implicit in the ways of life prevailing in the city were transformed into serious obstacles to promote policies to develop the civic culture and the construction of citizenship.
Catalysis
73
5.3.2 Fear The fear to “the other” corresponds to an objective reality expressed in the constant increase of the insecurity, becoming a city problem that has conditioned urban lifestyles based on isolation and confinement (Caldeira, 2000; Davis, 1998). This fear was socially projected in the stigmatization of a popular sectors and their habitats, which have been perceived by the rest of the metropolitan society as sources of transgression and violence. In this fear to the “other” can be understand and explain the recent socio-political behavior of the middle sectors of the metropolis (Guerrero Valdebenito 2006), since the residents of the formal city look at the firsts with suspicion and the slums see these as arrogant, feeling a big resentment (Municipality of Medellin 2003). Prejudices governs these relations and create a negative attitude that, even still fragile and ineffective, creates the illusion that the bad is always the other. In the 1980s and 1990s in Venezuela this feeling of insecurity among social groups has increased, causing a deepening socio - territorial segregation. When we observe the statistics of insecurity from Venezuela in relation to Latin America, we see that Venezuela is the most dangerous country in the continent, and even the world, according to UNODC 20092012 (GRAF X). In addition, we see that Caracas is the most insecure city in the country, according to the INE (National Institute of Statistics) there were more than 25,000 violent deaths in the country in 2014. The responses of the different social sectors to the insecurity and feeling of fear has been defensive, expressed through the confinement and isolation for relatively homogeneous social groups. The segregation of the different social sectors with their respective modes and the feeling of fear among them, has had profound spacial consequences in the city. High and middle class sectors live in gated communities with walls of at least 3 meters high, with bars on every window, electric fences and walls, often with guards at every moment of the day to control the passage of visitors. In turn, houses or buildings also have their own security measures, fencing and putting bars to all perimeters of the house, where the local collective space is transformed into a private space for the exclusive use of residents of the units. In addition, windows bars, security doors and alarm systems.
In Caracas there are 8000 Km of walls. 50 Times Berlin wall (Arepa, 2014) 2014)
74
Chapter II Problem Diagnosis
However, this feeling of fear is not only at the middle and upper classes. Informal settlements, due to the socioeconomic conditions, have become sources of urban violence in the interior of the slums, creating conflicts of governance in the territories (Diana Moreno, Mayor of Medellin 2003). The poor sectors are also affected by this feeling of fear, and create their own barriers that go beyond the physical scope. In this case, beyond the minimum physical barriers that may have, such as bars on windows and doors, the zones of each slum are controlled by “gangs�. These are groups that are organized to control certain sectors and somehow get appropriate the public space. If you do not belong to the sector, you can hardly make use of the sport facilities or make any activity on the streets. Most people are afraid of the gangs, however, it is internally in these areas where are the highest levels of insecurity. If we analyze the killings in a sector of the city, in this case the municipality of Sucre in Caracas, we observe that the vast majority of these violent acts occur within the slums, and that those who suffer most from insecurity, are the most vulnerable sectors. These problems have been related to the high levels of poverty and lack of opportunities, added to an environment that does not facilitates the coexistence and the sense of belonging, largely contributing to the social segregation (Kruijt, 2004; Tortosa 1994, 2011). This fact is considered a factor that encourages lawlessness and violence, and divisions that lead to social decomposition of the various sectors of a city. This parallel situation has generated a ghettoization of both sectors, relegated to a territorial confinement in both parts of the city, where social disintegration is added to the growing poverty of its residents (Cariola and Lacabana 2005). This new form of segregation has transform the way people lives, since both parts of the society try to close and to be introversive in order to do not have contact with a potential danger. We have built physical and symbolic walls that divides one of the others in many scales. Since the construction of a wall in a house, a fence in a public park, a grille around an urbanization with a watchful, to more urban barriers such as delimitation of the slum with a highway or even a wall. The urban segregation has fostered the social segregation (Guerrero Valdebenito 2006), since it works as a border or barrier, both as a mental and physical limit.
Murders in Sucre Municipality
Catalysis
75
5.3.3 Planning as a political tool As it was exposed before, the lack of intervention from the state was one of the mainly causes of the socio-territorial segregation in Caracas during the 50s. However, this has to be studied as a main cause as well as one of the catalysis, since this problem has been present not just in the conformation of the city, but up to today. Until the 2000s, the social interest had not been a central element, not very present in the construction of the city. Often, the urbanistic decisions had revolved around economic interests of minority groups within the whole society. However in 2010, this situation took a turn and began to implement policies to respond not only to the needs by the rains that occurred in late 2010, but also to institutionalize a policy of social inclusion. The main idea was to address the structural demand of social housing and contribute to the generation of integrated, participatory and organized communities. (Cariola, 2014). In this context two models of urban planning are inserted: Barrio Nuevo - Barrio Tricolor, and the Great Mision Housing Venezuela (Gran Mision Vivienda Venezuela - GMVV). Barrio Nuevo - Barrio tricolor is an important initiative in the rehabilitation of public spaces, facilities and services, with a especial attention in slums. These seek a full integral recovery of these popular territories for its integration into the city, also proposing a multi-centric and socialist city with the recovery of public spaces, metropolitan mobility and transportation plan, large urban parks, social housing policies and transformation of the popular habitat (Ministry of Habitat, 2015). However, these strategy have consisted of specific and isolated interventions, urban artifacts -- such as sports and cultural areas-- which do not work together. This urban regeneration inside this areas is certainly necessary and indispensable, in order to improve the quality of life of the inhabitants of these areas. Nevertheless this should requires more than just improving infrastructure and services, and taking empty plots to insert a certain use. The current interventions have failed in the process of interaction and cohesion of the dual city, the two parts of society and equipment that are focused on local action. In addition, these interventions are limited to the development of constructive and spatial enhancements, but had not been addressed in a comprehensive way to assume the housing and urban environment, the public space,the equipment’s and the connection of these sectors with the metropolitan mobility systems. And secondly is inserted the GMVV, a project with an inclusive objective, oriented to democratize goods and services, reduce social inequalities and strengthen the organization and popular participation,it starts a new public housing policy with an enormous scope (Cariola 2014). The initial objective of the GMVV reversing the exclusionary dynamics and fragmented to move towards a more integrated and equitable city. This was launched as a plan of social justice to solve directly and structurally historic formal housing deficit, particularly to the most disadvantaged and vulnerable social groups, living in precarious conditions and who have historically been excluded. It is an act of planning in order to direct state resources in a coordinated manner and produce a radical change in the way it was producing public housing in Venezuela. It is the largest program of mass housing has been made in the country. The goal was to build the whole accumulated deficit, around 3 million units by 2019 (8 years), and also give the units for free to the most needed people. The existing city is the main field of action, in order not to locate the resident to the peripheries of the city (where they were originally seated). For such a task was determined that 36,000 hectares were needed in urban areas of Caracas, so the “Law on Land and Housing Emergency� was announced as a legal instrument obtain the plots without the speculation on land prices. Housing construction was assumed as an engine for urban renewal, motivating actions to address the development of public spaces, services and equipment in the areas of the city. Nevertheless, the process and the development had structural problems, since what they wanted was not what they do. In this context 4 main issues were identify:
76
Chapter II Problem Diagnosis
GMVV Units
Source: GMVV
Ex- President Chavez in GMVV released Source: GMMV
Construction of GMVV units Source: GMMV
Inauguration of GMVV units Source: GMMV
Catalysis
Ex- President Chavez in GMVV released Source: GMMV
77
1. The state were not prepared to take the magnitude of this project, as it does not have the necessary economic resources to develop it. It did not have the necessary land or industrial capacity to ensure the supply of inputs. 2. The impact and externalities that would produce the development was not measured, since many areas of the city were over- densified regardless of what they entail. In the existing urban grid was not respected the corresponding zoning, but “special plans” were made to build as many dwellings, regardless if the urban grid was prepared and sufficient for it. 3. The housing system is not designed according to social dynamics, where some units are dysfunctional communities due to the lack of planning in the assignation process, as people from different sectors and not knowing mixed, not respected, creating an atmosphere highly violent within buildings (murders, tax mechanisms controlling owners who appropriate the towers, etc). 4. The absence of a general plan and a strategic vision for the development of the program, the population could not predict the construction of nearby buildings to their homes, not having prior information about the location of the new dwellings. Also, a general plan for urban improvements and the articulation of this complex with the city were not made, nor was there an overall vision of urban renewal, since being “on the way”, it was impossible to advance externalities or the impact of buildings on the city could be in general. The reality is that the houses were built without the equipment, infrastructure, and public spaces, densifying large areas with no improvement in service conditions. Although they are solving a problem of common interest, in fact they are causing deterioration and dis-articulation of the entire system. The GMMV is only oriented to project design or aesthetics of the buildings, leaving aside the problems of the cities with their structures and problems, and instead of being a evolution process for the city, seems to generate more conflicts.
Ciudad Tiuna
Source: Ministry of Housing and Habitat
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Ciudad Chavez
Source: Ministry Housing and of Habitat
Chapter II Problem Diagnosis
Behind the vision of settling the housing deficit, there is a strong political interest, since in 2010 and 2011 the president’s popularity had decayed considerably, and in 2012 a presidential election ahead. Thus in mid-2011 the GMVV is released as part of a political campaign, using state resources to win sympathy with the people. In addition, the whole process has been a lack of transparency and opacity, as has been denied access to process information publicly. The most notable is the apparent inconsistency in the figures presented by various public institutions and official spokesmen about the same statistic, leaving the conditions perfect for corruption. Although the government says more. Apparently, rather than solve the housing deficit, the real reason for this mission was election. The president sought to repeat what he had done in the 2004 Recall Referendum, when launching the first group of missions helped him win the elections. So the mission has become the search for votes and campaign. It is for this reason that a lot of homes, despite not being ready, were awarded before the elections to tie vote, as a strategy to helps keep the president’s popularity. In addition, there are developments of this project in which is clear the social and spatial segregation, such as Tiuna El Fuerte and the City of Caribea. These projects, despite addressing the social housing, are being built as detached entities from the social dynamics, commerce and amenities, plus spatially disjointed by the lack of relation with the context, lack of connections and communication. Although it has been shown that there is the political will to address one of the major social problems, which have made an effort especially if you compare what they did in the first ten years, this is not aboard systematically and reasonable, but was in haste to solve an immediate political problem, leaving aside the social, urban and aesthetic dimension that had such a project. Finally, the failure of the government was evident in the dis-articulation of the actions of social and physical intervention and the lack of control of the processes of land occupation. The principal problems at the institutional level are the result of poor planning, lack of continuity in the interventions, physical interventions with bad or weak effects, politicking, poor quality of information and government ignorance of the popular idiosyncrasy. One of the principal causes that has originated this problem is the lack of government priorities in the interventions.
Barinas, Casique Guaicaipuro
Source: Ministry of Housing and Habitat
Catalysis. Planning as a Political Tool
Ciudad Chavez
Source: Julio Cesar Mesa
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5.3.4 Globalization process Processes of globalization and internationalization can be held responsible for urban spatial segregation (Marcuse and Van Kempen, 2000). The global mobility of goods, capital, and people often stimulate a city or a country’s economic development, and this would not always lead to positive effects for those at the bottom of society (Wacquant, 1996). In western cities, post-fordist economic restructuring and globalization have been identified as the main drivers of social and spatial polarization (Kesteloot, 1995; Kempen, 1994; Walks, 2001; Wessel, 2000; Jordan & Redley, 1994). The decline of manufacturing and the increase of high-skilled sectors together triggered the emergence of new urban poor, followed by the growing inequity of income and occupation. As a result of that, the city becomes segregated both socially and spatially (Sassen 1988, 1991). Caracas is transformed, expanded on the Metropolitan Region and is fragmented at a level socio territorial and institutional as a result of the new dynamics that globalization has set in all areas of the society. The city is characterized by the coexistence of “multi-cities� where popular groups coexist with exclusive ghettos from the high and middle sectors, new command districts linked to the globalization and areas of new poverty (Cariola and Lacabana 2001). In this sense can be identified Caracas, since the percentage of poverty Increased drastically from late 1990s until today. The economic adjustments of the late eighties were marked by the devaluation of 1983, ending the importation substitution model, and the oil revenues as the main mechanism of accumulation. This change imposed poor living conditions on even more of the Venezuelan population (Cariola and Lacabana 2001). Later in the nineties, politics of
80
Chapter II Problem Diagnosis
economic restructuring were implemented to adapt the internal economy to the guidelines of the global economy, having devastating effects on income and quality of life of the population as a whole, beyond a minority group capable of fitting into the new economic measures. Economic restructuring became labor market restructuring. Various processes of exclusion that developed and still operate in this area, creating more informal and precarious employment, high levels of vulnerability and decreasing salaries, contributed this way to the advancement of higher levels of social inequality and poverty. This process has had a enormous and negative impact in the labor market, since the formal employment has been retracted, and the informal employment sector has increased with a declining of the real salaries. This behavior of the labor market has not just expanded the poverty, but also making it more deep and polarized. In addition, the superposition of globalized tendencies inside the traditional city results in a urban system very complex and with a big dynamism. This new movement is related with new functions, where Caracas was overflowed its limits as a result of a progressive diffusion of activities, functions and differential relations in a larger territory to the relative saturation of the valley and the rise in land prices (Cariola and Laccabana 2001). This has produces the expansion of the peripheries outside the limits of Carcaas, with subregions that are expanding in a faster rhythm (FPECM, 1998). This expansion is related with new mobility systems, a new real estate markets dynamics giving new options to people unable to purchase a place in the city, and with the increase in demand of business and commercial districts inside the city. Despite the irregularity in the implementation of the new economic model, globalization was felt not only in socio-economic and socio-political processes, but also in the processes of metropolitanization Metropolitan areas of Caracas, emphasizing the socio-spatial differentiation and fragmentation processes city, which obviously are not independent thereof.
Between poverty and globalization. Altamira and Petare
Source: Flikers@Ricardo Nunez
Catalysis
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6. Synthesis of Problem Diagnostic ?
Causes
? ?
The economic Imbalance
Urbanization by Real State Market
Salary disparities
Lack of attention
Lack of planning Ignorance
Effects
Inequalities
Dual city
Urban Discontinuity
Quantity - Quality
Different Dynamics
Physical Barriers
The structure of the city can be read as two systems, one responding to the formal city of axes, and the other in relation to the slums of small interactions. These two systems rarely touch, working as two cities with different opportunities.
Most slums are physically segregated by strong infrastructure that divides a part of the city from another. These function as real walls, making very hard to access to the center of the valley from slums, and losing urbanity.
The imbalance of facilities, institutions, amenities, housing and others is denying a part of the society of the same opportunities, since one part of Caracas has several equipment and the other no.
Peripheries Lack of access Slums are located in the peripheries, far from the center where the majority of the dynamics happens, gathering the highest density and diversity. The majority of the jobs positions are located in the center, but there is a poor access from slums.
Catalysis
Institutional Fragmentation Unbalance
Fear Confinement and isolation
Planning as a political tool
Globalization New poverty
Social Housing
Lack of equal Opportunities and Public Goods
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Chapter II Problem Diagnosis
Excluding System
formal
Scarcity
informal
- What they do not have: in the
lack of education and health institutions, public space, and facilities; in the insufficiency of public housing; and in the lack of formal jobs. These scarceness of different public goods in slums are reducing the chances for their inhabitants to be better, to reach for better jobs and opportunities, and to move socially.
Inaccessibility
- How they can reach
things: the opportunities of growth, social mobility and inclusion of the inhabitants from slums are diminished by the lack of access and mobility from these areas into the formal city and vice versa. Due to the difficulty in the access, these people take more time and effort to access to the center of the city, where the majority of the jobs, services and facilities are located.
The fundamental problem of the socio - territorial segregation is that both parts of society do not have equal opportunities to grow and emerge, thus the gap between rich and poor remains and polarizing. These problems explained before can be summarized into two branches, things that they can access to, and how they access them. These two are working as the main barriers in the process of inclusion, therefore, in the issues that this research should be based: The sum of these two principal issues is resulting in a excluding urban system, banning better chances to a portion. For these reason, a question arise: What should be done in order to offer equal opportunities, and reduce the differentiation expressed in the people and the urban space? Recapitulation
83
CHAPTER III Research Structure
7. Problem Statement 8. Research Question 9. Methodology 10. Theoretical Framework.
Critical review of examples
10.1 Marginal Neighborhoods - Barcelona, Spain 10.2 London Plan 2013. The spatial development strategy for London 10.3 “Favela - Bairro” - “Grandes Favelas” Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Program of socio - spatial development 10.4 Experience in Bogota - Colombia. Urban Demarginalization 10.5 Program of Integral Urban Improvement in Slums, Medellin, Colombia 10.6 Lessons from international context. Coping references 10.7 Conclusion examples. What can I take from them? How can that be apply to Caracas?
11. Hypothesis 12. Relevance of research
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12.1 Scientific Relevance 12.2 Social Relevance
Chapter III Research Structure
Petare
Source: Flickr@Mike Kline
Research Structure
85
7. Problem statement Based on what’s discussed above, the problem in this project can be defined as following: Under the background of rapid and enormous urbanization and transformation in Caracas, socioterritorial segregation started to emerge due to the increasing social and spatial disparities and inequality. Low-income population lives in slums, without adequate public services and an adequate accessibility; while high-income groups concentrate in commodity enclaves in the formal city with all the services and facilities nearby. This differentiation between people and space is manifested in the lack of opportunities for one part of society, that can be seen as a result of multiple barriers: inequalities, different dynamics, urban discontinuity and peripheries. These problems can be
86
summarized in the scarcity of services, amenities and facilities; and in the inaccessibility between slums and the rest of the city. These two are the main problems in the process of overcoming socio - territorial segregation. The growing of social and spatial inequity may limit one’s access to information and resources, cause increasing discrimination of under classes groups, and eventually incomplete participation in society (Musterd, 2005).
According to the problem of socio-territorial segregation described above, the main aim of this research and design proposal is to improve the conditions of the existing context to move towards an inclusive city that creates a greater access to opportunities and promotes social inclusion. The ultimate objective is to create a inclusive system, in the process of insertion of the popular sectors in territories that facilitate their social inclusion, and have an adequate level of urban development to satisfy basic needs.
Chapter III Research Structure
8. Research Question
The following research questions derive from the main one:
The segregation of Caracas has been causing several problems in the metropolitan system. Based on these problems, the main question of this research will be:
- What strategies can promote social and spatial integration?
How to promote social - territorial integration in order to foster the social cohesion in the segregated context of Caracas?
- How to face territorial segregation of the urban structure in order to improve social mobility and better opportunities? - Which modalities of socio - territorial integration corresponds to different types of urban intervention in the context of Caracas?
23 De Enero
Source: Flickr@Oriana Elicabe
Problem Statement _ Research Question
87
9. Methodology Concept
Socio Territorial Segregation
Caracas as the case of study History of Growth Problem Diagnosis.
Theoretical understanding What is socio territorial Segregation? Why is it a problem?
INEQUALITIES
Analytical process
Tools: theoretical research, photographic comparison, interviews, tracing and mapping, and GIS.
Causes:
Effects:
Catalysis:
- Economic Imbalance - Urbanization by Real State Market - Lack of planning - Inequalities - Different dynamics - Urban discontinuity - Peripheries - Institutional Fragmentation - Fear - Planning as a political tool - Globalization
Problem Statement Research question Theoretical Framework Lessons from examples - 2 European examples
- 3 Latin American Examples
Tools: theoretical research
Hypothesis
Testing of hypothesis through a example of study: Petare How is Petare in terms of Scarcity and inaccessibility?
MAIN PROBLEMS BASE OF PROPOSAL
Tools: Tracing, mapping, and GIS.
1_ SCARCITY 2_ INACCESSIBILITY
88
Chapter III Research Structure
Formulation process
Strategy System of Doors, Corridors and Rooms
Design process
Identification of main problems in the process of socio - territorial inclusion Scarcity. Analysis of public space, Analytical process
culture, educational institutions, and health centers
Inaccessibility. Analysis of metro, buses, accessibility and urban tissue
Proposal Strategic Urban Plan in the process of socio - territorial inclusion
Testing ground of the strategic plan
Design of the main point Design of main line of accessibility and mobility
Reflexion process
Stockholders and Governance Implementation of proposal in other slums Methodology
89
Metro cable - Medellin Source: Flickr@In our Nature
90
Chapter III Research Structure
10. Theoretical Framework. Critical review of examples. In order to discuss possible solutions to the social - territorial segregation in Caracas, specifically refer to the main problems identified before (the scarcity and inaccessibility) it seems important to study similar international experiences in this field, which can serve as a reference to implement a strategy according to the Venezuelan context. In this sense, the theoretical framework of this thesis is based on the critical review of 5 international examples. First two European cases: the city of Barcelona and its Marginal Neighborhoods; and the London Plan for 2013 “The spatial development for London”; with different context but taking in consideration similar problems, strategies and concepts. And second three Latin American examples with very similar contexts, the “Favela Barrio” and “Grande Favela” in Rio de Janeiro, the Plan de Desarrollo Distrital 2008-2012, Bogota, and the Social Urbanism of Medellin. These last three share many social and spatial aspects with Caracas, making this experience an applicable case on many issues.
2 European cities
3 South American cities
This examples were taken for 3 main reason. First, because all combat the problem of social and spatial inequalities through urban projects, spatial planning and urban policies. Second because all are considered successful plans and projects, since they have been able to reduce poverty rates; they have tried to provide equal opportunities to everyone, or at least try to equalize; and they all have improve the quality of life of the most disadvantaged areas of different cities. And third, because they has accelerated the social mobility along the most disadvantages social groups. In general these examples generated a positive impact on the quality of life of its population (Department National Planning, 2009), reducing disparities. SOCIAL MOBILITY
URBAN PLANNING Theoretical Framework
POVERTY
91
Sources: Joan Busquets and Manuel de Sola Morales
92
Chapter III Research Structure
10.1 Marginal Neighborhoods - Barcelona, Spain. Joan Busquets and Manuel de Sola-
Morales
Barcelona’s experience in the treatment of marginal settlements is an important antecedent for the study of the social territorial segregation in Latin America. The first attempt to fight against the informal settlements was the “Cheap Houses Act 1921” (“Casas Baratas 1921”), a urban project which attempted to relocate residents from marginal neighborhoods in public housing constructions. However, it was insufficient and poor quality, failing in its goal. Finally, around 1980 the processes of urban demarginalisation took place, proving basic services to the most disadvantages areas, providing and improving infrastructure of roads, street lighting, sewerage, etc. Among the spatial concepts and strategies that this plan handled, are the assessment of the own characteristics of slums urban structures and the importance of maintaining as much as possible existing homes. This meant the renovation of a large number of units, replacement of some houses in danger and construction of some new housing to absorb the spontaneous growth. In addition, the plan highlights the importance of the integration and connection of these areas with the structures of the city, as well as the importance of street in the vitality of the informal city. In this sense several roads where extended and restructured to become part of the urban fabric of the formal city, and large number of existing and consolidated streets in these areas were formalized and structured with all necessary services. Finally the need to incorporate in the area services and elements devoid, such as amenities, facilities and public spaces according to the characteristics and needs of each place (Joan Busquets and Manuel de Sola-Morales). One of the most important examples of this process is the neighborhood of Roquette. This was an important marginal settlement, since given the difficulty of access to housing in Barcelona around 1920s, people choose to build their places there, often without legal permits. This district was composed of self built on mountainside houses with dirt roads, no sewers and no basic services. By 1970’s municipality built and constructed the informal city into a formal neighborhood, as well as equipment such as a center of artistic creation, an outpatient Social Security, center for elderly people, a youth center and cultural center, public library, also the construction of a subway stop, connecting the neighborhood to the city center.
Theoretical Framework
93
Sources: Greater London Authority
94
Chapter III Research Structure
10.2 London Plan for 2013 “The spatial development for London”. Greater London Authority
The overall strategic plan for London, sets out an integrated economic, environmental, transport and social framework for the development of London over the next 20–25 years. In this sense, a growing population and a persistent problems of poverty and disadvantage are set out as main problems, since not everyone has benefited and the incidence of poverty has not fallen. As a result, London is an increasingly polarized city, where deprivation tends to be geographically concentrated. This suggests the importance of geographically targeted approaches to development and regeneration, focusing investment and action on places with the highest need. In this regard, one of the major objective of this plan is to offer equality of opportunity for all people, in order to fight against inequalities in space, a city where it is easy, safe and convenient for everyone to access jobs, opportunities and facilities. In order to do so, the plan remarks the importance of three aspects: the accessibility to the jobs and amenities; physical infrastructure adequate for the needs of a growing city ;and the housing and education, since there is a clear link between deprivation and housing infrastructure and educational level. For the accessibility, transport infrastructure have a vital part to play. It seems important to enhance accessibility by improving links to and between town centers by different modes, particularly by public transport, cycling and walking. In addition it is important the access to stations and integration with surroundings and enhanced pedestrian connectivity and urban realm with ‘better streets’ initiatives and re-imagined streets and places, better management of road space to improve journey time reliability. To this end, the quality and safety of pedestrian environment should be improved to make the experience of walking more pleasant and an increasingly viable alternative to the private car. Apart from this ‘hard’ infrastructure, a growing and increasingly diverse population will create demand for more social infrastructure, especially in the most devoid place of all: schools, colleges and universities, theaters, museums and libraries, health facilities, etc. In addition, a green infrastructure of green and other open spaces also has a crucial part to play in ensuring good health and a high quality of life. Finally in housing terms, the particular polarization of the market in some parts means that there is a particular need not just to increase overall housing output but to ensure that this is affordable. Social exclusion is a key issue and it is essential that new provision creates more mixed and balanced communities. However, there are other barriers to accessing these opportunities for some residents, especially the need for skills and training. In this sense, it will be ensure particular support for those who have greatest difficulty gaining access to the active labor market, as well as for career progression to take better advantage of the opportunities provided by growth in the wider London economy.
Theoretical Framework
95
Source: Rio de Janeiro Municipality
Source: Jorge M Jauregui
Source: Rio de Janeiro Municipality
Source: Jorge M Jauregui
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Chapter III Research Structure
10.3. “Favela - Bairro” - “Grandes Favelas” Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Program of
socio - spatial development. Jorge Mario Jauregui and Fernando Cavallieri
“Favela - Barrio” and “Grandes Favelas” in Rio de Janeiro are project of socio-spatial articulation, represented as urban planning, where favelas are incorporated into the standard city, becoming a “cities with citizens” and its inhabitants “citizens in a city” (Fernando Cavallieri). The program began in 1993 in Rio de Janeiro, as a municipal initiative to build all the infrastructure, amenities and facilities needed to transform the favelas into formal neighborhoods of the city. This program covers the whole slums areas as a comprehensive urban structure, and it incorporates and adapts the system to the city. Over this concepts, a strategy of physical - planning intervention was made, with the idea that the formal integration would promote social integration, the process of full citizenship for its inhabitants. The program was accompanied by a social - spatial work, based on two lines of action. The first consist in the economic level, with training centers for employment to foster the local economy and the self - sufficient circle. And the second one is the physical and urban transformation for the design and development of interventions, with interdisciplinary work: the maintenance of existing housing; supplementation or configuration of a main urban structure by introducing own urban values of the formal city, such as streets, plazas, manning of community facilities; and mitigation of environmental risks public infrastructure and social services. Besides, the participation of the community in the various stages of the program, and solving the problems of physical and environmental risks was very important part of the program. In addition, the plan provides the construction of clean water service, public sewer system, stabilization and reforestation of slopes, containment of the spread of urbanization, building adequate access roads, garbage collection, electrification and street lighting, provision of community facilities, promotion of productive activities, and regularization of property ownership. The success of this experience in Rio de Janeiro is proved by the high rate of acceptance in the society and by the fact that this intervention has been taken as an example of good practices for the rest of the country, in cities like Salvador, Victoria, Recife, Belo Horizonte, Brazil.
Theoretical Framework
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Ciudad Bolivar
Source: Lorenzo Castro
Transmilenio Bogota
Source: Carlos Pardo
Alameda de Bosa
Source: Lorenzo Castro
Ciudad Bolivar
Source: Ojo de Agua
98
Chapter III Research Structure
10.4 District Development Plan 2008-2012. Bogotá, Colombia. Urban
Demarginalization. Mayor of Bogota
The great transformation of Bogotá occurred between 1995 and 2000, where they managed to consolidate major changes in civic culture and the physical transformation of the city, mainly on the issue of urban mobility, public space and equipment. The transformation of Bogotá had two moments, the first time that the emphasis was on the behaviors and civic culture, characterized at the moment by antisocial behavior and corruption. The second branch concentrated on the physical transformation of the city, with strong emphasis on the implementation of urban projects of great impact on the transformation of the city. In these line, actions were prioritized as urban desmarginalization, looking for social integration, human-scale urban projects, public spaces, urban facilities, and mobility based on efficient and quality public transport. Their goal was to raise the quality of life of the people of the neighborhoods with deficient infrastructure and social services, through interventions that can overcome this deficiency and dynamized community. Urban programs were planned for this strategy like expansion and improvement of road infrastructure and utilities (sewer, water and local pavements); social sector infrastructure like kindergartens, public schools, local clinics and hospitals; public space and recreational and sports facilities such as facade improvement in selected axes, tree planting of the same, parks and recreational complexes, among others; adequacy of risk areas and care for affected families. It also counted with a plan for the housing, with the relocation of families, remodeling of some units as well as the construction of new units. Thanks to the inclusion and desegregation of the vulnerable population, there has been a profound social transformation that allowed a town like Ciudad Bolívar has lowered their rates of insecurity and is today a safe location.
Theoretical Framework
Source: AVE..ve 99
Source: Municipality of Medellin
Source: Municipality of Medellin
Source: AVE..ve
100
Source: Municipality of Medellin
Chapter III Research Structure
10. 5 Social Urbanism. Program of Integral Urban Improvement in Slums, Medellin, Colombia. Alcaldia de Medellin.
The Integral Urban Project (PUI) developed in the city of Medellin is a inclusive tool for urban intervention in the informal city, in order to solve problems such as social segregation and marginalization. This program seeks to develop urban projects to improve the quality of life of the inhabitants of slums, for so through programs and projects, generate social inclusion, employment and strengthen existing economic activities. This plan aims at building an equitable city by generating opportunities for the inhabitants, equating access and essential public services. It focus on 3 dimensions: social, institutional and physical dimension. Social dimension is related to community participation and the coordination of the various agencies such as private sector, NGOs, and community organizations (Urban Development Corporation 2015). The institutional dimension relates to the participation of different institutions, not only in the political sphere, but also civil associations, community, and professional teams. And finally the physical dimension, which was projected on multiple levels and scales, to improve public spaces, facilities, housing and the environment issues. These are developed as strategic projects, as a first step towards the recognition of these spaces as scenarios for meeting and coexistence. And the second physics strategy represent the global scale, with interventions of road infrastructure, mobility and transport, utilities, legalization of land. In this sense, one of the most successful projects of this plan was the Metrocable, marking a change in the traditional way of displacement of the inhabitants of the slums. Its launch was a great opportunity to consolidate mobility, community facilities and housing, all combined as one complex intervention. In addition, it was very important the definition of public space related to the Metrocable as articulator and focal point of the city. Another important factor in the success of PUI has been the combination of interventions of varying magnitude. Here are articulated large projects as the Metrocable, the Library Spain Park, the Educational Institution Antonio Derka, with local interventions such as Paseo Andalusia and the Linear Park Quebrada La Herrera. This sum of interventions of varying scale, targeted interventions and transverse and longitudinal connections, has generated a significant impact on the entire area.
Theoretical Framework
101
10.6
Lessons from international context. Coping references
In the last 8 years, urban planners in Caracas have taken some of these projects as examples to improve the quality of slums, trying to copy the mobility project of Medellin Cable Car, and the Transmilenio in Bogotá. Incidentally, Caracas today has two cable cars infrastructures, the San Agustin Metro-Cable, and Palo Verde Mariche Metro-Cable, and at least 3 more projects of cable cars in different slums; and the “Bus Caracas” line, a segregated line for buses in Fuerzas Armadas avenue. However, these mobility plans have not been as successful as the Colombians examples for one main reason. The projects have been approached from the perspective of pure mobility, and have not been integrated with other facilities and public spaces. This has decreased the impact and attractiveness of these interventions, becoming close transportation system, isolated entities, which only function is to connect one point with the other. In addition, the first cable car was constructed in, probably, the most physically integrated slum in Caracas, so the impact of their construction is not as massive as in the examples. In the case of the Bus Caracas, this construction took place in the center of the city, in one of the most well connected areas, and just in a small section, along 1200 m through the Avenida Fuerzas armadas. Even though this bus lines complement the metro system in this area of the city, previously there were several collective transportation doing this, therefore, it was just a substitution of the existing system. In general the projects have not been focused on the slums with major issues, but in the central areas of the city, and even though they have problems as well, they are not the most disadvantages areas of the city (FIGURE X). In Colombia, Brazil, England and Spain, the plans were designed in a systematic way, with several strategic interventions targeting some specific issues in a complementary way. In each case, there was developed a “strategic planning” to fight against inequalities, and providing a more inclusive city. They are successful, not only by the implementation of mobility systems, but because these systems are part of a bigger urban plan that fought with several problems in a structural and complementary way. However, in Caracas there has not been a strategic plan to fight against inequalities, but a simple “project planning”. The plans to improve the city have not yet been addressed comprehensively and interdisciplinary, but running one thing at a time, with a lack complementary approach between various disciplines.
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Medellin Integration of mobility with public spaces and amenities Strategic Planning
Caracas Pure mobility perspective Project Planning Chapter III Research Structure
Transmilenio - Bogota
Source: El Universal
Biblioteca Espana - Medellin
San Agustin Metro Cable
Source: Diana Moreno
Comuna 13 - Electrical stairs Medellin Theoretical Framework
Bus Caracas
Source: RPTV
Source: Vanguardia
Source: Iwan Baan
Petare Stairs
Source: Rodrigo Guerra
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10. 7 Conclusion examples. The study of the examples discussed above are able to give a broader view on possible solutions in the field of socio-territorial segregation. These examples work on 3 main areas simultaneously: social, institutional and physical interventions. The social branch is translated into the active citizen participation as a fundamental element of the proposals, in order to build social capital and to address problems from the solidarity generated by the transformation process (Andreatta, 2005). In this sense, with the interventions, inhabitants go from having a single view of role in the city, to think and act collectively and globally (PUI 2015). The second component, institutional, gathers different levels of government, investment and professionals, planning the execution and careful management. In addition, this area coordinates and articulates actions of all agencies of government organizations. And the last component are the physical interventions, being the most relevant for this academic work. In this
1_Strategic project, with several interventions.
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sense, they are translated into urban projects and infrastructures that have been able to combat socioterritorial segregation, fighting simultaneously against. The four projects discussed above combat this situation with strategic interventions, combating segregation of people and space in parallel. These have valuable lessons that can be learned and analyzed in Caracas context. In this regard, it is important to understand the similar strategies: - They are global and comprehensive strategic project, with several interventions working as a system in order to fight inequalities. - All of them search to eradicate the sense of “informality” or spontaneity, and transform them into another neighborhood of the city, from the informal city to a formal one. The proposals seek to formalize the slums, providing them with basic services as
2_Eradicate the sense of “informality” or spontaneity, and transform them into another neighborhood of the city, Chapter III Research Structure
water, electricity, sewage, road formalization, etc. In this way,
of interventions, affecting at the same time the structure of the whole area.
- They try to provide as much as possible the public spaces, educational and health institutions, in order to cover the deficit of the minimum standards of facilities in each city is looking for.
- In all cases, they seek to improve the accessibility in several scales, from the internal connections to the metropolitan relations. In this sense, the improvement of mobility and transportation systems, both within the slum and its relation with the rest of the city, is crucial for the inclusion of deprived areas.
- The proposals seek to preserve the existing elements, since they are part of the collective memory of people. They try to maximize the maintenance of the housing units, remodeling and enhancing the precarious ones, and then to construct new units. - Working in several scales in parallel is a repeated approach, where some interventions are design for local impact and some of them to work for city scale. Slums were provided with different local projects, that simultaneously were part of a network
3_Improve the accessibility and mobility in several scales
Theoretical Framework
- Last, the street as structuring element and an component of connection and relation with the dynamics of the formal city. In this way, the slums are directly connected with the formal city, improving not just the mobility, but also the feeling of continuity of the city. Besides, the street as a social dynamic element is used, as a meeting point for exchange of social and spatial dynamics. It works as access and encounter, interacting with context and people.
4_Street as structuring element and an component of connection and relation with the dynamics of the formal city.
105
11. Hypothesis. Several of the causes, effects and catalysis of the socio - territorial segregation in Caracas, are things that we as urban planners cannot change or predict. We cannot modify what is going on through economic or institutional level, and change that. However, we can try to diminish socio and spatial disparities through urbanism, since it is a discipline that integrates planning, development and transformation of spaces and infrastructure, having profound social implications. In this sense, urbanism, planning, and architecture can be considered as a characteristic model in social processes, since they are manifested in a space created by man. Therefore, the city can be considered as a tangible environment, as a medium that is a social product (Harvey, 2007: 206). Urbanism have been understand as an instrument of spatial and social inclusion, building equity in access to the opportunities the city offers for human development (Echeverri and Orsini 2006). It should offers better life conditions and quality for everyone, warranting a global vision that gathers economic, social, cultural and sustainable dimensions. After analyzing the major problems facing consequences and Caracas in the process of socio territorial including; besides having studied possible solutions through examples, the hypothesis of this research is established: 1) In the specifically context of Caracas, it is hard to think that it is feasible to totally transform the realities of slums, and that we will eradicate them all, moving their inhabitants to formal urbanizations with all the services. This seems a utopia, since this areas of the city represent the 50% of Caracas’ population, more than one and a half million people. For this, the transformation of these areas have to adapt to the place, with a Strategic Urban Plan, a system of socio - territorial inclusion. This plan should propose strategic high-impact projects that promote social inclusion as well as part of the regeneration of the sector. Through specific actions can be trigged processes of transformation that endure over time, as triggers of profound physical and social transformations. 2) Moreover, this strategic interventions have to target two specific things. First accessibility promotes social integration, ensuring the infrastructure and space to support the accessibility and mobility, both between formal and informal city, and within the slums. And second, to provide all the social infrastructure lacking in these areas, in order to offer the same everywhere. 3) Finally, linking the accessibility with social infrastructure can have more impact on the place.
106
Chapter III Research Structure
12. Relevance of the investigation 12.1 Academic Relevance This thesis is inserted in the debate of informal settlements, inequalities and socio - territorial segregation, intending to contribute to the knowledge and understanding of this topic, especially in the context of developing countries and Latin America. However, urban segregation differs among countries and cities, since each place has specific factors and variables that determine particular segregation patterns (Sabatini, et al., 2011; CEPAL, 2011; Martori & Hoberg, 2004). In this sense, they were analyzed and identified the main causes of surges of the socio - territorial segregation in the particular case of Caracas; the spatial effects that this type of segregation has had; and what have been the accelerating processes of this process. The scientific relevance of the research is given by the identification of Caracas particular segregation patterns and to give a suitable response to his problem. The results are expected to be a contribution to the debate about segregation and the elaboration of strategies to counteract it, and to achieve equality in cities.
12.2 Social Relevance Social consequences of urban segregation are related to several negative effects caused by it, such as environmental degradation and social polarization. Living in certain spaces determined the quality and quantity of infrastructure, housing, public space and exposure to violence etc (Bolt et al. 2009), leading to strong social inequalities. In this sense, this thesis has an important social relevance, since it is an opportunity to seek for democracy in the contemporary society, social sustainability, and especially to the right to the city, since it is connected to the deepening of democracy in Latin America and promotes participation (Harvey, D. 2008; Larsen, G. L. 2012; Marcuse, P. 2009; Mitchell, Don 1961). It is an opportunity to reduce regional inequalities that Caracas has carried out through all its history, and to promote social justice, since it involves the fair and equitable distribution in space of socially valued resources and the opportunities to use them (Soja, 2009). Thinking spatially about justice, not only enriches the theoretical understanding, but also can highlighted new insights that extend our practical knowledge into more effective actions to achieve greater justice and democracy (Soja, 2009). This concept of justice its closely related to democracy, equality, citizenship, and civil rights, which they are highly relevant in the context of Caracas.
Petare
Source: Nicolas Rocco
Hypothesis _ Relevance
107
CHAPTER IV Example of Study
13. Example of study: Petare 14.
Scarcity. What and where are the current elements of the territory? What are the most urgent elements to work on?. Where do we need them?
15. Inaccessibility. How is the current accessibility to/from Petare?. Where are the mayor points of interconnection within this territory? How is structured this piece of city in terms of mobility?
16.
Synthesis of Problem Diagnostic: 3 main problems
17. Strategy. Doors, corridors and rooms. 18. Strategic Urban plan for the socio - territorial Integration
of Petare.
108
18.1 Doors 18.2 Corridors 18.3 Rooms
Chapter IV Example of Study
Petare - La Urbina
Source: AVN Venezuela
Petare - La Urbina
109
13. Example of study: Petare In Caracas there are several areas where the socio-territorial segregation is evident. In this context, we can find Petare, with a number of features that framed it as a slum: a process of inadequate and spontaneous occupation, critical environmental degradation, low quality and provision of public services, inadequate habitability conditions, unsanitary, overcrowded, illegality in land tenure, among others. It is one of the greatest example of segregation, since: it is located at an edge of the city; its accessibility to the center of the slum is poor; it is the most dense and extensive slum of Caracas, with a population of approximately 400,000 inhabitants (Sucre Municipality); it is the most consolidated of all slums in the city; its physical contact with the formal city is the strongest; and also between the north end and south end of the slum there is a formal city neighborhood, Palo Verde. For these territorial conditions, it is understood as a meeting of two realities, as well as a critical example of segregation. This place is taken as a exemplification and testing ground to the proposal of socio - territorial integration, thus the reflection and conclusions can be applied to other slums cases, not just in Caracas, but also in similar contexts. In this way, Petare is studied as an example to the raised problematic, and as a possible space for inclusion of people and space. This chapter explains deeper the major issues of the inaccessibility and scarcity that Petare is facing in the process of socio - territorial integration, providing the background and setting out the main barriers. Pointing directly to these two problems, we can achieve a more integrated and cohesive territory, thus is essential to make a physical and spatial diagnosis, in order to recognize the structure of the territory; what are the main potential; and the opportunity spaces. Some questions are set to make this diagnosis first. 1.5 km
2 km
2 km
110
2 km
Chapter IV Example of Study
In terms of scarcity, arises the following questions: What and where are the current elements of the territory? What are the most urgent elements to work on? Where do we need them? In terms of inaccessibility, the following questions arise: How is the current accessibility to/from Petare?. Where are the mayor points of connection within this territory? How is structured this piece of city in terms of mobility?
It seems essential to answer these questions to get a coherent proposal, to have a rational and contextualized answer to this specific territory. This step involves a spatial purposeful diagnosis, where the major issues and characteristics of the territory are understood.
Petare - Palo verde
Source: Jorge Karpati
Petare - La Urbina
111
14.
Scarcity. What and where are the current elements of the territory? What are the most urgent elements to work on?. Where do we need them? In the Diagnosis of Caracas (Chapter II, 5.1), it was concluded that in terms of scarcity, the main problems pointed to: educational institutions; culture and patrimony; health institutions; and recreational and public space and street space. In this sense, it was analyzed Petare under these parameters, in order to know what is the biggest need, and where is needed. First, a comparative analysis was made, contrasting the number of institutions that are located in the formal and informal city. In addition, it was measured the numbers of institutions per person, in and outside slums, to realizes how extreme is the deficit in relation with the number of inhabitants. Of these two analysis it is observed that in both cases the major deficits are the consolidated public space and the street space; and the education institution at all levels. In this regard, these two should be the principal elements to introduce in the territory. In parallel, to determine the deficit and the structure of Petare in terms of social infrastructure, it was analyzed the location of the same parameters, identifying the following points: concentration points of institutions; mixture points between private - public, formal - informal; and metropolitan or local points with significance. In addition, it was highlighted the structure that relates elements within the same analysis. This helps to determine which are the points of major centrality of this territory; the major lines of relation between elements; and discover the areas more devoid of these social infrastructures. Population according to density parameters
Formal city Informal city
Area of formal vs. informal city according to previous density measure
Culture and Patrimony
21%
50%
55%
81%
79%
50%
45%
19%
2 times more
9 times more
3.7 times more
112
Health Institutions
Chapter IV Example of Study
Density Map Black lines represents the area taken to measure the population and area according to density parameters (figure x). It was taken an area of 5.7 km2 in each piece, where the density of Petare is 10.000 inh/km2 and in the Demography Density formal settlement 2800 inh/km2. The rest of the area represent the testing ground for the analysis of the relation of Residential informal institutions per units and city inhabitants in the Residential formal and informal city (figure x).
2500 inh/km2
Metro Line 1 Cable Train Planned Metro Line 5
formal city
Education and
Planned Cable Car Petare Norte
Commerce
Planned Cable Car Petare Sur
Recreation
Planned Metro Guarenas 10.000 inh/km2
Public vs. Private Schools
60% 23%
Exchange between massive transportation
Public Space
86%
17%
14%
9 times more
10 times more
Scarcity. Analysis
Masive Publi Transportation
Relation of institutions per units in formal city and informal city, according to the area of Sucre Municipality and their data.
Relation of institutions per inhabitants in formal city and informal city, according to the area of Sucre Municipality and their data. By: Covarrubia_Nashira
113
0 km 1 km 2 km 3 km
Demography Density
4 km
Public Spaces
30 inh/hec
Green Areas
Metro Line 1
Parks
Cable Train
Natural Heritage
Planned Metro Line 5
Plazas
Planned Cable Car Petare Norte
6 km
5 km
Public Spaces with intervention
Planned Cable Car Petare Sur
Public Spaces without intervention
By: Covarrubia_Nashira Data: AREPA
114
Masive Publi Transportation
195 inh/hec
Planned Metro Guarenas
Chapter IV Example of Study
Educational Institutions Kindergardens
Recreational Spaces
Culture and Patrimony
Public Spaces
Private
Parks and Plazas
Cultural Houses
Green Areas
Public
Libraries
Theaters
Parks
Private Clubs
Churches
Natural Heritage
Private
Courts and fields
Museums
Plazas
Public
Mini courts
Natural Heritage
Public Spaces with intervention
Schools
Universities Private
Public Spaces without intervention
Public
By: Covarrubia_Nashira Data: AREPA
Scarcity. Analysis
115
0 km 1 km 2 km 3 km 5 km
4 km
Culture and Patrimony
Demography Density Public Spaces
Cultural Houses
Green Areas
Theaters
Parks
Churches
Natural Heritage
Museums
Plazas
Natural Heritage
Public Spaces with intervention
By: Covarrubia_Nashira Data: AREPA
30 inh/hec
Public Spaces without intervention
6 km
195 inh/hec
116
Chapter IV Example of Study
Health Institutions
Culture and Patrimony
Metropolitan Hospitals Secondary Ambulatories Primary Ambulatories
By: Covarrubia_Nashira Data: AREPA
Scarcity. Analysis
117
0 km 1 km
14.1 Scarcity_3 Main problems
2 km
TO ENTER
3 km
Scarcity Problematic P1_Deprived areas of social infrastructure
P1_Main Intermodal point
P3_Access points between formal and informal city
P2_Existing points of transportation exchanges
Educational areas
4 km
Inaccessibility Problematic
Main streets
Public Spaces
P3_Main internal streets
Commercial Areas
P4_Dead ends
Relevant Cultural center Relevant Health Institutions
Potential Nodes of mobility
5 km
By: Covarrubia_Nashira
6 km
From the previous analysis, we can recognized that most of amenities, facilities and services are outside slums, causing a relation of dependency with the formal city, especially in relation of public space and educational institutions. This relation of dependency is directed through two main streets (Av. Francisco de Miranda and Av. Romulo Gallegos), with 2 main access point between the two systems. In this regard, three main problems are identify:
118
Chapter IV Example of Study
P1_ There are vast zones with a great lack of social infrastructure and public spaces. In this sense, the provision of amenities and facilities should be pointed out to these areas.
P2_There is an absence of any residual space within Petare,
where the only presence of public space is guaranteed by a few paths and streets through which the slum is crossed.
P3_ The two access points are unclear on space, where the
sidewalks are narrow, and the pedestrian continuity is lost. In addition there is no urbanity in this places, since the sidewalks are follow by walls and fences. In this sense it is important to define these places to favor the continuity between system.
Scarcity. Problematics
119
0 km
15. Inaccessibility. How is the current accessibility to/from Petare?. Where are the mayor points of interconUnderstanding that accessibility is a key element in the process of integration of marginal areas into the city, it is important to recognized the current functionality: main points of connections and inter-modality; main lines of movements; and how is the urban structure. For these, it was analyzed the metro system and the points of interchange; bus system and the concentration points of lines change; the road hierarchies with the main points of access to/from Petare; and the urban structure with the recognition of the main lines, and integration of the system.
3 km
2 km
1 km
nection within this territory? How is structured this piece of city in terms of mobility?
4 km
Accessibility Express Highway
Commercial Areas
Principal Arteries
Concentration of Principal Amenities and Facilities
Secondary Arteries
6 km
5 km
Local Points of access to slums By: Covarrubia_Nashira Data: AREPA
120
Principal Centralities and Attractors
Metropolitan Public Spaces Metropolitan Health Institutions
Chapter IV Example of Study
Masive Publi Transportation Metro Line 1
Busses Routes
Cable Train Planned Metro Line 5 Planned Cable Car Petare Norte Planned Cable Car Petare Sur Planned Metro Guarenas Exchange between massive transportation By: Covarrubia_Nashira Data: AREPA
Inaccessibility. Analysis
121
0 km 1 km 2 km 3 km
Busses Routes
Accessibility
4 km
Metropolitan bus routes Informal bus routes
6 km
5 km
Petare informal bus routes Exchange points between bus routes By: Covarrubia_Nashira Data: AREPA
122
Chapter IV Example of Study
Urban Tissue Main Feeders Secondary feeders Main intersections of main roads and paths Metropolitan Health Institutions
By: Covarrubia_Nashira
Inaccessibility. Analysis
123
0 km 2 km
1 km
15.1. Inaccessibility_4 Main problems
3 km
Inaccessibility Problematic P1_Main Intermodal point P2_Existing points of transportation exchanges
4 km
Main streets P3_Main internal streets P4_Dead ends Potential Nodes of mobility
5 km
By: Covarrubia_Nashira
6 km
From these analysis we can recognized that accessibility is centralized in the Redoma de Petare, representing the most important door in the connection of Petare with the rest of the city. This point also works as a hinge, articulating two systems. In addition can be seen that there are other points of connections and major lines to cross Petare. From this structure, four main problems are identify:
124
Chapter IV Example of Study
P1_The Redoma de Petare is over used, with a saturation of the structure, and the space is lacking in order and formalization. The majority of the flow pass through this door, having a massive concentration of collective and public transportation. In addition the area is taken by informal commerce, occupying sidewalks and streets.
Inaccessibility. Problematics
125
1
P2_Other points are potentials doors, based on the future construction of mobility infrastructure and the formalization of the space. However they are just designed through the pure mobility perspective, with lack of definition of the space, and no mixed with other activities. In addition, the accessibility to this points form the proximity areas is tedious. Finally, there is an absence of internal clear doors.
?
?
2
?
3 ?
1
2
3
Potential points. Lack of formalization Source: Noticias 24
126
Chapter IV Example of Study
P3_Main Streets and the structuring ones within Petare are very poor in spatiality, the section is narrow for the dynamic of the space. In addition the car are taking the spaces, leaving almost no space for pedestrian mobility. The road structure do not conform a clear hierarchical sysmte,
3
2 1
1 Av. La Vega Petare
0m
10 m
Lack of spatiality in main streets Source: Jonathan Oggun
Inaccessibility. Problematics
2 Carretera Vieja Petare Guarenas
3 Calle Principal Jose Felix Rivas
0m
0m
10 m
10 m
127
P4_There is a lack of urban continuity within Petare, with several dead ends streets. In this sense, in Petare north there is a lack of continuity in transversal direction, and in Petare south in longitudinal direction. This discontinuity generates that the travels will be longer, since there are not paths to shorten distances.
Urban discontinuity
128
Source: Caracas Cenital
Chapter IV Example of Study
Journeys become longer in the absence formalized clear roads and paths for cutting. Current paths depend on the topographic conditions and spontaneous disposition of houses, lacking on planning to properly connect the main roads.
938 m
930 m
850 m
938 m
920 m
930 m
900 m
850 m
865 m
920 m
900 m
865 m
Lack of spatiality
Inaccessibility. Problematics
Source: Donaldo Barros
Lack of spatiality
Source: Donaldo Barros
129
16. Summarizing problems: 3 Main issues
of Petare in the process of inclusion
From the detailed analysis of the scarcity and inaccessibility, we can summarized all this problems into 3 main barriers to achieve an inclusive Petare, offering the same opportunities that the formal city:
THE CONNECTIVITY TO/FROM PETARE IS DEFICIENT P1_There is just one clear entrance door. Even though there are others potential points of connections based on the construction of future mobility infrastructure, they are not formalized or constituted, and do not have adequate space. P2_The accessibility to this main door is poor, and it is saturated, overused, informal, and disordered.
130
Chapter IV Example of Study
THE INTERNAL MOBILITY OF PETARE IS TEDIOUS
LACK OF SOCIAL INFRASTRUCTURE
P1_In the internal structure of Petare, public and collective transport systems are inefficient. In addition, there are no clear exchange spaces.
P1_There is a enormous lack of social infrastructure within Petare, especially in public space and educational institutions. In addition, the accessibility to the existing ones is poor.
P2_There is lack of urban continuity, evidenced by the highway barrier and the lack of internal continuity, making discontinuous accessibility. P3_Main structural lines are lacking in spatiality and there is not a clear hierarchy in the street structure.
General Problems
131
17. Strategies Understanding the main problems and the main barriers that this slum has to face in the process of socio - territorial integration, it seems essential that the strategy will be directed at three key elements: connectivity, accessibility and elements. These three main action fields are translated into a system of socio - territorial integration, composed by the correlation of doors, corridors and rooms: the doors are understand as major attractors and connections points; corridors as the accessibility lines, and rooms as the elements of social infrastructure, located in the doors and along the corridors. This system works as a hierarchical structure of points and lines. In this sense there can be found major points that articulate the formal city with Petare, besides being the biggest attractors, collection points and mixed activities. These doors are related and connected with lower and internal hierarchy of points, relating the city with the internal area of the informal city. Finally we found a tertiary system which reaches the innermost structure and local places. This hierarchy of doors is directly related to a hierarchy of corridors, linking points between them according to their typology. In addition to these corridors there are added elements at intersections between lines, in which the change of system and direction is recognized. The aim of this strategy is to increase the numbers and quality of entrances, lines of access and social infrastructure in order to offer equal opportunities to inhabitants, which Petare becomes a more inclusive and inclusive city.
DOORS. CONNECTIVITY. E1_ Increase points of entrance and access from/to the formal city to Petare, with the reorganization, consolidation and formalization of the existing potential points of territory. E2_ Consolidate new inter-modal points associated with transportation infrastructure, that connects the points of entrances with the internal structure of Petare. E3_ Redefine the internal points of distribution, the places of recognition and circulation
132
Chapter IV Example of Study
CORRIDORS. ACCESSIBILITY.
ROOMS. ELEMENTS.
E1_ Prioritize a road structure, related to the connectivity and role in the system.
E1_ Increasing the offer of social infrastructure in the most deprived areas.
E2_ Increase accessibility in disadvantaged directions of the internal structure of Petare, in order to create clear channels of access to cross and enter the slum.
E2_ Supporting nodes with social infrastructure and commercial areas, to generate mixed places with high dynamics.
Socio - Territorial Strategy
133
18. Strategic Urban Plan of Socio - Territorial Integration of Petare
From a segregated city to an articulated one, towards an inclusive Caracas.
The strategy is translated into a Strategic Urban Plan for the socio - territorial integration of Petare and its inhabitants to the rest of the city. It is a strategic urban plan since it does not define precisely what and how is each space, it is not a final ready to be implemented, but a plan based on strategies on how the system should work, tackling directly the main problems identified previously. The project is flexible in the construction of each spaces, understanding that the main work have to be done in these points, lines, and elements. In addition, the Strategic Urban Plan is based on the reorganization, restructuring and redefinition of existing and potential elements of the territory, to reorganize the current access points and to conform as a system, in order to improve the existing structure and elements, making them work more adequately. And second to incorporate into the system with new doors, corridors and rooms, in order to increase the accessibility and facilities. The relation between the three elements of the strategy, the doors, corridors and rooms, conform a system, that can be read, understand and explained as the superposition of 3 layers, working integrally, relationally and complementing each other. ELEMENTS. SPACES. ROOMS
CORRIDORS. ACCESS.
DOORS. CONNECTIVITY
PETARE
134
Chapter IV Example of Study
0 km 1 km 2 km 3 km
Strategic Urban Plan of Socio - Territorial Integration
135 4 km
18.1. Doors. Doors are places of access and mobility, major attractors of the system and main points of connections with the rest of the city. By improving the connections points, distances are shorter, generating more clear exchange places by expanding the ways of entrance. The intervention of these points consist in the construction of mobility infrastructure, such as new metro lines and cable car stations; and the organization and constitution of these spaces to improve the exchange and accessibility. In addition, the interventions on these points seek to relate these inter-modal places with public space, amenities, formal commerce and social housing, to convert these points into mix uses spaces for meeting and social exchange.
In this regard there can be found 3 types of points: - 3 MAIN DOORS of access and mobility between the formal city and Petare, by massive transportation systems such as metro, metrobus, and other collective transportations systems, working as a hinge. In addition, they are the mixed points, with main transportation terminals; formal commercial spaces such as municipal markets and commercial buildings; social housing buildings; public space and main social infrastructure. - 6 INTERNAL DOORS of mobility and distribution, connecting the slums internally. These points are the connection between the internal area of Petare, and the nodes that leads to the city center. They are related with the construction of cable car and new buses routes terminals that relates these points.
Hierarchy of doors
136
- SEVERAL MINORS DOORS, related with the small intersections within the urban tissue, points of distribution and recognition that leads to the rest of the internal structure of the slum. These points are translated into public spaces and mandatory stops for public transportation.
Chapter IV Example of Study
0 km 1 km 2 km 3 km
Strategic Urban Plan of Socio - Territorial Integration
137 4 km
18.2. Corridors. Corridors are lines of relation and accessibility, the system of pedestrian paths, streets, and roads through which the entire system is related. In addition, it is understood that these spaces not only functions as lines of access, but also as the main public space, since streets are the main places of dynamic, social exchange, etc. The proposal of the corridors seeks the re-structuring of the existing system, to value and prioritize the main lines about other, and to better organize the system. The intervention in these lines consist in the enlargement of some sections to win street space related to existing public spaces; the reconstruction of other sections to make it more friendly to pedestrians; the formalization of some connections; and the restructuring of some buses routes inside Petare.
138
Chapter IV Example of Study
0 km 1 km 2 km 3 km
Strategic Urban Plan of Socio - Territorial Integration
139 4 km
The proposal is based in three types of lines, through which the major structure of the slum can be reach: - Structural lines: these lines are the ones relating the main nodes and surrounding the slums facing the contact between the informal city and its borders, whether they are formal city, open areas or rivers. These lines work as the main feeders to the internal structure of Petare, structuring the place and defining the area. They are the major places of access to the slum and where the biggest diversity can be found since it is the encounter of the formal and informal city. - Mayor internal lines: these lines represents the major internal structure, from which the rest slum can be reach. They cross the slum entirety, in Petare north longitudinally, and Petare south transversally, regarding on the topography of the area. - Internal access: these lines are the ones connecting and relating the other two lines between them, and providing the maximum access to the internal structure. They are the responsible to offer the mayor access from the interior to the outside, where the direction is related to the direction most disfavored.
Main structural lines.
140
From this structure we can recognized the importance of the points of encounter between two types of lines, and especially the importance of the line of encounter of the two systems of the slums, between Petare north and south. This point has a special attention since the majority of the flows and mobility go to there in order to go out the system.
Chapter IV Example of Study
0 km 1 km 2 km 3 km
Strategic Urban Plan of Socio - Territorial Integration
141 4 km
The interventions on these lines have to be supported by public transportation system, reorganizing some existing lines and making them work through these mayor structural lines and mayor points. The proposal by “Metro de Caracas� is taken as a starting point, with the construction of the subway line 6, the two cable car routes, and the extension of the existing cable train. From this, it is proposed to make a ramification of the L1 to the south, in order to offer massive public transportation to Petare South, since it is the most disconnected. In addition, it seems crucial to reorganized the existing collectives transportation routes in the internal part of Petare. For this, there are proposed 7 buses routes: 4 running in Petare north through the major lines, from the Redoma de Petare to the new transportation node in the north (Lines from 1 to 4); and 3 routes running in Petare south, from the Redoma de Petare to the new transportation node in the South (lines 5 to 7). The system is design to cover the whole slum in public transportation, where the stops of these routes are regularized, associated to public spaces, other transportations systems, and amenities, and up to 300 meters apart regarding on the topography. In this sense it is possible to have a net covering the majorities of the places, and complementing the metro system with buses and cable car.
Coverage of buses lines
142
Coverage of metro, cable car and cable train Chapter IV Example of Study
0 km 1 km
Transportation Proposal Metro L1 Metro L1 branching proposal L6 proposal by "Metro de Caracas" Cable Train 2 km
Proposal of extension of Cable train Cable car proposal by "Metro de Caracas" Proposal bus route 1 Proposal bus route 2 Proposal bus route 3 Proposal bus route 4
Proposal bus route 6
3 km
Proposal bus route 5
Proposal bus route 6 Buses stops Cable car terminals Inter-modal nodes (metro-cable car-buses)
Strategic Urban Plan of Socio - Territorial Integration
143 4 km
18.3. Rooms. The intervention of the rooms consist in the incorporation of public spaces, educational institutions, and different cultural centers in different parts of Petare, the main added elements to fight the deficit studied before. These spaces are arranged along the corridors, ensuring its accessibility and local influence. Their localization regards on the structure of lines, the opportunity spaces of the context, and the existing amenities and facilities of the area, looking for the devoid places. In this sense they are either supporting the doors so they can work as mix places between access and amenities; or in the intersection of the corridors, assuring their accessibility
144
Chapter IV Example of Study
0 km 1 km 2 km 3 km
Strategic Urban Plan of Socio - Territorial Integration
145 4 km
18.4. Strategic Urban Plan for the Socio - Territorial integration of Petare Finally we have the Strategic Urban Plan for the Socio - Territorial Integration of Petare, where the 3 layers integrates and complement each other. As there can be seen, this strategic plan fights directly and strategically against the inaccessibility and scarcity: - Achieving a territory where accessibility to/from Petare is more efficient, with several entry points, access and clear exchange. - Improving accessibility to the main doors with a clear road hierarchy system, supported by different transport systems and improvements in the roads. - Generating a clear system of internal mobility, increasing the ways to access and cross the territory. - And increasing the quantity of social infrastructure to offer a better quality of life for inhabitants.
146
Chapter IV Example of Study
0 km 1 km 2 km 3 km
Strategic Urban Plan of Socio - Territorial Integration
147 4 km
19. Three Strategic project However, not everything can be executed at the same time, especially since some of the interventions counts with the construction of major infrastructure such as cable car and a metro line that may not happen or take years. In this way, there are project that are more strategic than other, interventions that due to their relation and influence in the context can trigger others consequently. They are strategic since from them we can reach the others; they are the ones that relates the most with the rest of the interventions; and they are in the core of the each area, having the greatest influence on the territory and while reaching as many people as possible. In this sense, there can be found 3 strategic project, one door and two corridors. The strategic door is the Redoma de Petare - Front Door, since it is the main entrance of the system, with more immediate influence in the current context; it is in the center of the territory, having directed influences in both parts, Petare north and south; and it connects the slums and the formal city. And two corridors, the Transversal Section of Petare North and the Longitudinal Section of Petare South, being the lines that intersect the most important corridors of the system; being the longest transversal connections, having major influence in context; being the most need lines to have a greater access of the place; and relating the most possible doors and rooms. For the final part of this project, there will be test the design of the door and one corridor, in order to evaluate how this project could be.
148
Chapter IV Example of Study
0 km 1 km
Petare North Transversal Section Major transversal connection of petare north. Connection of lines
2 km
Redoma de Petare. The Front Door Major node of Accessibility and amenities. Reorganization of space
3 km
Petare South Longitudinal section Major longitudinal connection of petare north. Connection of lines
Strategic Projects
149 4 km
20. Redoma de Petare. The Front Door The Redoma de Petare is the main entrance of the entire strategic plan for Petare, functioning as the most important connection point of the system in terms of mobility, pedestrian flow, mixed uses and dynamics. It is the point of encounter of different urban structures: first the Petare’s historical centre, with a reticular continuous structure of 65 m long; second La Urbina with blocks up to 300 meters, and individual buildings spaced apart; and finally Petare slum with a improvised structure of houses. This node is structured by a main longitudinal road, Avenida principal La Vega Petare, and intersected by two important roads, Avenida Principal de la Urbina and Calle Federacion. In addition, in this node there can be found the Petare metro station, the suburban buses terminal La Urbina, two hospitals, two important commercial spaces, and many others cultural and educational institutions, making this place a very important place of dynamics. Finally, it is the start/end point of several buses routers running through Petare internal tissue. 1. Major problem: Understanding the role of this point as the front door of Petare, there was detected 3 problems working as the main barriers in the constitution of this space.
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The sidewalks and even street spaces are taken by informal commerce, since there is not enough places for formal commerce.
Pedestrians flows are greater than the spaces they have to move, generating a disorder of the space between people, cars and informal commerce.
Buses are concentrated in the roundabout of the intersection of Avenida principal La Vega - Petare and Calle Federacion, generating a important congestion in this point. The street space is totally taken by the buses, leaving a very tight space for the huge flow of pedestrian. This situation causes people walking around all the area.
There are several plots and infrastructures underused, leaving important areas empty.
Testing Node, Redoma de Petare. The Front Door
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Proposal The intervention on this node consist mainly in the formalization and constitution of an important public space, in particular pedestrian spaces, in order to organize and clear the space that today is taken by cars and informal commerce. The roundabout is substituted by a square with a commercial building, leading right to the metro entrance, and the buses arriving to this point are distributed in 4 new buses terminal in the adjacencies of the square. Furthermore, the section of the main street, Avenida principal La Vega - Petare, is reformulated, leaving more space for sidewalks, a channel for public transportation and 2 channels for car circulation. In addition, the historical grid of Petare is closed for cars, becoming a pedestrian and public transportation area. This interventions seek to give more space for pedestrians, improving the quality of the space and shortening distance from out mobility mode to the other. In terms of commerce, and understanding the highly dynamic of place, the intervention seeks to provide formal commercial spaces to eradicate the “buhoneros� and informal sellers all around the space. A municipal market and two commercial buildings are part of the project, constructions with vertical proportions to win space. Finally in terms of social infrastructure, the vacancy spaces are transformed. A educations institution in added, and even though in this place there are 3 public schools, it is an opportunity to reinforce this use at this location for its accessibility and surroundings spaces. In addition, looking at the numbers of educations institutions (17 in total, between public and private and in all levels of educations) it seems an opportunity to implement two cultural centers/libraries, in the Tito Salas public space, and in the area of the north creek. Furthermore, the space of the creek and the Guaire are enabled for use as a parks, adding important open spaces to the node. And finally, to improve the accessibility between the slums, these new facilities, and the mobility node, direct pedestrian connections are implemented, such as ramps or stairs, shortening distances and providing a greater accessibility to the node.
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21. Petare North. Transversal section. The section of Petare - El tanque is one of the two main lines of the entire strategic plan for Petare, functioning as the most important transversal corridor in Perate north. This corridor connects the formal city with the end of the informal, and intersecting three doors and several rooms, such as the Centro Cultural Simon diaz, two Fe y Alegria School and the 5 de Julio cable-train station. Nowadays this corridor is not structured, however it has a enormous potential since it can intersect the main longitudinal roads of this territory, the carretera vieja Petate - Guatire, calle La Cruz, Av. Principal Jose Felix Rivaz, and Carretera Petare - Santa Lucia. Today this important line is not constituted as a main corridor, and there could be found 2 main problems: - There is a urban discontinuity in order to cross the slum transversally. To cross from one point to the other in this section, people have to follow the streets and crossing space efficiently. Even though there are some connections, they all are stairs in bad conditions between houses, where some of them just have 80 cm wide. - The existing places and streets that this section may intersect are not formalized. In addition, there are not may opportunity spaces within the urban tissue.
Stairs in main section
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Stairs in main section Source: Oriana Elicabe
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Proposal The proposal consist in the constitution of this main transversal corridor through different stairs, ramps, and elevators, intersected by social and mobility infrastructure, generating points of attraction in the main line. This consist in opening space in some sections to incorporate mobility infrastructure, and reconfigure several sections of the streets to prioritize pedestrian space over cars. Besides, this connection facilitates the accessibility to existing and new social infrastructure. This main corridor goes from the formalization and extension of the Miguel Otero Silva Park, intersecting the cable train station ‘5 de Julio”; two new community services in the intersection of Calle la Cruz and Calle Jose Felix Rivas; a cultural center in the space of the “Fe y Alegria” school; intersecting the Internal door, node 6; and finally reaching the Centro Simon Diaz. Additionally, this main corridor has to be supported by others connections lines, in order to make the territory the most accessible possible to/from this backbone, and to assure that the majority of the houses have access to it. The importance of the construction of this line not only relies in the ability to cross transversally Petare, but also in the constitution of the points that this intersects, since they are the major attractors and points of social relation. In this sense, the formalization of the internal door, node 6 its one of the most important points, since it is the main public space with new mobility systems and public housing for the replacement of the removed houses. In addition the two ends are crucial, in order to complete the line. Other intersections consist in the extension of the bridge that cross to La Urbina and working on the sidewalks, to allow a better connection between the two structures.
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CHAPTER V Reflexions
22. Evaluation of the proposal. Overcoming segregation 22.1 Evaluation 3 strategic projects 22.1 Evaluation of strategic urban plan.
23. Framework for socio - territorial integration spatial
planning and development. Implementation to any slum in Caracas, Venezuela, or the world.
24. Governance and stakeholders. 25. Final Reflexion
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Petare
Source: Flickr @Julio CesarPetare Mesa
ource: Flckrs@depeco
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22. Evaluation of the proposal. Overcoming segregation 22.1 Evaluation 3 strategic projects During the whole process of design and proposal, from the composition of the Strategic Urban Plan to the design of the 3 strategic plans, the main problems of Petare have been tackled directly. In this way, we can evaluate how Strategic Urban Plan have worked to solve the problems of segregation of Petare, through the evaluation of the 3 strategic interventions, since they are the direct result of this plan, as well as they are composed by the integration and correlation of these 3 layers. This evaluation is done looking at what problems each intervention try to fight. In this sense, in the case of the Transversal Section of Petare North and the Longitudinal section of Petare South, they tackled directly the problem of urban discontinuity, connecting the dead ends in these sections, and formalizing the corridor improving the accessibility. In addition, they fight against the lack of clear exchange spaces and formalization of entrances, since the intervention generates areas of recognition and distribution in the intersection of different corridors, according to hierarchy of the lines that it cross. Finally they go against the lack of social infrastructure, introducing amenities and public spaces in the intersections of the main lines, as well as it increased the street space. And in the case of the Front Door, it tackles directly the problem of the lack of order, the informality and saturation of the main entrance, as it generates a main public space through which they re reorganize and absorb pedestrian and public and collective transport flows. It also influence the social infrastructure as it incorporates amenities, formal commerce and improves the section of the road to favor the pedestrian space; in order to make this node more mixed and attractive.
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3 Strategic Projects
Tackling Main problems
CONNECTIVITY _Poor accessibility to main door. Saturated structure _Just one clear entrance door. Others points not formalized or constituted, The Front Door MOBILITY _Inefficient transport systems. No clear exchange spaces. _Urban discontinuity. _Lack of clear hierarchy and space in street structure. The Transversal Section
Inaccessibility
ELEMENTS _Lack of social infrastructure _Poor accessibility to existing elements. Scarcity
The Longitudinal Section
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22.2 Evaluation of Strategic Urban Plan. However the evaluation not only relies on how the strategic projects fights with the particular problems of this territory; it is also necessary to evaluate how the overall strategic plan has overcome the initial problems identified. As explained above, Caracas is a city that now a days has 4 key problems derivatives of spatial and social segregation: the inequalities, different dynamics, urban discontinuity and peripheries, acting as the main barriers in the process of inclusion. Through the strategy now Petare went from being a segregated slum to an inclusive one, where inequalities are balanced with the incorporation of social infrastructure; where different dynamics try to minimize, matching processes both inhabitants; where urban discontinuity ceased by generating new entrances and breaking spatial barriers; and where the sense of periphery overcame by incorporating Petare in the city system, not being an entity paragraph but a neighborhood more, part of the whole. In this way, there can be seen that in terms of the doors and corridors, they both fights directly against the urban discontinuity, since the new points of connections and the new road hierarchy breaks the physical barriers, improving infrastructure conditions, so the relation between the two cities is less discontinuous. Similarly, these points and lines increased accessibility within the territory and outwards, making Petare not feel like a neighborhood on the periphery, but an integral part of the city. This barrier is even more overcome with an integrated transportation system associated with nodes of inter modality, directly connected to the current centralized mobility, forming an integral part of the present. And finally, the layer of the rooms - elements fights directly against the inequalities in terms of educational institutions and culture, since it incorporates at least 15 infrastructure associated with it; public space and street space, since the plan proposes different plazas and parks, as well as the reformulation, expansion and formalization of several streets sections; in terms of commerce, since it incorporates several formal commercial spaces, to fight against the great amount of informal sellers; and in terms of typologies, since, although the plan does not propose something specific in terms of reconstruction of houses, it propose the incorporation of social housing to replace housing removed so that the plan can be carried. In addition, this layer also helps to fight the different dynamics and the peripheries, since it incorporates elements within this territory that helps to decreases the differences on the way of living and the dependency on the center, fighting the sense of lacking periphery, and becomes an integral part of the city. Petare will no longer be a region of poverty, inequalities and marginality, it will become an on-going evolving integrated slum that will offer the same opportunities of the formal city, that will meet the interests not only of the inhabitants of this area, but also of the rest of the citizens of Caracas. Everybody can be benefited from such interventions as to reduce differences and provide equal opportunities can reduce poverty and inequality, lack of economic growth, can reduce violence across sectors and low democratic governance.
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23. Framework for socio - territorial integration spatial planning and
development. Implementation to any slum in Caracas, Venezuela, or the world.
The interventions of this research and design project were formed as a contribution to the solution of social and spatial conflict in Petare. In addition, they are also an opportunity to create a model of urban intervention, with possible replication in other parts of the city with similar physical, social and economic conditions. This methodology can be the basis for other slums, as well for other countries, as intervention models aimed at creating conditions of equality, dignity and inclusion. However, every place has different conditions, both in scale and territorial social and environmental issues, so each slum must be understood as a unique project. Each territory, according to their specificities, diversity require differentiated actions and thematic emphases. In this sense, looking back and reviewing the analytical framework developed on this thesis to create a socio - territorial integration spatial strategy, we can see that this can be applied to any slum that is looking forward to overcome segregation and inequalities. In the sense, 5 different phases are proposed for further studies in this same field:
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Chapter V. Reflexions
1. Analytical phase
2. Diagnosis phase
Analyzing the differences and disparities of the current condition of territory of study. This phase most recognize what are the main barriers of the study cases in the process of integration, identifying what the specifics and lacking elements of these territories, in order to offer equal and balance opportunities to everyone.
Evaluating the site according to the respective barriers that interact in it. This phase most identify and extract what are the specific problems of the barriers identified in the previous phase, finding the structure of the place, the rooms for improvements and opportunity spaces.
4. Design phase
3. Formulation phase
Establishing the initiatives and strategic projects that will act as triggers of transformation and that complementarity, will be part of an integrated socio - territorial strategic urban plan. This phase includes the proposal of key projects, as a trigger to impact on further.
Framework for Socio - Territorial planning
Creating a strategic urban plan to tackle the problems and structure the shift of the place to a socio - territorial inclusive territory. This phase most set up the concepts and normative ideas, through a strategy and a project, that tackles directly the extracted problems.
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participants in the processes of reflection, selfcriticism and decision making. It should be assumed the community participation as a set of actions to raise awareness and citizen responsibility, regarding Habitantes de el barrio El Nazareno | Flickr Photo Sharing! their active role in urban projects. In this regard, the Governance and stakeholders. communities should accompany all processes, from conception of o actions, works, Fotos, personas gruposincluding construction Regístrate Explorar CrearSubir Iniciar sesión to the operation of the projects. This will involve The process of socio - territorial inclusion depends, generating instances and spaces allowing dialogue not only on a good spatial plan, but also in its and cooperation between inhabitants, NGOs and holistically approach, where interventions articulates local governmental organizations existing in the area both physical, social and inter-institutional fields. In of influence, interacting from the promotion and this sense the project is not complete without the participation participation of the people, the governments and 6/15/2015 Reunión con la Comuna Bicen other stakeholders. And secondly it is required a inter-institutional intervention, where the Local, Regional and National Regístrate Expl First participation of the inhabitants is required, as Government, have a crucial and determining role without the community is impossible to accomplish in the development of the plan; as well as voluntary this type urban transformation, particularly in the organizations and other stakeholders concerned context of informal city (Municipality of Medellin about Petare’s future development. This type of 2003). This means recognizing that the beneficiaries, plan requires a big National investment, for the in this case the inhabitants of Petare, are active construction of massive mobility infrastructures
24.
Source: Flickr @Alexander Sanchez
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Chapter V. Reflexions
resources, as well as a contribution of the private sector, by creating policies that encourage their participation and investment.
such as the metro and cable cars lines; Regional investment of the construction of the main social infrastructure and reconfiguration of the roads; and an important role of the Local government with the municipality of Sucre for the construction of some of the proposals, as well as to mediate between the different interests. Simultaneously, it seems crucial the participation of the Local Government in the implementation of policies to foster changes, such as the formalization of some collective transportation routes, creating association to make them work with the new network; creating associations for the commercial sector to formalized it, and to implement policies to promote the formal trade over the ntenario de la Dolorita Petare Caracas #SaludComunal | Flickr Photo Sharing! informal one; among other policies.
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Finally, the economic viability of urban transformation processes in cities in developing countries is a worry, since they take a big amount of state resources in an unstable economy. However, 6/15/2015 the investments of these interventions arises from the combination mainly of regional, national and foreign
Source: Flickr @Pedro
Governance and Stakeholders
In addition, it is noteworthy that the local economy is not only nourished by the formal sectors, but also the informal city generates substantial economic resources on which it is possible to obtain rents for municipal treasuries gradually. In this sense, it is expected that this urban and social transformation to will improved the local economy, by reducing poverty, creating more capable and educated human , and rising the socio - economic level of these inhabitants. All this would impact not only the local economy of the area, but also to the city in general, increasing the training of people, access to goods, and the letup of poverty in general. Thus their beneficiaries of the intervention would not be only the people of Petare, but the whole of Caracas. Vía Crucis en el barrio el Nazareno de Petare | Flickr Photo Sharing!
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Source: Flickr @depeco
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25. Final Reflexions
Socio - territorial segregation is an issue that Caracas has faced since the twentieth century, as well as a broad range of developing countries. Some of them have worked on these matter, making a long social, urban and institutional work, in order to provide a better quality of live to inhabitants living in slums. However, we cannot say the same about Venezuela, since it is not much what the state have done in this matter in the past decade, since slums itself haven not been a priority field to work on. Due to this lack of interest from the State, Caracas has been a perfect field to study this particular problem, and an interesting ground where to test new possibilities. Specially in how to approach the issue of the slums as a whole, as a matter of urban planning and not an more as a project planning. At the beginning of the thesis, I started with the idea that promoting points of mixture between the two societies, the high- middle class and low-income class, could promote social and spatial inclusion, generating places for both, where the two societies
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could dialogged and accept each other. However, during the process I realized that this idea was wrong, and that the problem was not that the inhabitants of Caracas are not mixed, but that they cannot access to the same thing. Social friction was not going to eradicate generating spaces where the two ends meet, where they could socialize and share some dynamics. The segregation of people and space won’t be exceeded with contact points between the extremes, but when the two sides began to accept. This acceptance involves two components: first remove the mental barriers on both sides, making feel to slums residents as parts of the whole city and not just the informal structure; and secondly being felt all the inhabitants as equals, eradicating discrimination on the socio-economic level. Through recognition of the adversities of this territory, and what means a project for socio-territorial integration, I could realized that the inclusion and equal opportunities was the most appropriate tool, including both physical and mental barriers.
Chapter V. Reflexions
Through the analysis of the problems of Caracas as a whole, I could realized that this process of inclusion leads directly to two problems: how difficult it is to access to/from slums, and how devoid these areas are of basic services. The inhabitants are segregated because they cannot equally access to work, recreational spaces and other facilities and amenities of the city; not physically, not having an efficient transport system and connected to the rest of the city, or professionally, as they have not the necessary social infrastructure to study and social progress. That is why the work was based on these two components, being the biggest problems in the process of inclusion. These two barriers were developed in the example of study of Petare, to understand how spatially we could provide answers to these problems. This work sought to open new opportunities to promote transformations , where the strategic urban plan and the 3 strategic projects, rather than impose a model with final solutions for every space, it opens a box of opportunity spaces and locations to improve the slums, and to include
Final reflexions
them in the formal part of the city. However after completing the project, I realized that this process of design strategies is very specific to each area, and although in Caracas we have as starting problematic for all slums, inaccessibility and scarcity, every place has to have a proper recognition of specific issues. Finally, I could conclude from this study that, probably the most important is to assume the problem of slums in a complex, complete and systematic way, understanding that these urban structures are highly complex, with disorder overlapping of elements and societies. In this sense, how to approach the planning of slums in Caracas you have to change, and we have to begin to assume them as a comprehensive system, and not in isolation and with a progressive adaptation, but with a structural and interdisciplinary projects.
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25. References References: - BOLIVAR, T., (1994). Densification and housing in the slums in Caracas [Densificación y vivienda en los barrios caraqueños]. Caracas: Edición Consejo Nacional de la Vivienda. - BORJAS, J., (1998) City and public space. [Ciudadanía y espacio público]. Reforma y Democracia, 12, Caracas: CLAD. - CARIOLA, C., and LACABANA, M., (2001). The fragmented metropolis. Caracas between the poverty and the globalization. [La metrópoli fragmentada. Caracas entre la pobreza y la globalización]. Scientific Electronic Library Online, EURE Santiago, may. ___________(2003) Globalization and socio - territorial inequality: the expansion of metropolitan peripheries of Caracas [Globalización y desigualdades socioterritoriales: la expansión de la periferia metropolitana de Caracas]. Scientific Electronic Library Online, EURE Santiago, may. - Fundation Strategic Plan of Caracas Metropolitan Area [Fundación Plan Estratégico Caracas Metropolitana-FPECM] (1998). A proposal for the city: Strategic plan for Metropolis Caracas [Una propuesta para la ciudad: Plan Estratégico Caracas Metrópoli 2010]. Caracas: Edición FPECM. - GONZALES CASAS, G., (1996) Cities and Haciendas [Ciudades y Haciendas]. Sartenejas Nº 7,Caracas, DID / FUNINDES /DEU -USB, marzo, 1992, pp. 4-8), 1 ___________________ (2004) Nelson Rockefeller and Venezuelan modernity: exchanges, business and places mid-twentieth century. [Nelson Rockefeller y la modernidad Venezolana: intercambios, empresas y lugares a mediados del siglo XX]. Compiled by Universidad Central de Venezuela, Consejo de Desarrollo Científico y Humanistico - GUERRERO V., R., (2006) We and others: Urban segregation and meanings of insecurity in Santiago de Chile [Nosotros y los otros: segregacion urbana y significados de la inseguridad en Santiago de Chile]. In: And Imaginary Places in Metropolis [Lugares e Imaginarios en la Metropolis], Alicia Lidon, Miguel Angel Aguilar y Daniel Hiernaux. Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico. p 107- 117. - LACABANA, M., (1993) The street as a job position. Reflexion about the relation between State - Informal urban sector [La calle como puesto de trabajo. Reflexiones acerca de la relación Estado-Sector] Informal Urbano”. Cuadernos del Cendes 22, Año 10. - LIZARRAGA., C., (2012)., Metropolitan expantion and mobility: the case of Caracas. [Expansion metropolitana y movilidad: el caso de Caracas]. Universidad de Granada, Granada, España EURE vol 38, N° 113, ENERO 2012. pp. 99-125. 174
- MATOS, C., (2002). Metropolitan labor market and social inequality in the Great Santiago, a dual city? [Mercado metropolitano de trabajo y desigualdades sociales en el Gran Santiago ¿Una ciudad dual?]. Scientific Electronic Library Online, EURE Santiago, december. - MITCHELL, Jeffrey (1998). Political decentralization: a new tool for the segregation of urban space? The case of Chacao in Caracas, Venezuela. Conference of LASA, Chicago. - MITCHELL, D., (1962). The right to the city: social Justice and the fight for the public space. Urban Geography. United States. - MORIS, A., (1978). “Urban growth patterns in Latin America with illustration from Caracas. Urban Studies 15, p 299 - 312 - MYERS, D., (1978). Caracas: the politics of intensifying primacy. Latin American Urban Research 6, p 227 - 258 - NEGRON, M., (1997). The local urban planning and the metropolitanian context [La planificación urbana local y el contexto metropolitan]. Urbana 19. - SOJA., E (1980). The socio - spatial dialect. Annals of the Association of American Geographer, vol. 70, No. 2, p 207 - 225
Pictures SourcesL CALLES. Page 47 1. Source: Andres Rojas Jimenez 2. Source: Ninoska Enriquez 3. Source: Kevin Vasquez 4. Source: Julio Cesar Mesa 5. Source: Luke Seemaan COMERCIOS. Page 48 6: Brisa del mar 7: Flikers@Slmnca 6: Brisa del Mar 4: Julio Cesar Mesa 4: Julio Cesar Mesa 4: Julio Cesar Mesa
COLEGIOS. Page 50 8. Source: Author 9. Source: Flikers@BibiRomer 10. Source: Colegio Santa Rosa de Lima 11. Source: Fe y Alegria 12. Source: Flickr@Luis Carlos Diaz 13. Source: Flickr@Diana Rangel SALUD. Page 51 14. Source: Hospital de Clinicas Caracas 15. Source: Policlinica Metropolitana 16 Source: El Nacional 17. Hospital perez carreno 16. Source: El Nacional 18. fmba CULTURA. Page 52 19. Source: Revista exclusiva 20. Source: Museo de los ninos 21. Source: Biblioteca Nacional de Caracas 22. Source: Tinta Teatri 23. Source: El Nacional 24. Source: Barrio Tricolor
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INTEGRATING CITIES
From segregated city to an articulated one: towards an inclusive Caracas
March - June 2015 EMU European Postgraduate Master in Urbanism Strategies and Design for cities and territories