Abstract, Neoliberal Urbanization and Synergistic Violence in Postearthquake Concepción

:::::: Abstract ::::::

Neoliberal Urbanization and Synergistic Violence in Postearthquake Concepción 

by Christian Paulo Matus Madrid, Rodrigo Ganter, Juan Antonio Carrasco, and Camila Barraza Huaiquimilla

The Chilean neoliberal state’s institutional strategy for displacing a historical population from Aurora de Chile, a centrally located area with real estate value in the city of Concepción, combined three types of violence: shock urbanization, which used the 2010 earthquake as an opportunity to impose the construction of major infrastructure, the construction of public opinion aimed at naturalizing displacement, and the strategic use of participation as a disciplinary socio-technical device to legitimize a solution to the conflict that guaranteed the building of the Bicentennial Bridge. The deployment of this synergistic, multifaceted violence was a sophisticated management technique associated with a neoliberal urban rationality that contributed to the process of urban renewal.

CONTINUE READING FULL ARTICLE HERE

Abstract, The Politics of Strolling

:::::: Abstract ::::::

The Politics of Strolling

by Pedro Erber

The large gatherings of youths from impoverished urban peripheries in the shopping malls of São Paulo and Rio, known as rolezinhos (little strolls), in the first two months of 2014 and their disputed relation to the wave of political protests in Brazilian cities since June 2013 became the topic of heated debates among intellectuals and journalists in Brazil. Historical parallels ranging from nineteenth-century Paris to colonial Korea help situate the rolezinho phenomenon in a transnational history of urban strolling and to problematize its ambiguous politicality between ostentatious consumerism and revolutionary practice.

Abstract, Pensions, Peasants, and the Informal Economy: Family and Livelihood in Contemporary Peru

:::::: Abstract ::::::

Pensions, Peasants, and the Informal Economy: Family and Livelihood in Contemporary Peru
by Susan Vincent


A Peruvian case study explores how urban informal workers negotiate their livelihoods as they age, highlighting reciprocity among urban informal workers, retired formal sector workers, and peasants in a pattern of rural-urban circular migration. Labor-intensive mining in the twentieth century created a proletarian workforce that included men from the peasant community of Allpachico. Their wages became an anchor for kin-linked clusters of households. Now, despite an economic boom, the lack of formal jobs forces younger Allpachiqueños to undertake precarious and informal work. Resource-sector-funded state social spending, such as through state-administered pensions for retired workers and the elderly poor, has replaced wages as a stable source of cash. This state mediation between the technology-intensive resource sector and citizens elicits suspicion and uncertainty. Dispossessed of the right to work and subjected to conditions of eligibility for social programs, urban informal workers continue to rely on kin and community.

Introduction, The Urban Informal Economy Revisited

:::::: Introduction ::::::

The Urban Informal Economy Revisited
by Ray Bromley and Tamar Diana Wilson                                     


One of the most cited definitions of the informal economy is “a process of income generation characterized by one central feature: it is unregulated by the institutions of society, in a legal and social environment in which similar activities are regulated” (Castells and Portes, 1989: 12). Among those the International Labour Organization (ILO) (2013: 3) identifies as being part of the informal economy are those who work in the informal sector as employers and employees in informal enterprises and as self-employed workers. Also included are those who labor outside the informal sector and are informally employed in formal firms or as domestic workers, not covered by labor law protections. The employees in the informal economy also include unpaid family workers, whether employed in informal enterprises or in formal firms or in domestic service.

For decades there have been debates over whether the informal economy is procyclical, expanding as the capitalist economy expands, or countercyclical, contracting as that economy expands. Both things may be happening, depending on which part of the informal economy is under scrutiny: the informally self-employed or informalized wage workers in either informal or formal enterprises (FORLAC, 2015: 2). For example, informal microenterprises that market their products directly to customers or retail outlets may show countercyclical tendencies, whereas informal microenterprises that are subcontracted by large businesses, whether national or multinational, may show procyclical tendencies. More domestic workers may be employed when the economy expands, whereas self-employment in artisanal work and vending may expand when waged employment dries up.

Abstract, Pensions, Peasants, and the Informal Economy: Family and Livelihood in Contemporary Peru

:::::: Abstract ::::::

Pensions, Peasants, and the Informal Economy: Family and Livelihood in Contemporary Peru
by Susan Vincent


A Peruvian case study explores how urban informal workers negotiate their livelihoods as they age, highlighting reciprocity among urban informal workers, retired formal sector workers, and peasants in a pattern of rural-urban circular migration. Labor-intensive mining in the twentieth century created a proletarian workforce that included men from the peasant community of Allpachico. Their wages became an anchor for kin-linked clusters of households. Now, despite an economic boom, the lack of formal jobs forces younger Allpachiqueños to undertake precarious and informal work. Resource-sector-funded state social spending, such as through state-administered pensions for retired workers and the elderly poor, has replaced wages as a stable source of cash. This state mediation between the technology-intensive resource sector and citizens elicits suspicion and uncertainty. Dispossessed of the right to work and subjected to conditions of eligibility for social programs, urban informal workers continue to rely on kin and community.

Introduction, The Urban Informal Economy Revisited

:::::: Introduction ::::::

The Urban Informal Economy Revisited
by Ray Bromley and Tamar Diana Wilson                                     


One of the most cited definitions of the informal economy is “a process of income generation characterized by one central feature: it is unregulated by the institutions of society, in a legal and social environment in which similar activities are regulated” (Castells and Portes, 1989: 12). Among those the International Labour Organization (ILO) (2013: 3) identifies as being part of the informal economy are those who work in the informal sector as employers and employees in informal enterprises and as self-employed workers. Also included are those who labor outside the informal sector and are informally employed in formal firms or as domestic workers, not covered by labor law protections. The employees in the informal economy also include unpaid family workers, whether employed in informal enterprises or in formal firms or in domestic service.

For decades there have been debates over whether the informal economy is procyclical, expanding as the capitalist economy expands, or countercyclical, contracting as that economy expands. Both things may be happening, depending on which part of the informal economy is under scrutiny: the informally self-employed or informalized wage workers in either informal or formal enterprises (FORLAC, 2015: 2). For example, informal microenterprises that market their products directly to customers or retail outlets may show countercyclical tendencies, whereas informal microenterprises that are subcontracted by large businesses, whether national or multinational, may show procyclical tendencies. More domestic workers may be employed when the economy expands, whereas self-employment in artisanal work and vending may expand when waged employment dries up.

Book, "Urban Latin America: Inequalities and Neoliberal Reforms" (Latin American Perspectives in the Classroom) by Tom Angotti

:::::::::: Book :::::::::: 

PURCHASE THIS EDITION 

Urban Latin America: Inequalities and Neoliberal Reforms (Latin American Perspectives in the Classroom)

Edited by Tom Angotti

Latin America is one of the most urbanized regions of the world. To understand Latin America today it is important to trace the origins and characteristics of the urban-rural divide, inequalities within urban areas, and the prospects for change. This is particularly important and timely given the challenges of widening environmental and social disparities, climate change, and climate justice. The authors critically analyze urban issues within the context of the national and regional political economy, neoliberal governance, and urban social movements. Latin America’s cities are sharply divided into wealthy enclaves and large peripheral areas, reflecting deep social and economic inequalities, leading to notable movements and reforms. This text explores Latin American cities, their history, similarities and differences, and current problems.

Rowman & Littlefield Publishers

Pages: 306 • Trim: 6 x 9

978-1-4422-7447-1 • Hardback • August 2017 • $89.00 • (£60.00)

978-1-4422-7448-8 • Paperback • August 2017 • $35.00 • (£23.95)

978-1-4422-7449-5 • eBook • August 2017 • $33.00 • (£22.95)

Abstract, Heritage and the Social Construction of Citizen Power in Historic Neighborhoods of Santiago

:::::: Abstract ::::::

Heritage and the Social Construction of Citizen Power in Historic Neighborhoods of Santiago
by Mauricio Rojas Alcayaga                                              


One of the great changes in the field of heritage studies is the abandonment of the idea of heritage as linked to the inert and monumental past and as a category established only by the state with the support of private patronage in its protection. Citizen empowerment with regard to its establishment, protection, and reinterpretation, with a strong territorial and grassroots component, has transformed it into a field of sociocultural dispute over space and memory in the present. Heritage is a social construction in the dialectic of power. Heritage movements organized in two historic neighborhoods in Santiago are resisting and transforming a capitalist model of urban planning that affects their culture, tradition, and collective memory—their ways of living and identity. Their contributions to an emerging political dispute over heritage add new meanings to a field in need of them.

Book Review, Revisiting the Politics of Planning and Action in Latino Urban America

:::::: Abstract ::::::

Revisiting the Politics of Planning and Action in Latino Urban America

by Erualdo R. González                


In Latino Urbanism: The Politics of Planning, Policy, and Redevelopment, editors David R. Diaz and Rodolfo D. Torres offer a range of scholarship examining the way socioeconomic and political change and urban policy interventions influence the nature and functioning of cities with large Latino populations. They argue that the volume blends traditional critical urbanism perspectives with varied theoretical perspectives on political and policy interventions. The volume has three themes: (1) the limits of popular community development models in neighborhood and commercial spaces, (2) urban living experiences and the role of market-driven and racialized public policy, and (3) community organizations and change. Scholars with varied disciplinary backgrounds provide a mix of contemporary and historical case studies and essays.

Book Review, Scars and Resistances in Latin American Cities

:::::: Abstract ::::::

Scars and Resistances in Latin American Cities

by María Mercedes Di Virgilio                     


The production logics of Latin American cities have not followed the same canons as those of American or European ones. Although in many cities we can recognize neighborhoods or areas that appear to conform to the “North Atlantic urban ideal,” these areas or neighborhoods—as expressions of the so-called formal city—clearly adjoin and interact with what has come to be known as the informal city. The two volumes reviewed here contribute to the vast literature on Latin American cities and to discussions regarding poverty and the scars that informality has stamped on these cities since their foundation (for an overview, see McTarnaghan et al., 2016).

Cities from Scratch: Poverty and Informality in Urban Latin America, edited by Brodwyn Fischer, Bryan McCann, and Javier Auyero, is another in the long list of works on urban informality, but it attempts to move beyond the truisms and paradoxes found in this type of analysis (1):

Abstract, Building Citizenship: The Struggle for Housing in Eastern Mexico City

:::::: Abstract ::::::

Building Citizenship: The Struggle for Housing in Eastern Mexico City

by Luisa F. Rodríguez Cortés                                


Urban social organizations have played a crucial role in the definition of political relations and the transformation of urban space. The practices established by a social organization working under conditions of poverty and vulnerability in the dispute over access to housing in eastern Mexico City produce an urban citizenship that is both weak and precarious, marked by tensions between autonomous practices and bargaining with state institutions, a rift between leaders and the grassroots, and targeted struggles that prevent the development of a shared sense of citizenship on a larger scale.

Abstract, The Uses of Informality: Urban Development and Social Distinction in Mexico City

:::::: Abstract ::::::

The Uses of Informality: Urban Development and Social Distinction in Mexico City
by Frank Müller and Ramiro Segura                                   


“Urban informality” is a signifier that is disputed by real estate developers, politicians, and residents in undertaking strategies of social distinction and gaining particular political and economic benefits. Research in the western periphery of Mexico City distinguishes three cases of such use of informality. First, real estate developers employ informality as a threat to valorize and justify an enclosed “First World” lifestyle in gated communities. Second, informality motivates homeowners’ associations to take on a neighborhood-defending and state-monitoring role. Third, besides its function in reconstituting class frontiers, it serves as a referent for broader social mobilization against the perceived informality of the local elite. By facilitating social distinction, informality continues to marginalize communities as it influences planning decisions and access to land in urban Latin America.

Abstract, Heritage and the Social Construction of Citizen Power in Historic Neighborhoods of Santiago

:::::: Abstract ::::::

Heritage and the Social Construction of Citizen Power in Historic Neighborhoods of Santiago
by Mauricio Rojas Alcayaga                                              


One of the great changes in the field of heritage studies is the abandonment of the idea of heritage as linked to the inert and monumental past and as a category established only by the state with the support of private patronage in its protection. Citizen empowerment with regard to its establishment, protection, and reinterpretation, with a strong territorial and grassroots component, has transformed it into a field of sociocultural dispute over space and memory in the present. Heritage is a social construction in the dialectic of power. Heritage movements organized in two historic neighborhoods in Santiago are resisting and transforming a capitalist model of urban planning that affects their culture, tradition, and collective memory—their ways of living and identity. Their contributions to an emerging political dispute over heritage add new meanings to a field in need of them.

Introduction, Planning Latin American Cities: Housing and Citizenship

:::::: Introduction ::::::

Planning Latin American Cities: Housing and Citizenship
edited by Clara Irazabal and Tom Angotti                                                                


After the 1973 coup in Chile, the Pinochet dictatorship, aided by advisers from the United States, became a proving ground for neoliberal reforms in Latin America. Its efforts to minimize the public role and maximize private initiative have strongly influenced social housing programs in other countries in the region. In effect, Chile’s housing reforms were recognized as best practices. The massive social housing program it launched in the early 1990s has been emulated throughout the Americas, most notably in Brazil’s Minha Casa, Minha Vida program. Following its developer-driven and neoliberal approach to housing, Chile produced a significant volume of new housing units. However, from the larger vantage point of community development and citizenship rights, the new housing has been deficient. It has generated new urban ghettos and peripheral neighborhoods and contributed to suburban expansion, auto dependency, unevenness in the provision of services, and a new form of poverty.

Abstract, Dealing with Dangerous Spaces The Construction of Urban Policy in Medellín

:::::: Abstract ::::::

Dealing with Dangerous Spaces
The Construction of Urban Policy in Medellín
by Luisa Sotomayor


In Latin America, cities with security challenges are increasingly invoking urban planning policy to rebuild governance in neighborhoods perceived as unruly. While the state’s “arrival” in marginalized areas is long overdue, it is also embedded in complex histories of violence and socio-spatial marginalization. Medellín’s Comuna 13 has historically been materially and discursively constructed as a space of relegation. Interview and focus group data show how policy cycles for Comuna 13 evolved from discretionary programs (1978–2002) to securitization and (para)militarization (2000–2003) and then social urbanism, a program of participatory urban upgrading (2004–2011). The latter, a reformist approach, aims to provide better services, foster participation, and reduce socio-spatial segregation. Underlying these positive aims, however, two contradictions remain concealed: deep-seated inequality resulting from decades of normalized exclusion and the perpetuation of a regime of hypersecuritization and (para)policing that recreates itself under new governance and spatial arrangements.

Abstract, Urban Governance and Economic Development in Medellín An “Urban Miracle”?

:::::: Abstract ::::::

Urban Governance and Economic Development in Medellín An “Urban Miracle”?
by Tobias Franz


Many of the academic analyses calling Medellín’s development an “urban miracle” fall short with regard to discussion of the political economic implications of institutional shifts. An emerging transnational capitalist class promoted ‘good governance’ reforms and the embedding of neoliberalism in the urban context. Medellín’s neoliberal development agenda is not only a market-led strategy but also a particular form of hierarchic rule and distribution of power. Increased economic activities in the tertiary sector, the promotion of flexible labor markets, and the incorporation of the city into the global economy at the lower end of the value chain have not served as sustainable growth escalators for Medellín’s economy. The city continues to have high rates of un- and underemployment and is still the country’s most unequal city. These developments can by no means be described as miraculous.

Abstract, Failed Markets The Crisis in the Private Production of Social Housing in Mexico

:::::: Abstract ::::::

Failed Markets
The Crisis in the Private Production of Social Housing in Mexico
by Alfonso Valenzuela Aguilera


A confluence between the state, the housing market, and the rationale of financial capital has led to excessive growth of social housing in Mexico in the past two decades. This growth has been one way of channeling excess capital into global financial markets rather than the result of a public policy to address the housing needs of the low-income population.

Abstract, The Future of Global Peripheral Cities

:::::: Abstract ::::::

The Future of Global Peripheral Cities
by Erminia Maricato


In June 2013 an unprecedented movement spearheaded by young people took to the streets of Brazilian cities. Despite the diversity of explanations of the protests, one thing became clear: the urban question was at the center of events. Brazil has become an international role model for its innovations in social policy and even urban policy. There have been social struggles for a democratic city. New policies, new programs, new projects, and a Ministry of Cities have been created. This democratic and participatory process has taken place in the context of fiscal adjustment and therefore contention over resources. When the federal government resumed investment in cities following a developmentalist project, capital linked to the production of space took over the leadership of the urban process and the virtuous cycle of urban policy declined. Investment in works directed by the real estate market in the context of mega-events such as the World Cup and the Olympics together with tax relief for the purchase of automobiles deepened the deterioration of urban living conditions, especially housing and mobility.

Abstract, Urban Mobility and Politics in Mexico City The Case of the Frente Amplio contra la Supervía

:::::: Abstract ::::::

Urban Mobility and Politics in Mexico City
The Case of the Frente Amplio contra la Supervía
by Oscar Sosa López


Study of the struggle of a social movement, the Frente Amplio contra la Supervía, to stop the construction of an urban toll road in the southwestern end of Mexico City reveals that investments in transportation assumed to benefit the larger public are in fact creating new landscapes of infrastructural and democratic exclusion. Examination of the forms of citizen mobilization, alliances among diverse actors, and the role of accountability institutions as spaces for democratic experimentation suggests that struggles against large infrastructure projects allow citizens and the state to redraw the limits of authoritarianism and the meaning of sustainability and democracy in the city.

Abstract, Power, Policy, and Citizen Participation in Santo André, Brazil

:::::: Abstract ::::::

Power, Policy, and Citizen Participation in Santo André, Brazil
by Victor Albert


City master plans assumed a central role in urban planning in Brazil with the promulgation of a new constitution in 1988 and the passage of enacting legislation in 2001. Citizen participation became an important part of this new urban planning framework. In contrast to some of Brazil’s other democratic experiments, participation in urban planning has been received critically or with only cautious optimism. A comparison of two participatory forums in Santo André, São Paulo, shows that established patterns of administrative power can decisively influence the participation of the public in city planning. Differences in the executive structures of the two institutions enabled one of them but not the other to foster open-ended deliberation on policies with members of disadvantaged groups. The study suggests that participation might be enhanced by reserving executive positions for civil society participants, including the public at all stages of policy development, choosing participants largely from disadvantaged groups, and keeping the forum small.