Sur-Urbano

“Sur-urbano” is a podcast where we talk to leading scholars, planners and activists on Latin American cities about their work, the cities they love and how to make them better. Produced by the Latin American Cities Working Group, based at UC - Berkeley, and hosted by Isabel Peñaranda Currie. To find out more, or to cohost, reach us at @latam_cities. Made possible thanks to UC Berkeley’s Global Metropolitan Studies and to the Center of Latin American Studies. Music: Jaime Alejandro Angarita Art: Rachel Meirs - https://www.instagram.com/rachel.meirs/ Production: Francesca Fenzi

Surviving a lo Bori con Rafael Pabón Ortega

Esto es un desafío al orden establecido, una invitación a transgredir, a romper el cerco. Son historias ordinarias y cotidianas, de amores y desamores, del prójimo y del próximo, de muertos y vivos, de locos y cuerdos, de desacuerdos, de un país en cantos y del desencanto, de las visitas al baño y de la oveja negra que perdió el rebaño, del macharrán y del sacristán, del bien  y el mal, de los excesos, y del poco seso, de mis desvelos y de un poco de eso.  Hoy en Sur-Urbano, tenemos un episodio un poco diferente. Entrevistamos al cronista puertoriqueño Rafaél Pabón, quien acaba de lanzar un nuevo libro lamado “Surviving a lo Bori”.  Como las crónicas del libro, en este episodio hablamos de todo un poquito: de la historia familiar de Rafael en San Juan, de las nostalgias de un boricua en Nueva York, de la música, política y por supuesto, de los mundos urbanos que nos inspiran.

10-14
42:27

El Paro como Teoría con Alejandra Azuero-Quijano

¡Bienvenides a nuestra cuarta temporada de Sur-Urbano! Arrancamos con un estallido. El 28 de Abril de 2021, se declaró un paro nacional en Colombia como reacción en contra de una controversial reforma fiscal impulsada por el gobierno de Iván Duque en medio de la pandemia. En todo el país, las calles se llenaron de manifestantes, se escuchaba el eco de los cacerolazos, y durante meses fuimos testigos de una impresionante experimentación política de resistencia.  Aunque su importancia trascendió lo electoral, tuvo mucho que ver con la elección de Gustavo Petro y Francia Marquez, el primer gobierno de izquierda en la historia de Colombia.  Alejandra Azuero Quijano, nuestra invitada de hoy, es doctora en derecho y antropología y actualmente es profesora en Swarthmore College, Filadelfia. En su libro El Paro como Teoría, nos propone pensar al paro como un “estallido epistémico”, un acontecimiento que tiene la capacidad de cambiarlo todo: la política, las condiciones sensibles y los modos del saber. Junto con Ana Marrugo Gómez, hablamos con ella sobre qué significa eso de entender al paro como teoría, sobre las temporalidades y espacialidades y sentidos nuevos que el mismo creó y sigue creando, y sobre cómo repensar el pasado para entender y actualizar el presente. 

02-06
42:38

Agua y Crisis Climática en Ciudad de México con Claudia Campero y Jimena Silva

¿Cómo se ve la justicia climática desde lo urbano? En el marco del cambio climático, el acceso al agua es un tema cada vez más apremiante - y la Ciudad de México, es una crisis ya reconocida que se intensifica todos los días. En este episodio Lis Camacho y yo hablamos con Claudia Campero y Jimena Silva sobre su informe  La guía Agua y Clima para involucrarte en tu ciudad, publicado por Greenpeace México.  Discutimos esa intersección tan compleja entre los retos urbanos, la gestión del agua, y el cambio climático. Sobre todo, vemos cómo las ciudades contribuyen a la crisis climática, pero también son víctimas de ella. Cuando se suma esto a contextos de desigualdad, vemos cómo la crisis climática profundiza la inequidad. En su Guía, Claudia y Jimena nos invitan a informarnos, sí, pero también a actuar.  Claudia Campero y Jimena Silva, expertas profesionales y activistas en temas de sustentabilidad, gestión del agua, cambio climático y transiciones justas. Jimena es activista para el cuidado del agua, el ajolote y la biodiversidad en Xochimilco con la iniciativa del Foro Económico Mundial, dentro de la red Global Shapers del hub CDMX . Claudia Es coordinadora de alianzas de la Iniciativa por del Tratado de No Proliferación de Combustibles Fósiles. Lis, nuestra cohost, es abogada especializada en derecho ambienta y política climática.

10-11
38:47

Reggaetón y la Ciudad con Hasta 'Bajo Project

Bienvenides a una nueva temporada de Sur-Urbano! Para hablar de este importante tema quisimos invitar a Hasta ‘Bajo Project, el primer archivo histórico del reggaetón en Puerto Rico. Junto con mi cohost Betsabé Castro, entrevistamos a Ashley o “Ash” Olivia Mayor  - co-directra ejecutiva de Hasta Bajo Project, y curadora de música Latina en el Smithsonian, y a Loraine, o “Lola” Rosado Pérez, del equipo del archivo y estudiante doctoral en el Centro de Estudios Avanzados.   Hablamos de los orígenes y evolución del género, desde el dancehall jamaiquino en Panamá, al rap en español en las las calles de nueva York, llegando a Puerto Rico. El reggaeton se convierte en un escenario y lente para entender las dinámicas de clase, raza y género en Puerto Rico durante los últimos 25 años, y paralelamente, cómo esto se manifiesta en el espacio urbano. En el entramado de los barrios populares como la Perla del del viejo san Juan, o en los caseríos de Vivienda social, los primeros artistas de reggaeton – muches de ells negres – forjaron este género para describir sus experiencias. Con Lola y Ash, exploramos cómo el reggaeton se convirtió en objeto de estigma e incluso prohibición a la par que estas comunidades fueron criminalizadas y racializadas a la par que el espacio urbano fue sujeto a la segregación racial y privatización. También exploramos cómo la comercialización del reggaetón tuvo un “blanquamiento” – metafórico, al pasar de retratar la cotidianidad de estas comunidades a temas más comerciales, y también un blanqueamiento literal, ya que el colorismo favoreció a ciertos artistas de rasgos más mestizos y excluyó a muchos de los artistas negres que crearon este género. Culminamos con un mensaje de resistencia, al discutir cómo el reggaeton se está usando como arma de lucha política y de defensa del territorio, incluyendo las luchas por servicios públicos y en contra de la gentrificación.

09-05
54:10

What makes cities more or less unequal? with Ben Bradlow

The question of inequality haunts the global north and south as economic, racial and other forms of inequality appear to grow deeper and to more devastating effects. But although this is a global problem, it is not an inevitable or homogeneous one, and local actors can have a role in responding to this dynamic. That is why in today’s episode we ask: ‘Why are some cities more equal than others?”. To answer this question, Flavia Leite and Isabel Peñaranda talk to Ben Bradlow, an associate research scholar and lecturer at Princeton. Through a south-south comparison of Sao Paulo and Johanseburg, Ben argues that some cities are better at reducing inequality than others because of their degree of embeddedness and cohesion. Bradlow's book, Urban Power (forthcoming with Princeton University Press) asks “Why are some cities more effective than others at reducing inequality?” To answer this question, he compares the divergent politics of distributing urban public goods — housing, sanitation, and transportation — in two mega-cities after transitions to democracy: Johannesburg, South Africa, and São Paulo, Brazil.  Because the book isn’t out yet, we based our interview on two papers: a 2022 paper in Theory and Society – Embeddedness and cohesion: regimes of urban public goods distribution – and a 2021 paper in City & Community –Weapons of the Strong: Elite Resistance and the Neo-Apartheid City Ben Bradlow is an Associate Research Scholar in the Department of Sociology at Princeton University and a Lecturer in Princeton’s School of Public and International Affairs. He is trained as both a sociologist and city planner, and holds a PhD in Sociology from Brown University (2020), and a Masters in City Planning from MIT (2013). Flavia Leite is a PhD student in City & Regional Planning at UC Berkeley. Her research interest revolves around the relationship between formal and informal housing markets, with a specific focus on housing financialization, access to credit, and housing policy in Latin America.

04-26
49:13

Transversality, Transitoriness and New Logics of Peripheral Urbanization with Teresa Caldeira

Welcome to the first episode of 2023! In this episode, Giselle Mendonça Abreu and I have the privilege of talking to a scholar well known among those of us who study Latin American cities: Teresa Caldeira. Professor Caldeira's work, rooted in ethnography of Sao Paulo's peripheral urbanization, has made substantial methodological and theoretical contribution to how se study cities, particularly in the Global South, for decades. In this episode,  we discuss Teresa’s trajectory as an urban anthropologist in the 1970s in favelas in Sao Paulo. We then move on to talk about what has changed since then by discussing her two latest articles, which explore the twin concepts of “transversality” and “transitoriness”. Departing from the belief in progress of the midcentury, which was implicit in autoconstruction, Teresa takes us to the transitory, fragmented and non-linear dynamics which characterize cities today. Like so much of her work, she asks us to critically reflect on the categories we use, including that of the Global South, and pushes us to think transversally with concepts that “travel” in unexpected ways. The texts we discuss today can be found here:  “Transitoriness: Emergent Time/Space Formations of Urban Collective Life” (published in Grammars of the Urban Ground, edited by Ash Amin and MIchele Lancione “Transversal Connections: Seeing Cities from Other Spaces” (published in Catalan in 16 Barris, 1000 Ciutats, edited by Valentín Roma, Teresa Caldeira, Frits Gierstberg  Teresa Caldeira is a professor at the University of California - Berkeley in the Department of City and Regional Planning. Her research, which is rooted in anthropology, looks on the predicaments of urbanization, such as spatial segregation, social discrimination, and the uses of public space in cities of the global south. Her book City of Walls: Crime, Segregation, and Citizenship in São Paulo (University of California Press, 2000), won the Senior Book Prize of the American Ethnological Society in 2001, and presents a comprehensive analysis of the ways in which crime, fear of violence, and disrespect of citizenship rights intertwine with urban transformations to produce a new pattern of urban segregation based on fortified enclaves. Giselle Mendonça Abreu is  is PhD candidate in City & Regional Planning at UC Berkeley. Her research examines the political economy of rapidly-growing “soybean” cities in Brazil’s hinterland.

01-19
40:34

Capitalismo, la Crisis Climática y la Planificación en Puerto Rico - Mesa Redonda

Bienvenides a un episodio muy especial de Sur-Urbano sobre Puerto Rico. En vez del formato de entrevista que normalmente hacemos, hicimos una mesa redonda para explorar la relación entre el colonialismo, el capitalismo y el cambio climático en la isla. Lo interesante es que, como este es un podcast sobre ciudades, lo hacemos desde el punto de vista de la planificación. En otras palabras, exploramos sobre cómo la historia de Puerto Rico, desde el colonialismo hasta los ajustes estructurales neoliberales, se cristalizaron en las instituciones de planificación en Puerto Rico, y así afectaron la respuesta ante el huracán María y su reconstrucción. Para ello tenemos dos invitados de lujo. El primero es David Josué Carrasquillo Medrano, quien fue el pasado presidente de la Sociedad Puertorriqueña de Planificación, y lleva años trabajando en temas de ordenamiento – u ordenación, como lo dicen en Puerto Rico - territorial, además de haber trabajando con los Planes de Ordenación Territorial y Planes de REcuerpación de múltiples municipios. También tenemos a Omar Pérez Figueroa, quien obtuvo su doctorado en la universidad de California Irvine del departamento de planificación urbana y política pública, y es el autor de textos como “La geografía de la crisis del agua: ¿Dónde está Puerto Rico?” y demás que pueden consultar aquí: https://www.omarperez.me/bio 

12-21
58:35

Gated Communities and Peripheral Growth in Latin American Cities with Nora Libertun de Duren

In this episode, returning cohost Aurora Echeverría and I talk to Nora Libertun on her article, “Peripheral Growth in Latin American and Caribbean Metropolis: Gated Communities and Path Dependence”. Nora was great to talk to because she is a practitioner – currently working in the Inter-American Development Bank – but has also taught at numerous universities, including Harvard’s Graduate School of Design. She brings this perspective in this article about how the legacy of core-periphery models within Latin American cities – where peripheries tended to be spaces of informality, poverty and divestment – laid the foundation for a new kind of periphery: that of gated communities. We talk about how the legacy of the relationship between the public and private now reproduces – or may potentially mitigate – inequality, and what policy makers can do to address these urban development patterns. You can find her paper here: https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/edit/10.4324/9781003132622-16/peripheral-growth-latin-american-caribbean-metropolis-nora-libertun-de-duren Nora Libertun de Duren is a leading expert on sustainability, social inclusion, and affordable housing in urban areas. She has experience working in multilateral development banks, local government, and academia. Currently, Nora leads the Inter-American Development Bank research and knowledge agenda on cities; and mainstreams gender and diversity issues in urban projects. Previously, she was the Director of Planning and Natural Resources for New York City and has taught urban planning and international development at various universities, including Columbia University and the University of Buenos Aires, and currently teaches at Harvard's Graduate School of Design.  Aurora Echavarria is a PhD student in Urban Planning at the University of California, Los Angeles, where she is a graduate fellow in the Latin American Cities Initiative. Her research centers on the relation between systems of local government finances, property taxation and the dynamics of urban inequality in public good provision. Aurora's dissertation research is supported by the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy's C. Lowell Harriss Dissertation Fellowship.

12-07
51:34

Why do local governments produce redistributive urban policies? With Prof. Eduardo Marques

Second, we are starting Season II with an interview with the University of Sao Paulo's Eduardo Marques and cohosted by Marcela Alonso Ferreira. This was an timely conversation, in that Eduardo’s work examines the conditions and dynamics of redistributive urban policies and their changes in Sao Paulo. Understood broadly, it accounts for how progressive urban agendas become policy, and the conditions for their continuity, disruption or oscillation - a pretty fundamental question for the left. It was a hopeful message laced with fear, since we recorded just days before the October 30 presidential election. Now on the other side of the election, Eduardo and Marcela’s analyses are useful in understanding the significance of Lula’s victory. Eduardo Marques is a full professor at the Department of Political Science and Director of the Center for Metropolitan Studies at the University of São Paulo. He holds a degree in Civil Engineering (UFRJ, 1987), a specialization in Public Health (Fiocruz, 1988), an MSc in Urban and Regional Planning (UFRJ, 1993) and a Ph.D. in Social Sciences (Unicamp, 1998). He recently published the book “The Politics of Incremental Progressivism Governments, Governances and Urban Policy Changes in São Paulo” (Wiley/SUSC-IJURR, 2021), which I recommend to anyone interested in urban policies in Latin America.  In this episode, we discuss two of Eduardo's recent articles: "Why do local governments produce redistributive urban policies?" and "Continuity and Change of Urban Policies in São Paulo: Resilience, Latency, and Reanimation".  Marcela Alonso Ferreira is PhD candidate in Political Science at the Center for European Studies and Comparative Politics at Sciences Po, Paris interested in urban governance in Latin American cities. Marcela investigates the changes in land regularization policy and politics in São Paulo and Mexico City. Marcela also mentions a research group called Cities are back in town, a seminar series convening urban scholars from various disciplines to discuss recent publications on cities worldwide. Many seminars are online so if you're interested, write to citiesarebackintown@sciencespo.fr to receive our mailing list. s.

11-04
40:54

The History of Low-cost Housing and Informality in Peru with Helen Gyger - Part I of 2

The significance of Peruvian history on the topic of informality, however, is not restricted to this nation. Some of the most emblematic experts on informality - from John Turner to Hernando de Soto - came out of reflecting on housing in cities like Lima and Arequipa, before their ideas were exported to Latin America and around the world.  Today we talk with University of Technology Sydney researcher Helen Gyger on her book “"Improvised Cities: Architecture, Urbanization, and Innovation in Peru," which was also the topic of her PhD dissertation at Columbia University. As it turns out, when Helen interviewed John Turner on his experience in Peru, he told her she had to look further back and at the Peruvian architects, politicians and academics who were pioneers in addressing low-cost housing. In this episode, we do just that. Cohost Kelly Ros Mery Jaime and I talk to Helen about three figures whose different approaches continue to define the terms of the debate around housing provision and informality today: Fernando Belaúnde Terry, Pedro G. Beltrán, Adolfo Córdova.  We discuss their visions for architecture and low-cost housing provision in the 1950s, ther impact on how informality and the role of the state was conceived in the developmentalist era, and their continued legacy.  Helen Gyer is a researcher on architecture history at the University of Technology Sydney and previously was a Postdoctoral Researcher at the University of Pennsylvania. She holds a PhD in the history and theory of architecture from Columbia University.   Kelly Ros Mery Jaime is an architect at the National University of Engineering in Peru, researcher and activist on housing issues. She holds a master in urban development planning from Manchester University.

10-31
47:31

Socialist urban utopias in Mexico with Alfonso Fierro

Welcome back everyone to our first episode in English of Sur-Urbano’s season 3. Today we ask, what is the role of architecture and planning in creating the future? And if you could design a city that was just, and equitable, and otherwise reflected your values, what would it look like? Do we even remember how to imagine better futures?   The city we are discussing today is one that was never built, but that was imagined in the hearts and minds of a group of Mexican socialist architects in the 1930s.  We talk to Alfonso Fierro about his article on the Proyecto de Ciudad Obrera, a project designed in 1938 by the Unión de Arquitectos Socialistas – the Socialist Architecture Union, or UAS. We discuss the context and development of Ciudad Obrera, and how it imagined a different kind of collective life that was in turn linked to a national industrialization and development policy. But beyond that, we talk about the importance of Urban Utopias – of why imagining different futures critiques the present by denaturalizing it as the only way to be. In doing so, utopias strengthen our ability to bring other kinds of reality into being. Alfonso Fierro is Assistant Professor of Mexican and Latin American literature at Northwestern University. His work, as we will see, explore the place of utopian and speculative fabulation practices in Latin American urban landscapes.

09-20
45:38

Land Policy in Latin America with Martim Smolka

This week we are talking to Martim Smolka, the man who has been the director of the Latin American and Caribbean program at the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy since it was made, 27 years ago. This is no minor thing: four of our guests on this podcast have worked or published with the Lincoln Institute, and its impact on Latin American land policy is profound - Martim has truly played an important role in the history of land policy in Latin American cities. In this episode, Flavia Leite and I talk with Martim about the Georgist theoretical underpinnings of progressive land policy, the history of these policies in Latin American cities, and why TIF may well be understood as the “anti-christ” of land value capture. On the subject of TIF, check out Flavia and Bridget Fisher's critical analysis of the camouflaged risks and costs of TIF in Hudson Yards that we mention in the episode: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0264275122001007 Martim is a Brazilian economist, with a Ph.D. in Regional Science from the University of Pennsylvania (1980). He was the director of the Program on Latin America and the Caribbean at the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy for 27 years. At the LILP he developed (and lectured in) many educational programs for high-level public officials, members of academia, NGOs leaders and other professionals throughout Latin America. Flávia is a PhD student in City & Regional Planning at UC Berkeley. Her research interest revolves around the relationship between formal and informal housing markets, with a specific focus on housing financialization, access to credit, and housing policy in Latin America.

09-06
38:46

¿Qué realmente es el Derecho a la Vivienda? con Carla Escoffié

¡Bienvenides a nuestro primer episodio en español! De ahora en adelante alternaremos episodios en español con los de inglés.  Empezamos esta nueva etapa hablando con la abogada, activista y académica Carla Escoffié sobre su libro “ El Derecho a la Vivienda en México: Derechos Homónimos”, explorando cómo se ha concebido y provisionado este derecho en el contexto Mexicano, pero también en América Latina. De ahí pasamos a hablar sobre cómo este derecho se puede realmente defender ante un sistema judicial que favorece la propiedad privada y los intereses económicos poderosos - y por ello hablamos sobre las experiencias de Carla defendiendo este derecho en Yucatán.  Culminamos con el llamado a que los y las planificadoras trabajemos más cercanamente con quienes ejercen el derecho, para juntes construir ciudades más justas y equitativas. Nuestro co-host esta semana es Alfonso Fierro. Alfonso Fierro es Profesor de Literatura Latinoamericana en Kenyon College, y está terminando su doctorado en la Universidad de California Berkeley, donde estudia utopías urbanas en el trabajo de escritores, arquitectos y planificadores después de la Revolución Mexicana.   https://editorial.tirant.com/co/libro/el-derecho-a-la-vivienda-en-mexico-derechos-homonimos-carla-luisa-escoffie-duarte-9788411131452

08-17
40:38

Land Use Regulation and Informal Settlements with Prof. Cynthia Goytia

Can land use regulations end up incentivizing informal settlements, or mitigate? In this episode, cohosted by Flavia Leite of UC Berkeley, we interview Prof. Cynthia Goytia of Torcuato Di Tella University in Buenos Aires. We talk to Prof. Goytia about an ambitious multi-year project which charts the relationship between land use regulation and informal settlements in over 300 municipalities across 10 different Latin American countries. We talk about the prevalence of low density residential zoning in Latin American cities, the impact this and other land use regulations have on promoting or mitigating informal settlements, and what local governments can do to leverage what is arguably their cities’ biggest asset – their land – to make more inclusive cities. Although the reports we discuss are not yet publicly available, we will post it when they are published.  Cynthia Goytia is Head of the MSc. in Urban Economics at Torcuato Di Tella University in Buenos Aires, Argentina where she also has founded and chairs since 2012, the Urban Policy and Housing Research Center (CIPUV), one of the most prestigious urban research centers in Latin America. She has developed a relevant and influential body of academic research on urban policies, housing and land markets. She is a senior urban consultant to Argentinas and Latin American governments, the World Bank, United Nations Inter-American Development Bank and CAF (Banca de Desarrollo de America Latina), and fellow of the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy. Flávia is a PhD student in City & Regional Planning at UC Berkeley. Her research interest revolves around the relationship between formal and informal housing markets, with a specific focus on housing financialization, access to credit, and housing policy in Latin America.

06-15
45:15

Why Informal Workers Organize with Prof. Calla Hummel

Our cohost today is Irene Farah and our second guest of the season is Prof. Calla Hummel. We are discussing Prof. Hummel’s recent published book, Why Informal Workers Organize: Contentious Politics, Enforcement, and the State. Given that over half of Latin America’s workers are estimated to be informal workers, a percentage that is estimated to have grown in the pandemic, the book’s exploration of why informal workers choose to organize – or not – is very timely and important. We talk to Calla about what factors contribute to informal workers organizing, xyr experience working as a vendor, about how governments should relate to informal workers. Dr. Calla Hummel is an assistant professor in the University of Miami’s Department of Political Science, with a PhD from the Department of Government at the University of Texas at Austin. Xe studies when and why informal workers organize and the impacts that the world’s two billion informal workers have on local and national politics, by using statistical, ethnographic, survey, computational, and formal methods. Irene is PhD Candidate in City & Regional Planning at UC Berkeley. Previously, she worked in the Center for Spatial Data Science at the University of Chicago. Her research revolves around themes of inequality, focusing on topics of urban informality, governance, health, and spatial analytics. In particular, she is interested in how recent shifts in governance structures in Mexico City impact how informal workers, street level bureaucrats, and local politicians negotiate over the use of public space, with a particular focus on street vendors.

06-01
37:00

The judicialization of planning in Bogotá with Sergio Montero

Are judges the new planners? In our first episode of "Sur-Urbano", we discuss Sergio Montero, Luisa Sotomayor and Natalia Ángel Cabo's recent article “Mobilizing Legal Expertise In and Against Cities: Urban Planning Amidst Increased Legal Action in Bogotá”. The authors note that there has been a rise in legal action around urban policy and planning in Colombia, which means that legal experts and judges often end up dictating things that used to be within the realm of planners – social housing, transport corridors, and public space.  We talk to Sergio Montero, an Associate Professor of Urban and Regional Planning and Development at the Universidad de Los Andes in Bogotá, Colombia, associate editor of the journal Regional Studies and director of LabNa (Laboratorio de Narrativas Urbanas). Check out the article here: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/02723638.2022.2039433?journalCode=rurb20

05-18
45:57

What Do We Owe Each Other? Operationalizing Social Protections with Gautam Bhan

"A global pandemic has brought renewed attention to an old question: what do we owe each other? " The crisis of the COVID-19 brought this question to a head, and with it, calls for rethinking a “new social contract” that would outlast the emergency measures, a social contract rooted in mutual aid, yes, but also a stronger, more active, welfare state. It also made painfully urgent to consider the process by which these measures were operationalized; that is, by which the intentions of the state to reach the most marginalized groups of urban residents were put into practice, given that these resdents and workers were also the least visible, often informal, and therefore illegible to the state. Gautam Bhan's article "Operationalising Social Protection: Reflections from Urban India" addresses this very question. Drawing from empirical cases at the Indian Institute for Human Settlements, Bhan explores how the social contract plays out through social protection systems, arguing that how we deliver both existing and new entitlements is as important as deciding what entitlements urban residents should be entitled to. We discuss four challenges: (a) residence as an operational barrier; (b) workplaces (thru informal worker orgs) as sites of delivery; (c) working w worker orgs as delivery infrastructures; and (d) building systems of recognition and registration of informal workers. Bhan also points out how the different trajectories of Brazil and India changed inequality, finding that the ecosystem of social protections (in education, housing, cash transfers and the right to the city) backed by social movements rose the conditions for the bottom 30% of Brazilians. For Bhan, “operational knowledge is essential to imagine what Simone and Pieterse (2017) describe as ‘grounded and speculative alternatives’” - and in this text, he reveals operationalization to be a profound reflection on putting solidarity in action. Gautam Bhan is an urbanist whose work focuses on urban poverty, inequality, social protection and housing. He is currently Associate Dean of the School of Human Development, at the Indian Institute for Human Settlements School, and the Senior Lead in Academics and Researhc at this same institution. He holds a PhD in urban studies and planning from the University of California, Berkeley. Pranav Kuttaiah is a researcher and writer from Bengaluru, India currently pursuing a PhD in City and Regional Planning (with designated emphases in Political Economy and Science and Technology Studies) at UC Berkeley.

11-19
49:32

Operações Urbanas: Teoria e Prática com Camila Maleronka

Neste episódio discutimos com a urbanista Camila Maleronka as Operações Urbanas Consorciadas, instrumentos responsáveis por grandes transformações em cidades brasileiras. Em São Paulo, por exemplo, onde o instrumento nasceu e foi mais implementado, as operações urbanas foram responsáveis por intensificar e direcionar a atividade imobiliária e investimentos públicos para certos bairros. Ao mesmo tempo, muitos argumentam que são elas as responsáveis por agravar ou mesmo causar processos de gentrificação e exclusão de famílias mais vulneráveis desses mesmos locais. Vamos discutir essas e outras questões!   Camila Maleronka é urbanista e consultora em habitação, planejamento e instrumentos de financiamento urbano. Colaboradora do Instituto Lincoln em programas sobre gestão fundiária, recuperação da valorização da terra e instrumentos de financiamento. Desde 2020, é professora da disciplina de Instrumentos de Financiamento e Política Fundiária do curso de pós-graduação em Urbanismo Social do Insper. É doutora em Urbanismo pela Universidade de São Paulo.

10-28
55:12

Justice and equity in transportation systems with Rafael Pereira

What is a fair transportation system? What does it mean to say that a particular place is a transportation desert? Are measure of transportation poverty and equity absolute or relative? How do you define a poverty line in terms of accessibility? In this episode, co-host Gregorio Luz and host Flávia Leite speak with Brazilian researcher Rafael Pereira of the Institute for Applied Economic Research (IPEA), a reference in urban analytics, spatial data science and transportation studies. Based on a recent paper by him and professors Alex Karner and Steven Farber, "Advances and pitfalls in measuring transportation equity," our interviewee answers these and other questions, and also delves into more philosophical questions about what fairness and equity are in urban studies.

09-23
45:34

Cuando la Planeación se Reduce a Contratos con Samuel Nossa Agüero

En el episodio de hoy, hablamos de lo que pasa cuando la planeación se reduce a contratos, el título de un artículo escrito por mi buen amigo, Samuel Nossa Agüero. Hablo con Samuel sobre su estudio etnográfico de Ciudad Bolívar, en Bogotá, donde ejerció como asesor de planeación en la alcaldía local. Samuel fue testigo y partícipe de la manera en la cual la planeación se ha ido reduciendo a la formulación y ejecución de contratos por operadores privados. Nos habla de cómo llegamos a esto, por qué presenta tantos problemas, y qué podemos hacer para superar este parálisis tan terrible en el que estamos. Samuel Aguero tiene un Phd en desarrollo Local del CIDER, de la Universidad de los Andes. Su tesis conecta los estudios sociolegales con los debates de la planeación con una investigación en Ciudad Bolívar, Bogotá. Además de trabajar en la alcaldía local, ha sido activista defensor del derecho a la Ciudad.

09-05
37:21

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