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.