From URBAN AGE
South American Cities: securing an urban future - 2007

Urban Age is a worldwide investigation into the future of cities. Organised by the Cities Programme at the London School of Economics and Political Science and the Alfred Herrhausen Society, the International Forum of Deutsche Bank. The URBAN AGE CITY DATA section has been derived from various official statistical sources, including the United Nations Statistics Division, Instituto Basileiro de Geografia e Estatistica (Brazil), Departamento Administrativo Nacional de Estadistica (Colombia), Instituto Nacional de Estadistica y Censos (Argentina), Instituto Nacional de Estadistica e Informatica (Peru), Observatorio Urbano (Lima) and Ministerio de Desarrollo Urbano (Buenos Aires) as well as individual Ministries, Departments and Secretariats for each city, state and country. Complete data sources available at www.urban-age.net

SOUTH AMERICAN CITIES:

FINE TUNING SOUTH AMERICAN CITIES. Deyan Sudjic

THE SPECIALISED DIFFERENCES OF GLOBAL CITIES. Saskia Sassen

There is no such entity as ‘the global economy’ in the sense of a seamless economy with clear hierarchies. The reality consists of a vast number of highly particular global circuits: some are specialised and some are worldwide while others are regional. Different circuits contain different groups of countries and cities.
For instance, Mumbai is today part of a global circuit for real estate development that includes firms from cities as diverse as London and Bogotá. Global commodity trading in coffee includes New York and São Paulo as major hubs. Buenos Aires is on a global commodity trading circuit that includes Chicago and Mumbai. Globally traded commodities – gold, butter, coffee, oil, sunflower seeds – are redistributed to a vast number of destinations, no matter how few the points of origin are in some cases.
And the current collapse of major financial institutions involves particular sets of global circuits and hence does not affect all global cities in the same way.

BUILDING URBAN ASSETS IN SOUTH AMERICA. Jeroen Klink

POLITICS, POWER, CITIES. Enrique Peñalosa

There is not a scientifically or technically correct or incorrect way of making a city. Defining what makes a good city is more a matter of heart and soul than of engineering. It is more akin to an art than to a science. Yet, despite the subjective nature of urbanism, a government must adopt a vision and promote it, make decisions, build, define rules and enforce them – it must not only envision but also enact the city.
If a good city is society’s collective work of art, then its government acts as the piece’s conductor and often its composer as well.

THE MOBILITY DNA OF CITIES. Fabio Casiroli

CITIES AND CLIMATE CHANGE. David Sattherwaite

Seeing cities as ‘the problem’ draws attention away from the fact that the driver of most greenhouse gas emissions is the consumption patterns of middle- and upper-income groups in wealthier nations.

THE CHALLENGE OF CLIMATE CHANGE IN LATIN AMERICA. Patricia Romero Lankao
FROM WASTE TO PUBLIC SPACE. Stela Goldenstein

Just as Latin American urban centres have registered levels and paths of development different from those prevailing in high-income nations, so too do their trajectories of emissions differ. Carbon emissions per capita in urban areas such as Austin and the District of Columbia are 6 to 20 times higher than those in São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro and Mexico City. This might lead many to the conclusion that Latin American cities should not care about climate change, especially when they are faced with under-employment, housing backlogs and other more pressing development concerns; when considering the wealthiest nations emit most greenhouse gases it is the high-consumption lifestyles of the wealthy that drive climate change and must, hence, take urgent actions to curb their emissions and avoid catastrophic and irreversible damages. However, there are two sets of reasons here why urban centres in the region must pay attention to this burgeoning global phenomenon: first, our cities are especially vulnerable to the impacts of climate change, and are faced with the health impacts of atmospheric pollution; second, cities can also play a pivotal role in our efforts both to cope with or adapt to heat waves, floods and other climate hazards, and to reduce or mitigate the emissions of greenhouse gasses and other atmospheric pollutants.

SOCIAL ENGAGEMENT IN LATIN AMERICAN CITIES. Gareth Jones

Georg Simmel would be both fascinated and alarmed. The streets of Tepito are full of worshippers, upwards of 2,000 people moving excitedly in anticipation of seeing and possibly touching La Grande, a lifesize statue of the Santa Muerte or saint of death. Looking to all intents like the Grim Reaper, La Santa represents a ‘crisis religion’, with devotees identified as the victims of the neo-liberal economy: she is popular among drug addicts and dealers, former prisoners and gang members. Mingling in the crowds of Tepito are heavily tattooed men, in every appearance hardcore gang members, except that they are bringing their babies to La Grande, delicately placing a cigarette at the baby’s lips to cast smoke over the shrine.
But La Santa’s supporters go beyond these stereotypes. A friend’s uncle, a millionaire businessman, has replaced the conventional Virgin of Guadalupe altar in his house with one to La Santa. At the Sonora market in La Merced, the stallholders selling the statues – red for love, gold for wealth, black for protection, and the powders for the devotions – claim a broad clientele. In these times of economic uncertainty, of a state no longer willing to be associated with terms such as ‘welfare’, with families split by the 20 million Mexicans living in the US, everyone needs some form of social attachment.

URBAN AGE CITY DATA:
TOWARDS AN URBAN FUTURE
SOUTH AMERICAN CITIES
SÃO PAULO
RIO DE JANEIRO
BUENOS AIRES
BOGOTÁ
LIMA
GOVERNING CITIES
CITIES AND REGIONS
URBAN FOOTPRINT
DENSITY
URBAN FORM
MOVING IN THE CITY
THE URBAN WORKFORCE
METROPOLITAN SCALE IN SÃO PAULO. Regina Meyer

FOCUS ON SÃO PAULO:
URBAN AGE CITY SURVEY. Luci Oliveira and Ben Page
NEW URBAN OPPORTUNITIES. Raul Juste Lores
THE MULTICULTURAL CITY. José de Souza Martins
SÃO PAULO’S URBAN TRANSPORT INFRASTRUCTURE. Ciro Biderman
MOBILITY AND THE URBAN POOR. Alexandre Gomide
WORLDS SET APART. Teresa Caldeira
SAFE SPACES IN SÃO PAULO. Paula Miraglia
IMPLEMENTING URBAN CHANGE. Nadia Somekh and Carlos Leite
INSERTS:
DEUTSCHE BANK URBAN AGE AWARD
URBAN AGE SOUTH AMERICA CONFERENCE PROGRAMME

URBAN AGE SOUTH AMERICA  2007

In bringing the Urban Age to São Paulo, the London School of Economics and Deutsche Bank’s Alfred Herrhausen Society are confronting the changing realities of one of the most urbanised regions of the world. Like its seven predecessors, the eighth Urban Age conference addresses the social, economic and spatial conditions of urban South America through an interdisciplinary lens, focusing on the interconnected issues of security, mobility, climate change, governance, urban design and development.

Following in-depth analysis of New York, Shanghai, London, Mexico City, Johannesburg and Berlin – brought together in The Endless City book published earlier this year – the Urban Age in 2007 turned its attention to cities in India and now to São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Buenos Aires, Bogotá and Lima. In 2009, the focus will be on Istanbul and urban development in South-Eastern Europe, with a concluding Urban Summit and major exhibition in Berlin in 2010.

The South America Urban Age conference in São Paulo will be the largest and most complex of the series, bringing together 80 experts and civic leaders from over 25 cities from 14 countries. It follows a year of research and a series of workshops in London and São Paulo, as well as input drawn from submissions to the second annual Deutsche Bank Urban Age Award, created in 2007 to recognise and celebrate creative solutions to the challenges facing cities. Working closely with academic and institutional partners and by inviting speakers from around the world to share their urban experiences, the Urban Age conference offers a mirror to reflect on São Paulo’s problems and opportunities at a time of intense social, political and economic change.

Ricky Burdett - Director, Urban AgeLondon School of Economics and Political Science

Wolfgang Nowak - Managing DirectorAlfred Herrhausen Society Deutsche Bank