Urban Realities
Ceilândia: Issues of Social Justice and Capital in a Globalized World
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Katia da Costa Bezerra
Inaugurated in 1960 to serve as the capital, Brasilia is formed by a pilot plan and around thirty satellite urban municipalities. The relationship between the satellite cities and the pilot plan has been marked by disparities and segregation. Created in 1971, Ceilândia is one of the most populous satellite cities. It has an IDH of 0,784 with serious public safety, health, and education problems . A cidade é uma só (2011), directed by Adirley Queiroz, interconnects the history of Ceilândia to the construction of the new capital, Brasília. Unlike other films that celebrate the modernist image of the city, A cidade é uma só brings to the fore the social disaster of the utopian project. Viewing and reviewing the film provides a point of departure to explore the relationship between memory, urban space, and the myth of modernity. It allows us to examine the interplay between the displacement of people, urban interventions, and social justice - issues that are not restricted to Brazil but are part of the everyday life of cities in our globalized world.
Brownfields to Greenfields: Are Green Cities More Inequitable?
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Juliana Maantay
Many post-industrial cities have large proportions of vacant and derelict land (VDL), which have numerous deleterious environmental and health impacts on the proximate populations. VDL can be put to beneficial use for the communities, such as urban agriculture, passive/active recreation spaces, farmers’ markets, natural areas connecting with existing open space networks, or urban forestry phyto-remediation. Typically, VDL is located predominantly in poorer neighborhoods, presenting a disproportionate environmental and health risk to more vulnerable populations - risks that could be mitigated/reduced by constructive re-use. Conversely, re-use of VDL also poses significant risks to these communities, due to the potential for displacing poor people and marginalized groups through gentrification, which often follows community greening efforts and stimulates developer- or government-instituted green infrastructure projects and other large-scale development, potentially detrimental to the existing community. Communities may counter this trend by transforming VDL into informal greenspaces, benefitting the current community but not necessarily attracting gentrification. Therefore, VDL stays provisional and transitional, retaining some marginal qualities and not appearing totally “domesticated,” whilst still being partially under the control of the neighborhood residents. This is termed “just green enough” interventions. This study is designed to begin addressing these issues: Does this strategy improve communities and prevent the often pernicious impacts of gentrification? Or do cities engaged in extensive greening projects become inequitable due to the seemingly inevitable dislocation and further marginalization of the displaced populations? Are “green” cities inherently more unjust?
City as a Divider or Unifier?: Can Artistic Practice Bring People Together in the Public Space?
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Murat Germen
The “old” notion of a city is directly related to the presupposition that civilization is born, preserved, and sustained in the city. As we look at the pace of the urbanization realized globally, we can see that the conception of city is reconfigured and we end up with a contemporary notion of a “new city.” This new city is designed as an area of camouflaged modern slavery of various dependencies. The originally autonomous farmers in the rural areas, affordably satisfying their most basic needs like food and accommodation, are encouraged to migrate to cities leaving their skills in agriculture behind. The strategies consisting of prevention of independence at different levels, individualization of people and less cooperation / collectivity, competition in urban societies for success; result in new cities that divide people, instead of equally uniting them. This study opens a discussion about getting recommendations for what, how, and why many components of contemporary metropolises / giant quasi-urban settlements are left out from where “really urban” life is taking place, as a result of exclusionary planning policies and how re-unification can be made possible: a) By exhibiting specifically created artworks / events to be displayed in the outdoor public spaces such as squares, streets, building façades, walls, billboards, etc. b) By using micro solutions for cooperation among diverse folks living in the city, belonging to different income / education level groups, faiths / cultures, sexual preference groups, walks of life.
An Experimental Space Acting as a Prototype of Urban Thinking
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Jonathan Cha
The construction of a new district on a former industrial wasteland in Montreal was an opportunity to occupy a non-place that William H. Whyte would name "huge reservoir of space yet untapped by imagination." This transitory approach, initiated in 2015, aimed to initiate a discussion with residents of the surroundings and make the urban transformation more acceptable. In the last four years, the Virage-Campus MIL site managed by MTL ville en mouvement organization has experimented with the mechanisms of occupation, mediation, construction and reflection in order to introduce the notion of "public" in the space. In this sense, we can approach it as a prototype (Harop (2015) which is defined as an "incremental iterative refinement" (Buxton, 2007). It is an "embedded process" (Zhang, 2014) that underpins an investment of meaning and a change of perception. The site is constantly changing, the expectations and appropriations of citizens evolve at the same pace. He collects the wills, the marginal practices, he relies on experimentation, each action contributes to build a thought, a place, to take a stand. It is the process which counts, rather than the finality of the object or the product, the political action rather than urban form. The study addresses four years of space practices and urban tactics, theorizes on the notion of prototype, demonstrates how the project has the power to influence our way of conceiving the city and the public space and concludes by analyzing the reception of the project, its stakes, challenges, and opportunities.
