http://www.sosyalarastirmalar.com/cilt2/sayi8pdf/Blanco_Kobayashi.pdf
Nowadays cities expansion is experiencing the growth of large slum areas -notably in developing countries- threatening all levels of quality of life of their population. This paper presents some of the characteristics and circumstances associated with the origins of slums and their consequences in the urban core. It presents the integral approach of the local government of Medellin in Colombia applied within former slum areas, including the introduction of an aerial massive transportation system known as “Metrocable” (aerial mono-cable gondolas) which was introduced, connecting the informal areas of the Northeastern communes, with the rest of the urban network “Metro”.
Negative impacts on the housing and public services’ supply jeopardized the capability of cities to cope with the demand, facilitating the conditions for the appearance of urban slum settlements located at the peripheral areas of the largest cities of the region, sadly known by the name of cinturones de miseria or misery belts in English.
The introduction of the Metrocable in one of the most marginalized areas of the country was the beginning of a physical and social transformation within the area not just in terms of reducing the transport gap between the inhabitants of the peripheral neighborhoods (which commonly needed to walk long routes before being able to access the Metro system or the urban buses network), but also in terms of recognition of these areas by institutional bodies and even encouraging self-recognition for their inhabitants, who when commuting by air were able to observe better their neighbourhood.
One of the weakest features of the area was difficult transportation and communication alternatives.The local government decided to interconnect the Metro and introduced a new system called the Metrocable. This aerial massive transportation system was inaugurated in 2004 and is used daily by ca. 67,000 people.
Slums, are also referred depending on the region using terms such as barrios marginales, gecekondus, favelas or shantytowns, constituting physical evidence of a social and economic problematic derived from speedy migration processes in cities unable to cope with the pace of development required to provide affordable housing or develop a suitable financial alternatives for these new settlers, plus the increase of urban population with reduced purchasing capacities, and hence with difficult access to land tenancy.
It has been suggested by various studies (Blanco 2002, Ortiz et al 2005) that paradoxically, when the slums are compared with formal districts, in the long run, the costs faced by the institution(s) interested in upgrading or advancing regularization processes within these settlements, are higher to undertake than in wealthier parts of the city. Nevertheless, the social impact and the benefits including better indicators in terms of health, security, education, institutional awareness and self involvement from the communities, justifies the economical effort.
In order to manage the situation of large scale informal districts growth, local governments were supposed to deal with the dilemma of supporting or not certain program’s frameworks.Depending on the country, their governments have been using either repressive measures to avoid the extension of new city limits through strategies based in neglect these kinds of settlements, or denying their internal crisis with the subsequent lost of control of their whereabouts. On the contrary, in other cases some local governments have tried to face the issue by implementing strategies including the assignation of terrains with basic public services’ provision, shelter upgrading, social regeneration programs and large scale infrastructure improvement projects, among others.
Given the extreme spatial shortage that characterize the slum areas, the opportunity to generate new public space, was helpful in the promotion of a sense of belonging and understanding of the relevance and the need of protection within shared areas for community encounters.
"URBAN TRANSFORMATION IN SLUM DISTRICTS THROUGH PUBLIC SPACE GENERATION AND CABLE TRANSPORTATION AT NORTHEASTERN AREA: MEDELLIN, COLOMBIA", Last modified Summer 2009, http://www.sosyalarastirmalar.com/cilt2/sayi8pdf/Blanco_Kobayashi.pdf
Mandy
November 9th, 2010
