Clasificación espacial del suelo urbano por el valor especulativo del suelo e imágenes MSI satelitales usando K-MEANS, Huancayo, Perú

The city of Huancayo, like other intermediate cities in Latin America, faces problems of poorly planned land-use changes and a rapid dynamic of the urban land market. The scarce and outdated information on the urban territory impedes the adequate classification of urban areas, limiting the form of its intervention. The purpose of this research was the adoption of unassisted and mixed methods for the spatial classification of urban areas, considering the speculative land value, the proportion of urbanized land, and other geospatial variables. Among the data collection media, Multi-Spectral Imagery (MSI) from the Sentinel-2 satellite, the primary road system, and a sample of direct observation points, were used. The processed data were incorporated into georeferenced maps, to which urban limits and official slopes were added. During data processing, the K-Means algorithm was used, together with other machine learning and assisted judgment methods. As a result, an objective classification of urban areas was obtained, which differs from the existing planning.

La lucha urbana por la reconquista y la redefinición del espacio público en América Latina

Since its inception in ancient Greece, public space has played a key role in the politics and democracy of cities. Its role has been degraded in post-modernity, and reached its deepest crisis in the full maturity of the post-Fordist system (from 1990 onwards). This economic and representation depression, as well as institutional legitimacy, that States are experiencing, have promoted the emergence and resurgence of different social movements that flood cities globally. Here is where the concern of the Frente Urbano Amparo Poch y Gascón collective lies, formed by the authors, to recognize and characterize, from a socio-urban logic, these manifestations and the sustained occupation that public spaces have experienced in different Latin American cities during the last decade. This research, framed within the Virtual Latin American Meeting, Utopías Líquidas, is proposed starting from a mixed methodology of collective mapping, recognizing public spaces, and characterizing their occupation exercised by Latin American social movements, in the dispute to redefine them and regain their political character, and thus value the different Latin American social movements and their struggles, in an act that encourages resistance and solidarity.

Gentrificación en el centro Metropolitano de Monterrey, 2010-2020

The purpose of the study is to identify areas that are possibly gentrified or in the process of being gentrified, through a localized typology of two components: youthification and an increase in the quality of life. This typology can be applied in similar investigations. Thisd paper addresses the case study of the Metropolitan Center of the City of Monterrey (CMM), Nuevo León, Mexico. The current urban regeneration plans and the increase of housing density in the CMM have caused a vertical real estate “boom” of apartment buildings and have strengthened the emergence of gentrification in the area, understood here as the decrease in social backwardness (increase in the quality of life) over time, with an increase in young adults (25 to 34 years-old), compared to older adults (60+ years-old). This article suggests a procedure to measure gentrification by overlapping the Index of Social Backwardness (ISB) at the Basic Geostatistical Area (AGEB) level, with a youthification index at the electoral section level between the 2010-2020 period. Both the decline of social backwardness (2010-2020) and youthification (2010-2020), are analytically articulated for successive census years, to generate a localized typology of the gentrification process.

Transformaciones sociales y urbanas del entorno de los Mercados del Centro Histórico de Cuenca. Mercado 9 de Octubre y Mercado 10 de Agosto

Street markets are public facilities that link commercial activities and cultural exchange, which interact with the urban fabric that they are a part of. Their historical and symbolic values ​​make them vulnerable to transformations that rethink the urban structure, as happens in the immediate surroundings of the “9 de Octubre” and “10 de Agosto” street markets, located in the historic hub of the city of Cuenca, Ecuador, where processes of gentrification, touristification, and commercial gentrification have taken place. In this context, the proposal here is to analyze the urban and social transformations of the last 50 years, using a mixed methodology with an exploratory approach, through observation, surveys, and interviews. In both case studies, the results showed that with the operation of these street markets, commercial activity increased in the respective areas which, together with other associated issues (insecurity, unhealthy conditions, informal trade), are the main triggers for the incremental displacement of the population.

El paseo imposible por la ciudad inabarcable. Una relectura de las ecologías urbanas de Reyner Banham

The city of Los Angeles, CA, is, for sure, the first city to authentically emerge as a result of the widespread popularisation of automobile use, and it should, therefore, come as no surprise that the analytical and synthetic understanding of its profound nature is associated with this means of transportation and the infrastructures that make it possible. This is how the critic and historian Peter Reyner Banham understood it, when he proposed that only from behind the wheel of a vehicle could it be possible to reveal the true idiosyncrasies of this unusual city that the most orthodox European critics rejected, who were unable to extract a synthesis that could explain it. What was happening was that the city appeared as the pioneer of a new urban form which, relying on the widespread use of the car and the single-family dwelling, which is typical of the suburban garden city, proposed an absolute decentralisation as an alternative to the compact industrial city. In 1971, Banham published a now canonical text -Los Angeles, The Architecture of Four Ecologies- which aimed at revealing a clear and synthetic image of the city. This article highlights the main points of Reyner Banham's proposal, looking to expand its theoretical approach -which handles the structural and morphological scales- to a third scale: that of the sensory perception of the physical experience of space, based on some academic works of reference, but also on literary references by writers linked to the city in an attempt to transfer the poetic and sensitive vision to the field of urban studies. This vision makes it possible to show a change of paradigm regarding the relationship that the inhabitant of a contemporary city like Los Angeles -and, by extension, so many others- establishes with the scenario of collective life, represented by public space.

Calidad del entorno urbano y percepción de seguridad de las mujeres. Comparación de dos barrios de Cuenca, Ecuador

Most cities have been planned and built based on a universal subject: a male, healthy, paid, and middle-aged worker. As a result, cities have become an environment that makes social inequalities visible as they hinder the daily lives of the most vulnerable groups. Among these groups are women. In this context, this research looks to present the results of a study that aimed at determining the influence of the quality of the urban environment on the perception of safety for women in two neighborhoods, with different quality of life indices, in the intermediate city of Cuenca, Ecuador. The case studies were the Rio Sol neighborhood, whose quality of life index is one of the highest in the city, and Ciudadela Los Eucaliptos, which, despite being only 500m from the previous one, has a medium-low quality of life index. Methodologically, 3 tools were applied: e-MAPS, to determine the urban quality of the two neighborhoods; an adaptation of the Urban Diagnosis with a Gender Perspective (DUG, in Spanish), to measure the safety perception of women; and non-participant observation. The results showed there are differences in the urban environment quality index between the two neighborhoods, but that these are not directly related to the perception of safety. Non-participant observation suggests that there are other factors that make up neighborhood life, that affect women's perception of safety.

Tensiones de la Gobernanza comunitaria de servicios sanitarios rurales en territorios periurbanos (Chile)

Unlike the private concession model applied in urban zones, rural water sanitation services in Chile are managed by rural drinking water (RDW) committees or cooperatives, under a community governance model. This article seeks to understand the tensions and conflicts faced by RDW community governance in the peri-urban territories of regional capitals, which are at the frontier of the private drinking water management model. Based on a political ecology and hybrid governance approach, this research proposes the hypothesis that, on facing urban expansion and water scarcity, the neoliberal institutional framework tends to favour drinking water market governance in peri-urban territories. With this aim, and through semi-structured interviews and participatory observation, focusing on three RDW cases located in the peri-urban zone of Talca, this study develops a critical discourse analysis of community managers and government regulators, identifying their perceptions and positions on current socio-ecological transformations, and community governance tensions. Consistent with the proposed hypothesis, from discourse analysis, it is possible to infer the potential risks of privatization, derived from the implementation of Law No. 20,998, which regulates rural water sanitation services.

Gobernanza de ciudades intermedias: aprendiendo de acciones post-desastre en la zona Metropolitana de Acapulco, México

This article analyses the governance patterns of post-disaster public action carried out after Hurricanes Ingrid and Manuel hit Coyuca de Benítez in 2013, a municipality that is part of the Metropolitan Area of Acapulco, Mexico, seeking to contribute towards broadening knowledge about the modes of governance of intermediate cities, and in particular, those related to disaster risk reduction. Conceptually, the concept of adaptive governance is presented to contrast and reflect on prevailing governance patterns in Coyuca. Methodologically speaking, this work is based on the sociology of public action, to analyse the reconstruction processes of infrastructure, public services, and housing, through interviews, focus groups, and diverse written sources. This paper argues that, despite the decentralization and democratization efforts of recent decades, governance patterns are highly centralized and not very adaptive, limiting the development of participatory and articulated interventions that meet people's daily needs and improve their quality of life. In this context, public action, rather than reducing disaster risks, has increased and/or generated new risks in already precarious and vulnerable urban territories. Along the same vein, this paper questions the relevance of regulatory and conceptual frameworks, such as adaptive governance, to guide significant changes, given the distance between ideal and existing governance patterns in the territories.

Diagnóstico de diseño y uso del espacio vial peatonal: aportes desde el paisaje para la ciudad de La Plata, Argentina

In the context of increasingly more complex urban scenarios, the infrastructure of the city's road spaces is still almost exclusively dedicated to cars. The city of La Plata is no exception, also presenting an interesting contrast between its planned urban areas and those that have grown due to urban sprawl. The concept of pedestrian space is understood starting from the different functions it fulfills, not only insofar as a transport infrastructure, but also as public and strategic spaces that shape the urban landscape. Thus, this article proposes, on one hand, the generation of primary information and, on the other, the construction of a diagnosis about the design and use of the pedestrian space. For this, a survey of the current state of the pedestrian space, its dimensions, morphological characteristics, and landscape elements, is carried out. Although there is an adequate amount of space reserved for pedestrian use, it is confirmed that in many sectors it is still not accessible or pleasant for citizens, due to its poor condition or complete lack of upkeep.

Alerta roja para los humedales urbanos

Last November 17th, a fire started by a flare, laid waste to 10 ha of the Paicavi urban wetland in Concepción, which is part of the larger Rocuant-Andalién water system. The incident once again raised a red flag for these green spaces, which have been left behind in Chilean urban management and planning in recent decades, on not having been acknowledged as urban green infrastructure, or as part of a broader environmental matrix.