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Pablo Meninato and Gregory Marinic, "Urban Labyrinths: Informal Settlements, Architecture, and Social Change in Latin America" (Routledge, 2025)
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A
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B
Hello, everyone. Welcome to the New Books Network. My name is Amal Hashim and welcome to the Architecture Channel. Today we have Dr. Pablo Meninato with us. The book in question today is Urban Labriance. I'm just going to bring it up. Yes. Dr. Maninato is an associate professor at the Temple University Tyler School of Art and Architecture. His work focuses on the intersections of architecture, urbanism and social change, with a special focus on Latin America. He is a recipient of the 20242025 Fulbright US Scholar Award for a research and publication project on Lino Bo Bardi. An architect, architectural critic, educator, and native of Argentina, Maninato has practiced and taught architecture and urbanism in Philadelphia, Buenos Aires and Monterre, Mexico. He currently serves on the Philadelphia chapter of the board of the Society of Architectural Historians. Maninato's essays have been published in various magazines and articles. Yes. So welcome, Dr. Pablo. I hope everything is going well with you.
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C
Good morning for me and good evening for you, Amal. It's a pleasure to be here and thank you for the invitation. I'm very happy to be on your podcast.
- [02:30]
B
Thank you. So, your book, Urban Informal Settlements, Architecture and Social Change in Latin America, it was published by Rutledge in 2024. It's a very interesting book. You looked at five different. Five different initiatives for informal settlements within five different countries in Latin America. Can you explain or tell us a little about that? How did you come across these. These initiatives and what made you study them, rather than all the other initiatives that must be out there?
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C
Yeah, as you said, the inlets in America and in the global south in general, there are many regions that they are in the last years paying a lot, much more attention in the interventions of informal settlements. I have to say this is a relatively new problem or question for the disciplines of design. And it has a very short history. If we look until really in the 1980s is when the first writings on informality began to be more or less well known in academic architecture and urban cycles or centers and Latin America for many circumstances. One is that it's one of the most unequal regions in the world. Also it has the prominence in many places that informal settlements of avelas are very visible, so it would be very hard to hide them. And Also in the 90s, suddenly, after many years, that many regions that have a multiple in Brazil, in. In Argentina and practically all South America, they have military dictatorship. In the 90s, we see in all these regions, starting in the 80s, but mostly in the 90s, we have. All these countries are enjoying democracy. And when the question of informality, or favelas begins to be more in the foreground, before it was really in the background. So when, and I have to say I started devising this book together, who is my collaborator, whose name is Gregory Marinique. He teaches at the University of Cincinnati. We wanted to have as much as possible, a wide spectrum, both geographically to cover from north of Latin America to south of Latin America. And also thematically to have to see how there are different approaches to engage in interventions in informal settlements. So that decided and we narrowed down to five cities. And I will list them from north to south, just to give if somebody that is listening can a little bit picture. The first city is Tijuana. It's in the north. It's really in the border with Mexico. And that is the U.S. mexico borderland. On the other side of the border is San Diego, California. Then is Medellin in Colombia, then Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo, both in Brazil. We have two cities of Brazil, but as we know, Brazil is by far the largest country in Latin America. And finally, on the southern side of South America is Buenos Aires, the capital of Argentina. So in this way we cover this territory. And also we wanted to have like, different approaches. The first one, and a little bit close chronologically. How we structure the book. It starts with Rio de Janeiro. Rio de Janeiro was the base of the really the first large scale intervention project. It had a very strong support from at the municipal level, at a federal level, and also had very importantly international support. But this was a new phenomenon. The Inter American Development bank and the sort of the federal government, they both supported this. And it was like a reference case study. This intervention Rio Janeiro was titled the Favela Barrio Project, which it has a in the title itself. It's very interesting. Favela, as we know, is informal settlement and barrio means neighborhood. And the idea was, the ambition was to convert the favela into a little bit of all the qualities of a conventional neighborhood. Conventional neighborhood that has paved streets, that have public squares, public spaces, community centers, health clinics, schools. All the qualities that we find sorry, and access to public transportation. All the qualities that we find almost normal in any neighborhood, that they were in many ways absent in the favelas were beginning to be appeared. So that is, I think, to discuss this. I think really the key moment is 1993, when, and I have to say, two architects that are her name, and Luis Paulo Conde and Sergio Magaliayes, they were both, at that point, government officials, they devised these. What would be the challenge? And I think it's the first time in history that there is such a challenge with such important political economical support. So they have to devise how shall we develop the interventions in favelas. So far before, there had been all microscopic interventions in many places all around the world. But the idea of a large scale municipal program, it was new at that time. And they decided to divide, identify many favelas. And they categorized them in small, medium and large scale. And I think makes sense. They started doing many multiple interventions in small scale favelas. But each intervention would be held a competition, and the competition had to be included. Each team would have to be really multidisciplinary. And including each team had to have planners or urban planners, architects, engineers, and many cases, sociologists, economists and social workers. A key thing that I think is very important as an antecedent is that the project had to include the proposal, had to include a survey of the favela and consultation of the residents. So that was the point of departure. Following chronologically, ten years later, early 2003 or four, is the beginning of what is later be known as social urbanism in Medellin, when the nice thing, and that is a pattern through Latin America, they learned many of the lessons of Rio de Janeiro. They incorporated this idea of making Individual, separate intervention, not trying to resolve everything, at the same time resolving a step by step. Also breaking the project into phases. First, building what is the most basic infrastructure, including services such as paving roads and providing drinking water, electricity and sewage networks. And following is the creation of new public spaces and facilities such as public squares, schools, sports fields, community halls and health clinics. So there was and they were both quite successful, I have to say. Then is the third factor. That is how the maintenance. And here Medellin has an advantage because it's a smaller city, obviously has politics, but are not as drastic, I think at municipal level as in Rio de Janeiro and in Brazil. In the long run, the maintenance in Rio Janeiro has been better. Sorry, in Medellin have been better. In Rio Janeiro. I visited the favelas in 2019 and then in 2022. And many works, sadly they were abandoned. Many were kept, but many were abandoned. And it's an ongoing process. Obviously the change of administration in Brazil from at some point from center left government to a far right head by Bolsonaro, who's now in prison. But that was a very difficult setback. While in Medellin and in Colombia there had been changes of government, but medicine somehow even alternating governments. They all thought that it was a pride for the city to keep these works projects going. So those are the two key moments. Then a third moment is the Tijuana, which is, as we know, is in the right on the border with the US and where you have a completely different kind of interventions. You have a factor that is not a municipal intervention sponsored, but nonprofits get involved. You have many nonprofits, some are religious, and perhaps the most important one is a nonprofit organized or led by the University of California, San Diego. And here we have two figures that are Teddy Cruz and Fauna Foreman, where they develop what they call community stations, what are basically community centers, but sometimes acting also a housing subject asking performing as preliminary intermediate spaces for people that are planning to be immigrants that want to go to the US because of the changing political situation, many are becoming like full time housing projects. But also in addition to this project by the University of California, San Diego, the Community Station, there were other small scale nonprofit interventions. Perhaps the one most well known is, and the one we examine is by a sustainable a scientist whose name is Oscar Romo. He's an architect, he's a landscape designer, and he also leads a very important non profit. So that is the typical situation. Third, fourth, I would say is Sao Paulo, as we know, is relatively close to Rio Janeiro, but it's a completely different political landscape. And so Pablo enjoy the stability that Rio de Janeiro lacked or missed that they could develop long term projects. They have some actors or players that have been involved for many years. One of them, perhaps the key person there is Elisabetta Franza. She has been the main planner for the commission. The organization is called CEJABI that does all the interventions in favelas. They have a fantastic program in the south of Sao Paulo, in an area that there are some water dunks that are called Programa Mananciais. That means like streams program that they have done like a very good job. And finally is my hometown, my home city, where I grew, I was born and grew is Buenos Aires, which is the late camera into this and is the is only in the 2000 and tens. They started realizing that they had a very large favela, right? One of them in the center of the city or close to the center of the city it was called in Argentina, they call it Villa. And they had a very interesting process of learning from the others experiences. So when they realized we have to do something about this community, they contacted, they travel, they make ties, they learn about their experience in Rio, they learn from experience in medicine, particularly also in Sao Paulo. So they learn the lessons and they apply the lessons and they develop a program that basically follows the playbook that was initiated in Rio and also follow very well in medicine that is starting with the basic infrastructure with sewage water, electricity, et cetera, and then moving into creating schools and creating community centers and create health clinics and things of that sort. So that gives you a little bit what is the big spectrum of our book, how and why we decided to these cities.
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B
When I was reading, when I started reading your book, I was expecting. I was expecting because of the title Urban Labrians and because it discusses informality and the initiatives that. That people have taken up in informal settlements. I was picturing something very similar to the informal settlements I've seen in Karachi, which is my home city. And for me, Labriance was the Greek story where the Minotaur is just. Is just stuck in that labyrinth. But there is no out, but there's also no one else there. It's just walls. At least that's the picture in my head. Whereas my experience of informal settlements has been it's walled, yes, but it's also so chaotic. There's so much happening, but the walls are always gray or they're always brown. There's not much ornamentation, there's not much artist artistic creativity happening. Which is why when you wrote in the book in the introduction you've written, the favelas of Rio de Janeiro that shroud its hillsides resemble a dramatic filigree of meandering irregular streets intermingled with indeterminate spaces as well as an urban plan that, being organic, cannot fully be understood.
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A
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B
For me, I think that is the crux of informality everywhere, right? It's organic and yet you cannot understand it. Which is why the emphasis that some of these initiatives put on studying the settlement itself, on the living conditions of the people, on the local materials that they use, I think that was very important, wouldn't you agree? Because otherwise, in my experience at least, it's been that people come in from outside without understanding the local context of what is possible, what people want, the social and cultural sentiments of the communities living there. So how do you think the initiatives that you've discussed in the book, how do you think that they expressed their connection with the local communities with regards to their cultural sentiments, with regards to their social needs? How do you think these initiatives responded? And do you think that there was that there can be a step forward or a better method or an alternative method in initiatives that aim to uplift communities?
- [19:45]
C
That's a great question. And I think it's something that we should always keep in mind that is that, so to speak, and that's why we use the metaphor of the library. This is a world in itself, with its own rules, its own paradigms, its own aesthetic. And we should be very always very mindful of that. So on one hand is a group, is a population that is in many occasions desperately needing help, needing assistance and needing to provide things that they've been doing, services and schools and community centers, et cetera. But at the same time, how to respect what they already have and not to disregard it. The notion of having large informal settlements on one hand is ancient. If you look at many European towns, and I'm sure all around the world, but let's think of Italy, even Venice, et cetera, they were grown organically, they were grown without any planning. And that's why you find all these winding streets and these irregular geometries, et cetera. But it took centuries for them to consolidate in what they, they are cities. However, in Latin America, the informal settlements, they are like a 50 years more or less process. It came basically with the mass migration from people getting, running out of jobs in the countryside and going to the city looking for jobs. And they, many of them without other options, they decide to self build and that creates those communities. So we have to keep in mind that is a new, a relatively new phenomenon from the design of the environment point of view. For planners, urbanists and architects. If you look at treatises and books through whatever theme Vitruvius Till the late 20th century, there's almost no mention at all of any formal settlement. So it's really a new topic for us. When I say us, it's all, every, all of us that are dealing with this. So we have to take this condition as with a sort of what you, as they said with a grain of salt, very cautiously. So one hand, you want to change things, you want to improve things. And sometimes you have to be very respectful of what is existing. So obviously it's a thin line that you have there. And you mentioned the introduction of the book and at the end of the book, more or less, we said, we know that many of the things that we are proposing here later will be changed, will be challenged, and even maybe some of them may be wrong. And it could be because this is a little bit of trial and error things that you have to try things and see how it works. I think it's good and positive. The mere fact that there is initiative of many disciplines from the designers, but also anthropologists, sociologists, people involved in medicine, Engineers thinking we need to do something, so that is a consensus. On the other hand, what to do. There is. There are difference opinions, and it's logical that they are. I think it's a learning curve, and I think we have to accept it as a learning curve. And where all opinions are necessary and valid, there's no, I don't think what. On one hand, what we saw, the experiences in Rio and Medellin especially, that they were later replicated in Sao Paulo and Buenos Aires. I think that they are very valid lessons. And you see the quality of life of the people living there having improved. So obviously that is a basic fact. Now, if that is a lesson that could be applied everywhere, in any region, any time and any moment, probably no, because also you need to have support, financial support, economic support, you have political support. So you have to take that in consideration. The conditions that led to the development of the favela barrio project in Rio Janeiro were unique, the same as what happened in Medellin and the same as what happened in Buenos Aires. So you cannot replicate. Well, that's one reason that we also included Tijuana, that it has a completely different path. There's no municipal or state level big project, but there are a lot of miniature projects, what you may call acupuncture, urbanism, that you have many simultaneous projects that are happening. So you see there's a completely different paradigm going on there, and I think we can also learn from there. So I hope address your question and I'll.
- [24:44]
B
Yes, that was. You raised a very important point about how disciplines need to come together, rather than just focusing on a certain aspect or staying rigidly within the confines or the boundaries of their studies. And this is something that you've, you've talked about in your book as well. And I do believe that the. This transdisciplinary approach to urban planning, to uplifting of settlements, of communities, is very important. You've written here traditionally, of course, urban planning, architecture, landscape architecture, it's largely been at the service of wealthy classes or of governments that were able to patronize large scale projects or monumental projects. But then you have the social urbanism, as in, we tried it in one city, so there was that initiative in Medellin. But do you think that social urbanism as a concept for urban planning for larger cities is possible for a city of the size of Rio de Janeiro, for instance, or Egypt? Do you think that would be possible?
- [25:57]
C
Frankly, I think many lessons of medicine, yes, they are applicable because one of the key components of this is something that is to Engage in transforming one area at a time, not trying to change everything simultaneously. They call that strategy. They have three initials. Three initials P, U, I. That in English would be integral urban project. That is to make a boundary of a certain neighborhood. And in the case of medicine, the first POI was the Northeastern commune, where they thought that was a big challenge because all the they had problems with violence and they had problems with poverty, et cetera, et cetera. So they thought, if we can succeed in the most challenged neighborhood, that will be the lesson, that we can succeed in many others. So that's what they did. They started in that neighborhood, they intervening very strong interventions, including public transportation, including creating public spaces, sports facilities, obviously infrastructure, and once schools, et cetera. Once they have really transformed that neighborhood and people could go there and attest all the changes, then they moved to another one. Maybe that it was kilometers away, was not the one next. It doesn't need go one next to the other. So they obviously there is a team that discusses and plan and decides which one to attend. A key thing, and for instance, a key thing in Medellin is the resources they have. Medellin has a public service company that provides water, electricity for the city and for other cities in Colombia. And even they export their expertise. And by municipal law, 30% of the profits of that company has to be invested in the city. So they knew they have this pool of money to do this work which other cities don't have. So that case, yes, that is unique to Medellin. I wish all cities have something like that. And then the company Empresa Publica de Medellin, that would be public companies of Medellin and that provides fundings not only to do the work, but later to maintain it. So you know that you have a saving ready to be invested, and that is really unique to Medellin. But probably other cities may find other way to support it, with taxes, et cetera. So I think that obviously goes beyond the design field and research field. It goes more into economics. But as I state many times in the book, the economics here are crucial. The political economics are crucial. Without economic and political support is crucial. But going back to the sort of the urban design approach, I think it is with adapting, with adjusting, with doing work, it can be implemented. And I know Alejandro Chavarri, who was the sort of the head of this initial process, that he was the first years as head of the Urban Planning Commission that did all this work in Medellin. Later he has been hired as an advisor for projects in South Africa and Many other places. So he has already and many others have an expertise that can be shared. Of course, it's not a playbook that you copy exactly as it is. I hear your question as well. Can you do that in El Cairo? Obviously you need to engage with the Cairo, have consultation sessions with the actors there, with the community, with the neighbors. And you have to evaluate if that is possible. But if you ask me, in principle, in abstract, is that urban intervention strategy plausible to be applied in other places which has been happening in Latin America, more or less in Buenos Aires, they follow the footstep of Medellin. And I think they also they did a quite good job. I think it's possible, but obviously with a lot of consideration of the local conditions with Cairo.
- [30:20]
B
And Cairo is just an example. Of course, Karachi and Cairo are very similar, but not just these two cities. When you talk about the political and economic motivation and that factor being very important in the success of such initiatives, the fact is that Medellin is, has been successful against neoliberalism and has been successful against globalism. The trend or the trajectory these days is to create world class cities and smart cities, isn't it? So the political will and the economic factors aren't conducive. And when I say conducive, it implies a sort of passivity. But I think what I'm trying to say is that one of the main distinguishing factors I see between Medellin and cities like Karachi for instance, is the lack of a political will to look for the alternative, to explore the alternative. Have you experienced that in south in Latin America, have you experienced or have you seen this sort of resistance to government led initiatives that are not neoliberal in nature, that are not. That are not people centric? Because I would consider world class cities and smart cities to not be people centric. I would consider social urbanism to be people centric. Would you? What are your thoughts on this?
- [31:54]
C
I was following your premise and I agree and I think you need to political will. And right now, in mid to late 2025, the political direction is heading in the opposite direction. Unfortunately, Latin America is a mix. You have more or less progressive administrations like in Brazil, with Lula, in Mexico, in Colombia, in Chile, that you have Uruguay, you have left leaning or center left leaning governments, but also have the rise just like in many other place in the world of the far right and being seen following what is happening in Argentina, that you have a libertarian president who claimed that the worst word that has invented in politics is social justice. He said that social justice is equivalent to resentment, which I think is completely absurd. And right now in the recently I read a report that the last year since his thesis in office in late 2023, is when the least amount of investment has been sent to help the informal settlements, which is a really real shame. So the few programs that are more or less surviving, so to speak, are because of the municipal support, but not because of the federal support. So you see that. And so I think it's a big challenge. And I think it's a big challenge also from environmental point of view and so many points of view, this idea that going against what science says, what everything says, that climate change is a reality and that is a world for all and we should take care of our other people that we share the world with. And if we need to pay more taxes or make more efforts or make some adjustments to allow people to have a very basic living, that is having enough food, having a shelter and these kids to have a school to go, and if for that everybody has to make an effort and every government should think of that as an investment, that should be it. But I agree with you, right now we have to be realist and the winds are blowing a different direction, but I think we have to stay put and I think we have to hopefully insist and stay until the situation or the waves starts to change.
- [34:28]
B
And the political will has changed so radically, we've gone in the completely opposite direction. And the word social, just the word social just makes people scared now.
- [34:42]
C
Absolutely. Yeah. It's incredible.
- [34:44]
B
Yeah, it's just. Just goes to show how important it is to really try and understand what people are talking about, what is being talked about. But the problems are just growing, even in, as you mentioned, in the United States, with a decreasing amount of investment going into informal supplements, the problems are just going to increase. The book talks about the favelas again descending into violence and this increase in violence and then the result, the violence and then how it led to a lack of maintenance for the initiatives that had already been, that had already taken place. Do you think that is a marker of failure for that initiative, that it was unable to curb some of the social issues?
- [35:36]
C
Many things I think is a great and difficult matter, what you are bringing up. On one hand, in some cases, I think the, perhaps the best, but not in a good way example, or the most clear example is Rio Janeiro, where the favelas are the sites where many of the gangs gather. And sometimes I have to say, the urban layout helps them because when you have so many irregular streets and Passageways and et cetera, is much more difficult for a security force or police forces to intervene. So it makes things more complicated. And they end up being like almost sequestering or kidnapping the communities. Because most people in the favelas, they want to work, they have jobs, they want to go to work, the kids want to go to school, et cetera. And if you have gangs that have drug dealers and they have arms, etc. It makes for everyone. And sometimes, very often that happens in Rio, that one gang fights with the other using firearms. So you are exposed to a lot of violence. So that is clearly a problem, and I think it's undeniable and it has to be addressed. I don't think addressing that problem goes necessarily only with more police or army, etc. But little by little with providing more community connections, more funding for school, for community center, for health clinics, for education. So providing other paths. Even if you have a kid that is 10, 12 years old and is about to enter a gang, show that kid that there is another path for their life. I know the solution is not like snapping your finger that, oh, it's so easy, but it is. And it takes time. And again, I have to say, the example I know best in that is Medellin. Medellin. When they started in the 2000s, their projects, they were coming from a very hard civil war and was the home of the most infamous cartel, that it was the cartel of Medellin, that the head was Pablo Escobar, a very well known figure, and it took decades to combat that. But in addition to that, they had paramilitary forces that were also very brutal. The police at that point was very brutal. The army and all that took a lot of time to change that mode and particularly convince the youngers that they didn't need to follow that path. And even people that were former members of these gangs, that they could be reincorporated into society. But obviously this is, let's face it, it's not a design question. It has to do. You need to have a leading of social workers and sociologists and people that understand, et cetera, people understand that question. You cannot put it in design. And sometimes I see in design studios that the students that they say, we're going to do this, so that will be the immediate solution to everything. And you always again, have take it with a grain of salt. What the designers can do, I think is very important. And I think to have a nicer and better environment and to provide all these services to all this population is important. But if the violence is erupting and the political violence is erupting, or the economic situation is really bad. Obviously the design can do very little with that. So it's part of a larger picture. We always. And I think there's sort of a leftover of modernism that you have these planners like Le Corusier and Frank Lloyd Wright, Hilbert Simer, even Brasil Ya Oulu Costa, that you have one big mind, the big almost paternalistic mind that decides everything and everything change according to plan. And we know it doesn't work that way. And I think we all have to be much more humble in what we can do and what we cannot do. And that is 100% a team effort. It's nobody's genius master plan, that inspiration, et cetera, all that stuff. I think we have to get rid of that and think while we are one of many of this team and we all need to help each other and collaborate towards this common goal.
- [40:18]
B
Can we go back a little bit to when you talked about how design itself or design solely is not the answer to political violence or economic unrest? Are you saying then that you agree with Roy and Anya Roy, that is that just the aesthetic program or aesthetic issues, they miss the opportunity to implement broader policies of social transformation and poverty reduction. This is. This is a quote from your book on 867. Would you agree then that just mural painting, for instance, or making a settlement colorful, for instance, or more palatable on the surface is not enough? And it doesn't go. It doesn't do enough to destigmatize or uplift the community?
- [41:13]
C
I think you have the key word enough is not enough. But yes, it is. And I respect a lot Anaya Roy. I think she's a great thinker, but I think on this specific topic, what I mentioned in the book, I think she's wrong. She thinks any investment in making the neighborhood more agreeable, more nicer, more even. I like even to use the word beautiful is a waste. And I don't agree at all. I think there is a room for everything. And those who are designers, we know that sometimes even to have a good design that where things are scattered in a certain way and they align in a certain way and they have certain proportion, doesn't really necessarily make the project more expensive. It makes more engaging. And so that is on one hand, so to make a good design not always makes it represents a more expensive one. On the other hand is the aim the right to beauty. And here I refer to a very nice text by one of the key figures who was of the favela Barrio project, whose name is Jorge Jauregui, to one of his texts. And he refers, he talks about the same way. There is a right to. There should be a right to housing and a right to health, et cetera, should be a right to beauty. And he gives us as an example there, how people in the favela, they really work year round to prepare the carriages and the parade for carnival, which they take it with so pride. And they have the costumes with extremely colorful, I don't know if have a chance to show them extremely colorful, et cetera. And there's a question of identity. They feel that the identity of themselves, of the favela, is it somehow being expressed there. So I think it's not either or. I think it's both. I think Analia Rose says, okay, we should focus more in the bread and butter, the basic things of. For that the community needs. I agree 100%. Then she said we shouldn't waste money or funding or thinking in aesthetics. And I have to say I really absolutely don't agree. I think if you're going to do something for anyone, you have to take in consideration the aesthetics. And that's why there are professionals involved in the aesthetics. Aesthetics doesn't mean obviously to waste and to create monuments to your ego, etc. And we have to say many times architects and designers do that. They do things not thinking more in the community, but, oh, this project is going to be published, et cetera. So that is a conversation fair. Yes, we should have that conversation. But to the idea of dismissing the whole approach to have better aesthetics in any neighborhood, I think it's wrong. Even with little money, I think you can do a lot. And it's usually, let's face it, it's not the most expensive thing of all. The most expensive things, 80% of the budget is usually doing all the plumbing, sewage, connection, or to service, etc. That is the. Well, it takes all the money. Then if you have a public square, since you're going to build it, make it a nice public square. Of course, try to make it nice. Why you wouldn't make it nice. And so everything like that. And finally, with murals, sometimes murals, I agree, sometimes they are used like symbolic expressions of a political nature, et cetera, but very. In other cases, they express the identity of communities in both in Buenos Aires, in Sao Pablo and Rio, the three cities that come to mind. The murals are very often engaged with the community and they express. For instance, in our comes from Ammani, in Medellin, they have A large mural of a rural setting and representing all the connections because most of the people that living in that community were having coming, most of them one generation or recently arrived from the countryside. So the mural was representing that connection and reminder. This is where we come from. And in Buenos Aires, in the barrio in Mujica, that is the favela and the Centro Buenos Aires, many of the murals and moments and colors, et cetera, are reflective of the population that lives there. That 50% is foreigner. 50% of the population in that neighborhood of Buenos Aires are from either Bolivia, Paraguay or Peru, three neighboring countries. And they want that the colors and the conographies, et cetera, represent those origins. So I think identity, and we see that how the far right took this thing. Identity is still a very important thing for the human being. And part of identity is expressed in how you design the, the environment.
- [46:18]
B
I agree, I agree. Identity for, for communities is very important. But as you mentioned, 50% is. 50% of that community is not from the region.
- [46:31]
C
They're not Argentinians. Yeah.
- [46:33]
B
Yes. So they're immigrants who are, you can say economic immigrants. Right. They're here for work. So their identity in this case, it doesn't clash with the locals. But in a certain situation where identities might clash with locals or where there is a mix, where it's not 50, 50, where there's. There are a number of communities living together, it gets so difficult for, for interventions to be mindful of how they, how they design the public space that caters to all. It becomes all the more complicated then because, for instance, an intervention in Karachi led by, led by one of the local assistant commissioners of one of the low income settlements. Now this settlement is largely conservative. It has economic immigrants from three different provinces to Karachi. However, the women of one of these communities that are living within the low income settlement wanted, wanted a gym within the park. That was part of that intervention. They wanted a gym for the, for themselves. Now as part of a conservative settlement, the men raised an issue. They, they didn't want that. So it becomes really about who the stakeholders are and how to. Because you can't make everyone happy. So I guess what the consultations then would have to be depending on the stakeholders. Right? How, what is, what would you have done or what do you think would should happen?
- [48:18]
C
I'm not familiar, I've never been in Pakistan, unfortunately. I would love to go, but in general, I've been to some community meetings and they can be tough. And I have to say it in a nice way. You think that, oh, Everybody, you have a community meeting, even the word community, you feel that everybody's holding hands and chanting the same song, et cetera. No, they have different points of view, they have different priorities, et cetera. But I think it's good to have them and to discuss them and eventually perhaps even have to compromise that. I wanted this, but I'm going to have half of it. But the other one, half. The other half, I. Or something like that. But that is necessary, and that's a little bit how democracy or community participation works. I think it is a necessary part. And you remind me, and I think about women, and I think you kept something very important. Obviously, women through history, and this is go through all cultures have been very often double victims. If there's a world there, there are many people are injured or killed, but the women, in addition, they are exposed to whatever sexual harassment, et cetera that is. So there's always an extra vulnerability there. So I think it's good that they look for support and they try to change the nature of things. Something that I have to say, and I mentioned in one section of the book that I think when referring to Sao Paulo, where I noticed there are many of the leaders of everything that is happening are women, is something that I noticed is that at least in Latin America, when you call for community meetings, and that is not something that is obviously there, they are transmitted. But I went from Tijuana to Medellin to Sao Pablo and Rio and Buenos Aires, and I talked with the people that organized this meeting and they said, we don't know why, but 90% are women. They're only ones that take the time. They care about the neighborhood, they care about the community, and they go to these meetings and they become the leaders. And so I think I still don't know how to process that. I said, are men less interested or is something about women that they have? I don't know, because they need to cover all this political space. But I thought it was wonderful to think that women are in Latin America, are in a micro level, leading those changes or having an intervention in those. In those moments. This doesn't eliminate patriarchy and chauvinism, etc. But I think it's a step forward.
- [51:00]
B
When women enter the space and also take charge of the narrative, when they take ownership of the space, it really results in something more inclusive, I believe, because they, as primary caregivers, most of the times, they really take into account a range of needs and considerations that men in power might not be able to think of. They might not be as aware, for instance, spatially, as women might be. So women might suggest that there needs to be light on the roads after dark. Men might not be able to think of that. That is true.
- [51:43]
C
Yeah. Yeah. They have a different lens. And civilization has been made by half of the population lenses that are men's. And I think, absolutely, I agree 100%. We need to incorporate that point of view. That obviously is absolutely relevant. Yeah.
- [52:03]
B
When we talk about shared spaces, in terms of shared spaces in shared by different identities and communities, or different classes even, who do you think. How do you think ownership comes through most? When, for instance, we talk about initiatives needing maintenance or interventions needing maintenance, interventions needing to be carried forward, if there is. How do you think that sort of. That sort of responsibility or that burden is divided.
- [52:41]
C
That's a great point. And when, and I have to say, when they started doing these interventions, they, frankly, I don't think they think about that. And only later they realize how important it is. They have different. They started developing different approaches in the interventions in favelas in Sao Paulo, for instance, they incorporate into the budget to have certain sort of community, let's call it captains or leaders that who will be paid. There would be a little mini funding for that to organize the maintenance or cleaning. Sometimes not doing everything themselves, but sometimes it's simply calling the trash company to pick up the trash, or calling this, whatever the department of Landscape to catch the grass or whatever is needed. But somebody has to be in charge. But initially the idea that is what I think is a problem in general in architecture and the way in urbanese and landscape, is the idea. You finish the project, you give, so to speak, metaphorically, the key of the project. And from now on you take care of. I think, no, I think there is a realization that there needs to be implemented together with the project, a follow up plan, which I think this is only started to be a realization later into the game. And fortunately it is happening. Some cities are implementing. So I think there are very different strategies to do that. But I think obviously it's crucial. And that was my sad feeling. I don't know now, because I went last time three years ago and before seven years ago. But when I visited Rio Janeiro, I was so excited about the city that all these people program. I have read so much, etc. And when I saw many of the works abandoned, I felt very sad. I hope later they would resolve. But in other cities I didn't see that. So I see that even works that have been done decades, one or two decades, ago or in Medellin, they are still in good shape. I think it's a very important topic and is something to be really in the forefront of any intervention. What would happen after the works are done?
- [55:04]
B
Yes, because the sustainability of such projects, even with regards to just the effect it has on the community itself, is very important and really needs to be planned out for five, 10 years in the future. When you. When the five interventions or the five initiatives that you've discussed in your book, would you say that they are early manifestations of the movement towards looking at informality? And what do you think? Where do you see this going, this sort of movement heading towards? Do you think that better initiatives or interventions are coming about? Do you see. Do you see them looking more towards housing or providing or more of a design intervention or more of a vocational sort of intervention of like economic upliftment? How do you categorize that?
- [56:05]
C
I think the challenge in many ways was nice, but to realize that it's a real challenge is the realization that we were examining and commenting and analyzing an ongoing process. It's not done, it's different. I don't know, I, being an architectural critic, that I go and see a building that it just opened two months ago, analyzing what it is and it is like a fixed entity. This is an ongoing thing. Everything that we discuss about these cases is provisional because they are still not done. And probably because of the nature of this kind of urbanism, it will never be done. It's continue evolving. That doesn't mean that you cannot take identify key lessons or key, what I call urban strategies and to say, what can we learn from them? What are the lessons? And for me, as I mentioned before, a fascinating thing, especially when I went to Buenos Aires and I talked with the people that work there and the first thing they told me, look, the first thing we did before doing anything, we contacted and tried to learn from the lessons from Rio, from Medicina and Sao Paulo, because they have done a lot of work. So we said we don't want to make the same mistakes and we want to have the same successes. Then in what direction this will be going. It's really hard to tell. It's hard to always think about the future and usually through the history of humankind and in architecture, urbanism, those who want to anticipate the future, very often they were wrong. So I don't want at all to get there. I think it's very important and it's complicated enough to analyze what has been our recent years. All these phenomenon that happened in the last decades, the same thing about geography. My area for practice is Latin America. If you ask me about things that happening in Africa or Asia, take whatever I say, like very cautiously because I'm not at all an expert in that region. I read about them, I'm familiar with some of their projects. I think they have my thoughts and ideas, but I don't have the firsthand experience of having visited them and being completely immersed in them as I have been in Latin America.
- [58:38]
B
Yes. No, I was referring to the trends that you could foresee potentially in Latin America. Because correct me if I'm wrong, they're very closely linked, or not very, but at least slightly closely linked to developments in the actual United States of America.
- [58:56]
C
No, well, Tijuana is a hybrid. It's like a different. Is like Latin America. You have to put it almost quoted because you see the mixture of Spanish and English and people going from one place to another. Also, Tijuana is a big receptacle of immigrants from. Not only from Latin America, from all around the world. Probably now with the new change policies is different. But when I went there two years ago, there were immigrants from Ukraine, from Russia, from China, from Haiti is really. But he defined it as a laboratory of postmodernity. It's a city that you have all these nationalities. We think of Tijuana as something completely Mexican. And when you go there, more than 50% of the population, going back to the early thing earlier comment, they are not only from Tijuana, they are non Mexican. So it's really a mixture of everything. So Tijuana is like a separate case. And I think it's fascinating because of that. The other CA in Rio and Sao Paulo, most of the people are population in the favelas are Brazilian, but many are coming from other states in Brazil that are the more poor states. Large percentage from the northeast of Brazil, that is the poorest region in Brazil. And they go to Sao Paulo and Rio looking for jobs. So as you can see, you have different situations. The same thing in Colombia. Then you had the phenomenon of. With the political cows and dictatorship in Venezuela. You have many large population of Venezuelans arriving there and that became that changing a little bit the dynamics, et cetera. And sometimes, I have to say, sometimes you find resistance or. Or discrimination against the newcomers. And so there are policies to try to integrate them, et cetera. But as I mentioned before, it's an ongoing process. I think it's fascinating and how the policies and the politics and the economics are always affecting what is happening in all these settlements. And so they are continuously morphing. So I think it's a difficulty for a researcher to analyze this situation. At the same time, it is really. As a researcher, I find it fascinating because it's a moving target. There's something continuously changing and changing very.
- [61:20]
B
Rapidly now since 2023.
- [61:23]
C
Yeah.
- [61:25]
B
What do you think is the potential of the Everything but housing movement and how far do you think it can go in alleviating issues within informal settlements in Latin America?
- [61:39]
C
Everything but housing is a section is the title of a section of the conclusions of my book. And I have to say, I realized after presenting it in many venues and discussing with people, it's perhaps the most provoking statement, because it sounds like I'm against housing, which is not the case. But my argument is that through the 20th century, the main and often single project was social housing. What I don't deny that social housing can play a role nowadays. When we examine interventions in Latin America, the strategy is always to build first to build what I mentioned before, to build service infrastructure, improve public transportation, create public spaces and build new civic buildings. So the improvement of the house is typically left for the residents. In many cases, the residents can that have seen in many places receive the assistance or support of the program, which may be from structural consultant to assess the stability of the construction, or providing them with construction materials or painting to complete their homes. But the principle is let the intervention do everything that the residents cannot do for themselves. In an ideal world would be we could give them everything, but if you have scarce funding, allocate the fundings to do everything that the residents cannot do from their own, by their own. That doesn't mean in a scene in Paraisopolis is a nice. It's a community is a favela in Sao Pablo, and they built new housing because large part of it was in very dire states and it was possibility of collapsing. So for different reasons, in medicine, also in Buenos Aires, also for different reasons, they have to do small niches of new social housing. And that is fine. But if you think that if you have a population of Avela, let's say you're 100,000 people, like some of the largest are, to think that suddenly you're going to provide new housing for 100,000 people all at once, it would be impossible. I think the smartest strategy is to allow the population to build and solve, to self build and do all the entities, municipal, governmental, nonprofit, et cetera, to do all what the residents cannot do by themselves.
- [64:16]
B
And that sort of gives them the agency as well, right? Absolutely.
- [64:21]
C
And something that has been studied. And there is a figure that in their late 60s, Mittens, late 60s work in the barriadas, in the favelas in Lima and Peru was John Turner, who was a very interesting character. He moved from England, he has studied architectural association. He had a very interesting perspective. But he became fascinating with this situation of informality in Peru. He started working there and writing. He wrote two key books. And in many ways they argue this don't these big housing, state government projects, many are doomed to fail. They don't consider the particular situation of each family structure of a situation. There's many. One, let's say you want to have a shop and you are on the eighth floor. That's impossible. So many things that they cannot accommodate. And the other thing related to that is like the nuclear family that we think of for a century. We have the idea of the two parents and the two kids. It doesn't exist anymore. The families are more fluid. You have a neighbor, a cousin coming over, or a nephew coming over. You have your child got married and they don't have where to live. So you need to expand or somebody loses their job and they need to open a food truck or so they need to be flexible. And you see how these houses expand or contract depending on their needs. And sometimes if they expand and then their children live, they can rent an exact space, that extra space and makes a little bit of funding money or the opposite to sometimes they have a very small house, but over the year they expand it. So I think that exactly what you said, that to have agency to once you have your house, to be able to adjust it to your needs. And related to this, if I may, is the importance that many programs are. That is to allow after a time and with all you need lawyers, et cetera, but to give them property, to give them legal tenure. So to. So that gives a lot of peace of mind because obviously when they move, they don't have any right to the land after. Usually it's after 10 years. Sometimes after 20 years of living in a place, the municipality gives them what in here they call the deed. That is the title that guarantees that that piece of land, so to speak, is yours. So you're not going to be evicted. So I think again is what I was saying before, how everything things and different disciplines are all sort of one way or another quite intertwined.
- [67:03]
B
Absolutely. Tenure security is sometimes of paramount importance to these communities because it is their basic fight against eviction and the trauma of past governments having evicted them to the peripheries and constantly uprooting them and displacing them to the peripheries to make way for the conventional city. This tenure security is built within themselves and they really want it. Dr. Pavlo, I have one one question for you and I think this will be of interest to those listeners who are researchers who are going out into the field and are wondering how you conducted your research and what your methodology would be, what framework do you think you used and how what advice you would give to students.
- [68:01]
C
Frankly, I developed my own method as on the fly. We move on. So the research was done in phases. First it was really doing almost library work is reading as much as possible and being as much as possible with the city that we were involved and the program itself and trying to expand the range of topics involved with each city. That means not only reading about urbanism, architecture, but also reading about its history, about economy, about its culture, sociology. So try to immerse and be very familiar with the place. Looking at this always context, looking for context. Preparing for the trip to the visit to the city, to the city is reaching out, sometimes through contacts, sometimes simply looking for an email and sending look, I'm going to be in that your city in a month and a half. I would like to meet you, I would like to if you can take me or one of your assistants, take me to the job site, et cetera. So that is continue the preparation and then finally going to the city where I have to say it's very important not to go. In a two day trip you have to spend at least a week, if not more to settle there, to go to the places more than once and to look at the pulse of the place and to see how people are and go in the morning, go in the afternoon. Some many places I have to go with a company that because they told me, look, it's not safe, we'd rather go with you. Some other places I could go by myself and really engage with that once I'm there and try as much as possible to engage with the residents and to even casual conversation. I obviously have the advantage of speaking Spanish and Portuguese. So even if there is a little kiosk, I'm buying soda and talking with the people that were selling, how are you doing, how was your life, how long have you been here, etc. Sometimes if they ask too many questions, they find it suspicious, but usually they are very eager to talk and engage. Don't be, don't think that because they live in a favela, they don't you shouldn't pay a lot of attention to what they say because usually what they say is very relevant and very informative. After that, I have usually a lot of material and notes and books, et cetera. So the key thing there is when thinking about first journal article and then a book is devising a narrative how to trying to think. If I had to tell a story about the city, about the how can it be that it makes sense that I don't miss in many things, but it's not an accumulation of data I want to create. So I call it a story or a narrative that it will be engaging to follow my ideals. I think many who write we have an ideal reader, my ideal reader, my student. To think they are architecture students. How can they be interested in this? This is not their first priority in the life. They're not waking up thinking about informal settlements in Latin America. How can I engage them? So try to think, how can I do that? Very often I mention introductions with writers or with artists, et cetera, to have that the question is not only an urban and design thing, but it is much larger than that. And then I go everywhere. They invite me if they have money or none, but I present it everywhere. Conferences and lectures at university, at schools, at classrooms. If it's 10 people, it's fine. If it's 50 people, it's fine. If it's more. And in each of these presentations I get questions, including podcasts. And I think always it enriches my thought and my ideas to have to see how people assimilate my presentations in different way, how it sparks different questions, different thoughts, et cetera. Even after I finish the book, I think it's a continuous, a continuous sort of maturing idea and a conversation.
- [72:32]
B
That conversation needs to be ongoing.
- [72:35]
C
Absolutely. It's never ending. No, it's an ongoing process. And now, even now, I'm working on a different project that is on an Italian Brazilian architect, Lina Bo Bardi, who was a pioneer in doing sort of community engaged projects in Brazil, et cetera. But everything that I have learned from this experience, obviously it's very useful to working on this other research and publication project, I think. So in other words, everything adds everything that you do, it nurtures you and helps you to be more, I would say, certain about your ideas.
- [73:18]
B
Absolutely. And what is this new project? Are we going. Are we. Should we expect a publication soon?
- [73:26]
C
Actually, yes. I decided to do it like in a two phase and I did the same thing with the question formality. First was a co edited volume and then That I had. We had a lot of ideas started, help us maturing the topic, listening other voices presenting the work and then the author book, that is where it is all on your own. And so this, with this, I'm just recently signed a contract with Routledge to develop to write a book which I'm doing right now that would be an edited volume. It has a small number of chapters, only 12 and mostly are expert historians that have been working on Lina Bovardi. Remember she worked initially in Italy, then she moved to Brazil. So it has some Italian contributors, Brazilian contributors. I'm doing this with a colleague that she lives also in Philadelphia, who is a Brazilian scholar whose name is Vanessa Grossman. So this is a joint effort of us, we with this book we are preparing and we still have to receive finish our chapters and receive the chapter, the contributors by the end of the year. So it should be published by summer for those in the Nova hemisphere, by more or less this July of 2026. I have to say I'm very excited about this. After I complete that, my long term plan is then I would move into either a sole author or a co author book that with more of my.
- [75:04]
B
Personal insights cannot wait. It sounds really interesting and I'm sure your students as well as the rest of us will benefit greatly from your insights as well as the contributors and the co editors. Hope to see you soon again on this channel and hope to talk to you soon. Thank you so much for your time and for the very insightful conversation we just had. Thank you, Dr. Pablo.
- [75:32]
C
Thank you.
- [75:33]
B
Thank you so much.