Learning from Bogotá: Pedagogical Urbanism and the Reshaping of Public Space 9781477311059

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Learning from Bogotá

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Learning from Bogotá Pedagogical Urbanism and the Reshaping of Public Space RACHEL BERNEY

UNIV E R S I TY O F T E XAS P R E S S

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Copyright © 2017 by the University of Texas Press All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America First edition, 2017 Requests for permission to reproduce material from this work should be sent to: Permissions University of Texas Press P.O. Box 7819 Austin, TX 78713-7819 http://utpress.utexas.edu/index.php/rp-form ♾ The paper used in this book meets the minimum requirements of ANSI/NISO Z 39.48-1992 (R 1997) (Permanence of Paper). LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING -IN-PUBLICATION DATA

Names: Berney, Rachel, author. Title: Learning from Bogotá : pedagogical urbanism and the reshaping of public space / Rachel Berney. Description: First edition. | Austin : University of Texas Press, 2017. Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2016023741 (print) LCCN 2016024712 (ebook) ISBN 9781477311042 (cloth : alk. paper) ISBN 9781477311059 (library e-book) ISBN 9781477311066 (non-library e-book) Subjects: LCSH : City planning—Colombia—Bogotá. Bogotá (Colombia)—Politics and government. City planning—Social aspects—Colombia—Bogotá. Social change—Colombia—Bogotá. Classification: LCC HT 169.C 72 B 6185 2017 (print) LCC HT 169.C 72 (ebook) DDC 307.1/2160986148—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016023741 doi:10.7560/311042

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To Ted and Karen

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Contents

Preface Acknowledgments INTRODUCTION: Transformation of a City

1. FROM DYSTOPIA TO HOPE, BOGOTÁ REENVISIONED

ix xiii 1 8

2. INDEPENDENT MAYORS

23

3. BOGOTÁ’S PUBLIC SPACE TRADITIONS

43

4. THE PEDAGOGICAL CITY

67

5. LEARNING FROM BOGOTÁ EPILOGUE: The Changing City

142

Notes

15 1 157 165

References Index

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Preface

As a design and planning scholar, I am deeply interested in urban histories and what the cities of the Global South have to teach us about urban development. As I began the research for this book, I sought a case study of sustainable urban development (SUD)—development that prioritizes careful resource use in urban areas based on the belief that dense, compact growth of human settlements is the best option for living within resource limits—somewhere in the Global South. While there were plenty of SUD case studies published on European and American examples, I wanted to develop a case in an area of the world experiencing rapid development and, I hoped, creating new strategies. The Global South, where the majority of population growth, city formation, and urban expansion will occur during the twenty-first century, is just such a crucial geography to examine and learn from. As I narrowed my focus, Bogotá, Colombia, emerged as a unique choice. Because the city had recently undergone profound changes, I decided to go to Bogotá to investigate the transformation, examine its significance, and understand how and why it happened. In 2005, I arrived in Bogotá for the first time, looking for an SUD case study, but I found something more. While the city had many environmental policies “on the books,” IX

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much of the actual innovation and recent improvements centered on decisions on urban design and planning related to social life and political reformation—these were the innovations I decided to study. Via a series of borrowed urbanisms—urbanism models from other cities, combined with the will and vision of charismatic leaders and the local context and circumstances—the city had transformed. Over the years, I have built an understanding of the ethos underlying the city’s changes. Because of the inductive process of my examination, it is possible to think that this study is restricted to Bogotá, yet, as I will demonstrate, Bogotá’s story has much to say about urban-development narratives and cities in general in the twenty-first century—from public spaces as sites of educational encounter and cities as teaching examples, to the importance of legibility and comprehensibility in urban environments. In doing the research for this book, I specifically sought to understand the transformation of Bogotá throughout the 1990s and the first decade of the 2000s via the reinvention of the physical fabric of the city and the parallel social developments that occurred. In investigating these changes, I established a timeline and a sense of scale around key twentieth-century events for the city and the country. First and foremost, the city and country continue to be shaped by forces that emerged in colonial times. These structuring elements, which I present in the book, profoundly affected the possibilities for growth and development in the twentieth century in Colombia; many remain as challenges for city governance today in the main cities, especially in Bogotá, the capital. Also, the first and second halves of the twentieth century in Bogotá were very different from one another; 1948 represents a key rupture in the imaginary and reality of Bogotá, the point when the country’s longstanding civil war was ignited by an assassination. Turning to the second half of the twentieth century, as the decades progressed a lack of governance and of planning slowly grew, and there was no effective action taken to counter the rapid growth and informal expansion of the city. While some planning did occur, it clearly did not feel significant because residents I interviewed talked about a “black hole” and the “lost” decades of the 1970s through the 1990s. With the advent of mayoral elections in 1988, however, the city’s fortunes began to change. The political decentralization movement that swept much of Latin America in the 1980s and 1990s created a profound shift within Bogotá, setting in motion the transformation of the city that I examine here. In particular, I focus on the catalytic mayoral administrations of Antanas Mockus Šivickas (1995–1997, 2001–2003) and Enrique Peñalosa Londoño (1998–2000), whom I term the “public space mayors.” The nuances of this story were elucidated through extensive fieldwork and a deep understanding built over time. In my research I used a mixed methodological approach, employing a combination of public space–user surveys, formal and informal interviews, content analysis, and participant observation. One of the most important components of this approach was a survey of 465 users, half visitors and half vendors, in the city’s public spaces—formal and informal—that I conducted in 2006 with the help of four X

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Bogotano graduate students. I designed the methodology to provide an analysis and interpretation of public space use, citizen reaction to and engagement with the city, and perceptions of leadership by the mayors and their support staff. My intention with this book is to evaluate this significant instance of urban development in the Global South, an example in which two mayors transformed Bogotá socially, culturally, and physically through the regeneration of the city’s public urban environment in the space of a few years. What is especially notable about Mockus and Peñalosa, the two main protagonists in this story, is that they were not lifelong politicians. They did not come from political dynasties nor entrenched interests. They were critical intellectuals who stepped in at a strategic moment for the city, and for the country. Their administrations provided a fateful, positive pivot in the city’s history. While the city transformed through their leadership, in their absence the legacy has begun to unravel. While they made significant changes in the public landscape of the city, these changes alone could not rectify its long-standing inequalities and gradually developed patterns of social life. Bogotá has garnered particular interest in recent years in English- and Spanishlanguage presses. The city’s story is complicated and, because of this, there are many contradictions, not all of which are easy to resolve or even to report on. There are a handful of examinations of Bogotá that have been published during and following my investigation that I wish to highlight here. While the city has been discussed and visited often, comprehensive analyses of it have been slow to appear. One exception is Gerard Martin and Miguel Ceballos’s Bogotá: Anatomía de una transformación, políticas de seguridad ciudadana 1995–2003 (2004), published by Javeriana University and the City of Bogotá, an instructive examination that frames and analyzes the Mockus and Peñalosa administrations through the lens of citizen security and public safety, analyzing policy outcomes from the mayoral administrations. A second Spanishlanguage book, La transformación de Bogotá 1995–2000, entre redefinición ciudadana y especial, by Ricardo Montezuma (2003), published by Bogotá’s Fundación Ciudad Humana, is a short work that analyzes and presents mayoral policy for the first two of the public space mayors’ three administrations. It is largely celebratory. More recently, two books present journalistic accounts of cities’ transformation in a contemporary context. In both cases, the authors dedicate a chapter to Bogotá. They are Happy City: Transforming Our Lives through Urban Design, by Charles Montgomery (Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 2013), and Radical Cities: Across Latin America in Search of a New Architecture, by Justin McGuirk (Verso, 2014). Montgomery proposes Bogotá as one example of a “happy city”—a multi-use, transit-rich city—with Peñalosa positioned as a heroic character. McGuirk’s book opens with a useful examination of the changing role of architects and the history of social housing in Latin America. In his chapter on Bogotá, McGuirk focuses primarily on Mockus’s time in office. He does, however, acknowledge that Mockus and Peñalosa together had a synergistic effect on the city, a point that Martin and Ceballos, as well as I, also argue. PREFACE

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This book, then, presents a comprehensive history and assessment of the city’s recent urban development, offering a unique interpretation of the city’s transformation through the lens of new types of public space and visible innovations in policy and governance. It expands on the limited number of comprehensive studies of Latin American cities in English, positioning the case of Bogotá within a global context and engaging the intersection between design, public policy, and urban studies through multiple angles of analysis. The story begins by framing twentieth-century Colombian and Bogotano history and the structural issues that led to dystopian conditions in Bogotá—conditions that the public space mayors faced head on. It then transitions from the rise of independent mayors to a history of the city’s public space and the story of the “city as project.” Then, using specific projects initiated by the mayors to illustrate key points, the book interprets the significance of Bogotá’s transformation, including lessons for cities in general. Via the epilogue, the book presents one future for Bogotá as city government currently imagines it, as well as possible next steps as the mayoral office turns over again.

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Acknowledgments

My first thank-you goes to significant mentors at the University of California, Berkeley. To Michael Southworth, Randy Hester, Ananya Roy, and Mark Healey, you represent a diverse but representative group of my interests in the built environment—thank you for your support and for the intellectual challenges you have provided over the years. Another important thank-you goes to Fran Violich, who supported my interests in Latin America. My professional academic journey began at the University of Southern California. I want to thank my USC colleagues for their support during those years. In particular, I want to highlight Bob Harris, John Mutlow, and Doug Noble for their help with the fundamentals; Diane Ghirardo, who gave me much support and aid; Vittoria di Palma for reminders not to wait; Lisa Schweitzer for confident encouragement; and Kelly Shannon, who arrived in time for us to overlap and gave generously of her connections, time, and ideas in support of making this book a reality. I also acknowledge USC’s support in the form of the Advancing Scholarship in the Humanities and Social Sciences Grant. Thank you to Robin Abad, Ryan Conroy, Sarah Hooper, Claudia Rojas, and Helene Valencia, and a special thanks to Andrea Martinez. Thank you to two key XIII

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mentors: Elizabeth Pulsinelli and David Sloane. My move to the University of Washington occurred as this manuscript was in review. I want to thank my new colleagues in the Department of Urban Design and Planning at UW for their generous welcome, and I thank, in particular, Bob Mugerauer for his mentorship and advice as I prepared the final manuscript. Thank you to Mark Weisman and everyone at Weisman Design Group for a friendly and fun place to work. Thanks, too, to Max Baker, Daniel Coslett, Donny Donoghue, Chungho Kim, Ali Masterson, and Katie Poppel for their assistance. To those who helped me reach Bogotá and learn from the city, I thank, especially, Ceci Manganiello, Carmen Rojas, Andres and Francisco, Juan Carlos Mesa, Juan Carlos Flórez, Alejandro Guarín, Germán Escobar and the folks at Platypus, Mario Noriega, Jairo Chaparro, Alberto Saldarriaga, Catalina Hoyos, Oscar Edmundo Díaz, Santiago Osorio, Ana María Ewert, and the team of graduate students—Adriana Lopez Arias, Jorge Ariel Moreno Plazas, Edwin Roa Lopez, and Camila Torres—who helped me implement the public space survey. Thank you to all those who granted me interviews, including Antanas Mockus, Enrique Peñalosa, Carmenza Saldías, and the vendors and visitors who answered questions about their needs, preferences, and behaviors in the city’s public spaces. Another deep-rooted thank-you is due to Jane Rongerude and Enrique Silva. From our years in writing group, through the present and, I hope, into the future, you two are my academic pillars. And among other dear friends from many different chapters of my life who regularly provide lifesaving support, I want to especially thank Tara Bebber (my friend and personal Yoda since we were ten years old), Nori Shoji, Susanne Rockwell, Lauren Matchison, Gabrielle Jennings, Giorgio Cecere, and Simon Pastucha. And to the people I moved home to be with, I thank my family, especially my parents, Ted and Karen Berney. I also thank my extended family, in particular Patty Litwin, for her help in this project. I thank most profoundly Peter Litwin, my partner, for his support and belief in me, and for engaging the questions of what makes a livable city together with me. Thank you to the anonymous reviewers of the manuscript, who provided useful comments. Thank you to everyone, named and unnamed, who helped this project along on its long journey. You added to it significantly; any errors are mine. Unless otherwise indicated, all translations as well as all uncredited photographs and graphics are mine.

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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

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Learning from Bogotá

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0.1. Rioting in Bogotá. Photo by Inaldo Perez © Associated Press. Courtesy of Associated Press.

0.2. Informal housing expanding south into barren and hilly land, Ciudad Bolívar, Bogotá. Photo by Jan Sochor © Jan Sochor Photography. Courtesy of Jan Sochor.

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Introduction Transformation of a City

Colombians have a shortcut mentality; it’s systemic in society. —ANTANAS MOCKUS (2001B, 150)

Public space is the environment in which one is a citizen . . . and improving public space favors good citizen behavior. —ANTANAS MOCKUS (QUOTED IN MARTIN AND CEBALLOS 2004, 157)

I

t is midsummer 1986. President Virgilio Barco Vargas, a former mayor of Bogotá, Distrito Capital, has just entered national office. His disappointment and sadness over the state of the city is profound. In the Presidential Palace, adjacent to the city’s plaza mayor, he writes, “Of that vigorous city that I governed, today all that remains is a large urbanized anarchy, tremendous chaos, immense disorder, and colossal disorganization. . . . Bogotá has become a city populated by people without work . . . and the services of the State and the provision of essential goods have arrived at their lowest levels, in a manner that those who do not have sufficient income have housing that does not correspond with the dignity of being human” (quoted in Martin and Ceballos 2004, 65) (see figures 0.1 and 0.2). The plaza mayor is the heart of public space in the cities of Latin America. But at this moment in Bogotá, it is the heart of nothing. As in other colonial capital cities developed under Spain’s Laws of the Indies, Bogotá’s plaza mayor, the Plaza de Bolívar, is surrounded by the architecture of Latin American society’s key institutions: the cathedral, the Palace of Justice, the Presidential Palace, and the mayoral offices. The windswept plaza, lined with colonial architecture, is quite beautiful, even with the long shadows 1

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darkening it. The surrounding offices and shops are closed, and workers and owners have gone home to other parts of the city. Faint light limns the blinds and shutters of some of the buildings framing the plaza and spills onto the colonial streets of La Candelaria, the city’s colonial centro. Water from a recent shower gleams on the hand-cut stones of the streets and the pavers in the plaza, but, though captivating, the square is barren and empty. Cars are parked randomly on the sidewalks, forcing a stray pedestrian to leave the safety of the sidewalk for the perils of the street, with Bogotá’s reckless and rude drivers. As night looms, fewer signs of life persist until all that is seen are the papers and rubbish strewn about and the shuffling walk of a homeless person, newly emigrated from rural Colombia and without work. Where are the rest of the people? Where is the lively street life one expects in a former Spanish colonial capital? Bogotá’s population avoids the square for one simple reason: it is dangerous. Other nearby public spaces, such as Plaza San Victorino, a historic plaza now occupied by the city’s largest fixed-stall market, which runs drugs and guns, among other merchandise, and the Cartucho neighborhood just south of San Victorino, known best for drugs, violence, and prostitution, languish in a similar state. The perils to person and property are too real for residents to risk a trip to these desolate places after dark (see figures 0.3 and 0.4). Fast forward to 1998. Newly installed in the mayoral office, Enrique Peñalosa Londoño declares that the centro needs “a quadruple bypass” to survive (Martin and Ceballos 2004, 316). Beginning in the 1980s, interventions in Bogotá’s centro started to make a difference in reimagining the downtown. Plans were approved that focus on renovation, yet Peñalosa’s diagnosis is telling. Without major “surgery,” the center cannot be transformed. Fast forward again, to 2006. Twenty years have passed since President Barco first took office, and the plaza mayor is hardly recognizable. The “public space mayors,” Peñalosa and Antanas Mockus Šivickas, have completed a combined three terms in office, during which they have overseen the transformation of the city. People are sitting and chatting on the stairs outside of the cathedral well into the evening, and pedestrians walk through the plaza on their way to dinner at nearby restaurants (figure 0.5). The neighboring Plaza San Victorino has been completely redesigned. The new plaza, complete with Édgar Negret’s sculpture Mariposa (Butterfly), welcomes people to sit and people watch, especially those headed to the new TransMilenio bus rapid transit station adjacent to the plaza (figure 0.6). And the Cartucho neighborhood has been completely redeveloped. In fact, much of it is now a park (see figures 0.7, 0.8a & b, and 0.9). The city is radically different. While the population has grown to 6.8 million, crime and traffic accidents have been reduced. Between 1993 and 2003 in Bogotá, homicides fell from 80 to 22 annually per 100,000 people, while traffic-accident fatalities dropped from 1,300 to 600 per year (Mockus 2004, 2). In 2006, the local Semana magazine presented a comprehensive article on Bogotá’s transformation titled “De talla mundial” (Of world stature). In it, the authors detail how changes in the city have transformed it into an international model of development, a claim that will be borne out by thousands 2

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0.3. A Bogotá street clogged with cars, taxis, and private buses (colectivos). Photo by Mike Ceaser © Bogotá Bike Tours. Courtesy of Mike Ceaser.

0.4. Plaza San Victorino taken over by Bogotá’s largest fixed-stall market. © Villegas Editores. Courtesy of Villegas Editores.

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0.5. Plaza de Bolívar, the plaza mayor reborn. Photo by Mike Ceaser © Bogotá Bike Tours. Courtesy of Mike Ceaser. 0.6. A redesigned Plaza San Victorino. © Villegas Editores. Courtesy of Villegas Editores.

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0.7. A street in the Cartucho neighborhood. © Villegas Editores. Courtesy of Villegas Editores.

0.8 a, b. (a) Parque Tercer Milenio, located on the former site of the Cartucho neighborhood. © Villegas Editores. Courtesy of Villegas Editores. (b) A view from inside Parque Tercer Milenio.

a

b

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City Hall

Parque Tercer Milenio

National Capital Building

Presidential Palace

0 FT 0M

1000 FT 200 M

0.9. Parque Tercer Milenio in relationship to the plaza mayor and center of local and national government.

of visitors coming to the city to study the changes, especially those related to public space and transportation. The residents feel much more positive about the city, too. In 2006, with the assistance of four Bogotano graduate students, I conducted a survey of hundreds of Bogotanos as they used a series of diverse open spaces throughout the city, from the Plaza de Bolívar and downtown parks to shopping centers and commercial streets.1 The team interviewed 465 users, half vendors and half visitors, using a detailed questionnaire. Those interviewed in this public space survey expressed newfound pride in living in Bogotá. Nearly half responded that Bogotá is the most beautiful city they know. This judgment on the attractiveness of Bogotá held true across all estratos (socioeconomic classes) surveyed; when asked, “How beautiful is Bogotá?” more than half of the respondents in each estrato said that it is a 3 or 4 on a scale of 1 to 4, with 1 being lowest and 4 being highest.2 Citizens’ pride in the beauty of their public space also engendered a sense of responsibility for keeping it that way, and citizen defense and care of public space increased. My public space survey found that 93 percent of people questioned said they were doing at least one thing to take care of the public spaces they used. The survey answers also revealed a strong sense of responsibility to adhere to societal norms in terms of how people behave in public spaces. Nine out of ten people responding to the survey felt that everyone has a right to the city within the bounds of good behavior. Putting it most 6

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simply, an estrato 1 vendor in the Zona Rosa shopping district said that the city’s public spaces are “a site for the entire world.” This transformation was all the more impressive given the increase in drug trafficking occurring in Colombia at the time and associated rising levels of violence. In 2003, the United Nations’ International Narcotics Control Board (INCB) reported, “In Colombia, the term ‘narco-terrorism’ is increasingly being used to refer to the violent activities of armed groups that protect, or engage in, illicit drug production and trafficking” (52). Between 1986 and 2000, the acres of Colombian land in coca cultivation increased an estimated 2.5–4 times, from about 75,000–125,000 to about 300,000 acres (30,000–50,000 to 120,000 hectares); the number peaked in 2000 (INCB 1986, 31; INCB 2003, 54). In 2011, Colombia remained the world’s largest producer of cocaine (Gates 2012); industrialized nations are its top customers (Frontline 2012). Bogotá’s mayors found success within the city in part because they believed that, while the country’s severe problems may have been insurmountable, they could at least transform the landscape—public space and social life—of the city. The city became known as a refuge, an island of calm within corridors and hot spots of conflict. This extraordinary story of Bogotá’s transformation at the hands of two visionary mayors, including notable innovations in policy making and governance, the introduction of new types of public space, and, ultimately, breakdowns in the transformation, is told here.

INTRODUCTION

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1. From Dystopia to Hope, Bogotá Reenvisioned The Colombian State has never had control over all of its territory. Since independence there have been local armies, guerrillas, bandits, armed peasants and landowners controlling parts of the country. —GRACE LIVINGSTONE (2004, 35)

The public is everything, the public is the public money, the public is the civil servant, the public is public space, the public is the respect for the elements of the city. —CARMENZA SALDÍAS BARRENECHE, DIRECTOR OF PLANNING FOR BOGOTÁ, 2002–2005 (INTERVIEW BY AUTHOR, OCTOBER 28, 2006)

T

hroughout the second half of the twentieth century, Bogotá was a dystopia, severely devastated by negative forces colliding with ever-greater momentum. Contributing factors included a national history of recurrent and violent civil wars; a strong and separate upper class with a firm grip on most of the social, economic, and political power; and an absence of planning practice and government structure throughout many of the last decades, at a time when the city endured staggering population-growth rates and the rapid expansion of its borders. The Colombian government was unable to keep people safe from the violence engendered by ongoing war among the state and its military, paramilitary organizations, drug traffickers, and guerrillas. The state also had limited interest and effectiveness in dealing with urban poverty and unemployment. Dystopian conditions in the city—an absence of effective state governance, violence in everyday life, and treacherous economic circumstances—created a reality of daily life in Bogotá that Dossa (1989), in writing about Hannah Arendt’s work on how people relate to the public and private realms, calls a “battle with necessity,” where other citizens were “fellow predators” to be outcompeted (97). During the course of my research, 8

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I interviewed several people who characterized the 1970s through the 1990s in Bogotá as a time where the exclusive focus lay in securing what one needed for oneself and one’s family without regard for public interests or communal interaction. In Arendt’s view, this preoccupation with private needs stands in opposition to a public life and a concern for larger societal issues (Dossa 1989, 96). Elaborating on Arendt’s writing, Dossa clarifies the counterresponse: “To be a public self, then, is to love the world, to believe that it is the world in which real ‘human’ life is lived,” and worldliness “is the result of actions which transcend private interest and private benefit” (97). In Bogotá during these years, dystopian conditions developed on many different levels. These conditions emerged out of the country’s historically high levels of politically and socially motivated violence. However, dystopian conditions were also present in the chaotic urban planning of the city and were viscerally present for the residents of Bogotá in how they played out in the city’s public spaces. For example, the explosion of car ownership by a small minority of the population beginning in the 1960s resulted in affluent drivers commandeering open space and sidewalks for parking, which ate up public space, left no room for pedestrians, and destroyed sidewalks. As a result, public space became more and more fragmented. In addition, the viability of public space in Bogotá was challenged by privatizations and the illegal closure of public space as some citizens took over publicly owned land for their own purposes (DAPD 2006). Ardila-Gómez (2003) describes this time, “Bogotá had become totally chaotic. The quality of life deteriorated, with few city services. One could say that the city mistreated its inhabitants, and the citizens reacted in kind. People often tossed their garbage onto the streets. Drivers careened their cars at pedestrians, actually speeding up as people attempted to cross the street. No one stopped for red lights” (1). Conflict and violence were the framing elements of Colombian development in general, erecting significant barriers to Bogotá’s development, especially in the latter half of the twentieth century.

DYSTOPI AN R O OT S

The historic weakness of the Colombian state and lack of national cohesion have roots that date back to the Spanish Conquest in South America. Colonialism left a legacy in Latin America of a wealthy, elite minority disdainful of the poor majority. This income stratification influenced settlement patterns in Colombia, which, along with the country’s fragmented geography and governance problems, created pockets of near independent rule and servitude. Today, there are four metropolitan regions, each centered on a main city.1 Each region continues to have a localized identity and resources (see figures 1.1 and 1.2). Colombia’s history provides several illustrations of the structural forces underlying the dystopian Bogotá: a power imbalance between the governors and the governed inherent in the political system—a system traditionally paternalistic, white, monied, and classist; a history of collusion between the two dominant political parties that FROM DYSTOPIA TO HOPE

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CARIBBEAN SEA

BARRANQUILLA

PANAMA

VENEZUELA

MEDELLÍN

PACIFIC OCEAN BOGOTÁ

CALI

COLOMBIA

BRAZIL ECUADOR

PERU

1.1. Colombia’s four metro regions and cities.

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Bogotá : 8612 ft (2625 m) Population: 8 million

Medellín : 4905 ft (1495 m) Population: 2 million Cali : 3271 ft (997 m) Population: 2 million Barranquilla : 50 ft (18 m) Population: 1 million

1.2. Colombia’s central cities in section; their geography has long encouraged urban decentralization.

resulted in the repression of other sources of political power; an abdication of responsibility to the governed and a failure to institute progressive social or political reforms; and hence, a history of violent, bipartisan civil wars that repeatedly broke down the social order (Bergquist, Peñaranda, and Sánchez G. 2001; Livingstone 2004; Sánchez G. 2001).2 The twentieth century was critical in Bogotá’s development, and the first half of the century was quite different from the second. In 1948, Bogotá was a thriving city under the leadership of Mayor Jorge Eliécer Gaitán. Gaitán was popular with the people in a way that was both unique and precarious. Threatened by his popularity, the elite found him dangerous, and they worried about losing social control. A self-made man, Gaitán pulled himself up out of the lower classes through intelligence, grit, and a European education. As a mestizo (a person of mixed race—native and European descent) he was an unusual presence within the typically criollo (white and of Spanish descent) elite. His oratorical capabilities became legendary, and he went on speaking tours far outside the normally accepted venues. Because of his unique position between the people and the political elite, he came to symbolize the pueblo (the people), and he inserted their politics into governance (Braun 1985; Livingstone 2004) (see figure 1.3). First as Bogotá’s mayor, and then as a Liberal candidate for the 1950 presidential race, Gaitán did what no other candidate, Liberal or Conservative, had ever done: he engaged the people as equals. In breaking out of the traditionally paternalistic and highly segregated mode of interacting with the people, Gaitán signified a new direction in governance style that was exhilarating for the people and terrifying to the elite (Livingstone 2004, 41). He spoke frequently about Colombia’s “two countries.” One was the país político—the country of the rich elite; the second was the país nacional—the country of the poor (Braun 1985, 77–101; Livingstone 2004, 41). While Gaitán was a reformer and not a revolutionary (Livingstone 2004, 41), Sánchez G. (2001) notes that Gaitán’s projects of political participation and economic redistribution “were backed by FROM DYSTOPIA TO HOPE

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1.3. Mayor Jorge Eliécer Gaitán addresses a crowd (the pennant reads, “The Voice of Bogotá”). Viernes Culturales, 1947, by Sady González © Biblioteca Luis Ángel Arango del Banco de la República. Courtesy of Biblioteca Luis Ángel Arango del Banco de la República.

a social mobilization of such magnitude as to seem to transform their reformist content, leading the forces of the status quo to perceive a threat to the entire social edifice” (77). Gaitán was assassinated in Bogotá in 1948, touching off a wave of urban rioting that came to be known as the Bogotazo. While the resulting violence began in the city center, it soon spread out into the countryside and inflamed the partisan passions of both Liberals and Conservatives, and in that moment of political uncertainty—characterized by rapidly changing power relationships among socioeconomic classes and between the governors and the governed—the flame of Colombia’s current civil war was lit. Colombian historian Fabio Zambrano Pantoja writes that at this time “all efforts towards modernizing the city encountered in the Bogotazo a boundary of importance. Gaitán’s assassination created an explosion of popular anger that constituted a rupture in the imaginary of the city, that created a ‘before’ full of cordiality in a city where everything functioned well and an ‘after’ where everything ended and only disorder and confusion lived” (OCU and Zambrano 2003, 50) (see figure 1.4). These events initiated a period in Colombia’s history known as La Violencia (The Violence). It was a time of barbarity as Conservative and Liberal peasants fought one 12

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another. Between 1948 and 1950, 200,000 people were killed (Livingstone 2004, 42). New methods of torture were invented, and each act of violence led to a reprisal. According to Livingstone (2004), “La Violencia defies simple explanation. It was partly a civil war between Liberals and Conservatives, in which—like the nineteenth century bi-partisan wars—peasants killed other peasants. In some areas it was a spontaneous social uprising against the landlords and village notables, and in other areas there were conscious attempts to carry out a revolution” (42). Social order broke down completely. La Violencia became not just a bipartisan war, but also an outlet for fury over social and economic injustices. The first wave of La Violencia ended in 1953, when General Gustavo Rojas Pinilla, the only dictator in Colombia’s history, seized power in a coup d’etat backed by Conservative and Liberal politicians and ruled for four years. However, armed factions in the countryside, including guerrillas, continue fighting to this day. The moment of Gaitán’s assassination in 1948 was pivotal for Bogotá and its development. It marked a decided end to a level of public spirit, conviviality, and civility that would not be revived again until Antanas Mockus became mayor in 1995. The fact that the nation’s two faces—the país político and the país nacional—could not be reconciled

1.4. After the Bogotazo, 1948. Photo by William J. Smith © Associated Press. Courtesy of Associated Press.

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served as further evidence of the separation between the pueblo and the elite, and exacerbated the growth of dystopian conditions throughout most of the remainder of the twentieth century.

C I TY M AKI N G I N T HE EAR LY T W ENTIETH CENTURY

Prior to the 1950s, Bogotá was known as a relatively well-planned city, especially in comparison to other Latin American capitals, and it had a history of regularly engaging consultants to create urban plans and to bolster its own fledgling planning efforts (Violich 1987, 59). Up until the late nineteenth century, the city grew compactly and was oriented around the colonial center. This began to change around the turn of the century and accelerated in the 1930s, as money from coffee plantations allowed the upper classes to move from the colonial center to new suburbs north of the city, airline travel became possible and popular, and the national economy experienced a period of growth. As a result, Bogotá’s “traditional remoteness” was overcome, and the city “became a target for in-migration and industrial development” (Violich 1987, 23) (see figure 1.5). The year 1938 was key in Bogotá’s development. The city celebrated its 400-year anniversary and completed several capital improvement projects as part of the occasion (Violich 1987, 22) (see figure 1.6). Between 1900 and 1938, the city’s population had more than tripled, growing from 100,000 to 330,312 people (Violich 1987, 25). The city continued to grow rapidly, and between 1936 and 1951, a mix of renowned consultants, including Harland Bartholomew (in the 1930s), Karl Brunner (in 1936), and Le Corbusier with Paul Lester Weiner and José Luis Sert (in 1951), produced two urban general plans, a transportation plan, and the city’s first modern zoning ordinance. These plans had little effect, however. For example, Le Corbusier’s 1951 Plan Piloto (General Plan), which came on the heels of the havoc wreaked by Gaitán’s assassination and subsequent turmoil, was never adopted. When the military dictator Gustavo Rojas came to power in 1953, urban planning in Bogotá fundamentally changed (OCU and Zambrano 2003, 50). General Rojas initially enjoyed widespread popularity. With his slogans “Country above the Parties” and “Peace, Justice and Liberty,” he pacified much of the country by offering amnesty to warring parties and by introducing needed reforms. Besides nationalizing the oil industry, he invested heavily in infrastructure, especially in Bogotá (Livingstone 2004, 44). Rojas was responsible for the construction of the autopista (freeway) that leads north out of the city and for the location of the El Dorado airport in the western zone of the city, far from the center. According to Zambrano, these projects “broke with the idea of planning to control the growth to the west, and as a result, the city began to change more rapidly” (OCU and Zambrano 2003, 51). In pushing the western and northern boundaries of the city outward, Rojas’s unilateral vision blatantly ignored the planning efforts made between 1936 and 1951 to establish a comprehensive 14

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1538

1560

1670

1840

1910

1930

1933

1953

1957

1970

1990

2000

1.5. Bogotá’s growth. Redrawn and expanded from Violich (1987, 205, fig. 6.3).

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1.6. Bogotá in 1938, the city’s quadricentennial anniversary. Bogotá, 1938, by la Secretaría de Obras Públicas Municipales Sección del Plano de Bogotá © Museo de Bogotá. Courtesy of Museo de Bogotá, Bogotá, Colombia.

plan for the city. As a result, more of the city was opened up for development and expansion (see figure 1.7 for a comparison of the Brunner and the Le Corbusier with Weiner and Sert plans with a city plan from 1957, which shows the layout of the city after Rojas was deposed). The period between the 1930s and 1970s in Bogotá was a time of unprecedented population growth and subsequent urbanization—much of it informal, with very little city control over the process and significant interference from local land developers and politicians. After the Bogotazo and the beginning of La Violencia, people from the countryside began arriving in the cities looking to escape rural violence. At this time, the city experienced “its highest levels of growth and informal urbanization,” and the district’s planning office had relatively little control over that process (OCU and Zambrano 2003, 52). In 1957, Rojas was deposed and the National Front government commenced. The National Front system, which existed from 1957 to 1974, was constructed from a simple agreement that the two main political parties would rotate through four, four-year turns in the presidency and equally split all government jobs. While Rojas’s departure allowed for the placement of promising new leaders in the city’s planning office, their efforts were overwhelmed by the sheer magnitude of growth. City planners Jorge Gaitán Cortés and Virgilio Barco Vargas, who were to become mayors of Bogotá in the 1960s (Barco also later served as president—from 1986 to 1990), steered the process of attempting to reconcile the former dictator’s interventions in the city with the city’s planning process and existing urban plans.3 Where Rojas had broken out of the city’s boundary to construct his projects, the general plans, including Le Corbusier’s Plan Piloto, had called for “densifying the city within its existing limits” (OCU and Zambrano 2003, 51), though Le Corbusier did add one area of expansion 16

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a

Open Space Roads Train Developed Area Rivers

1.7 a, b, c. (a) Brunner Plan for Bogotà, 1936. (b) Le Corbusier Plan for Bogotá, with Weiner and Sert, 1951. (c) The 1957 city plan. All redrawn from Cuéllar Sánchez and Mejía Pavony (2007, 131).

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b

c

Open Space Roads Train Developed Area Rivers

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westward. Following on the city’s expansion instigated by Rojas, outward growth of the city accelerated, fueled by the construction of “pirate subdivisions,” or subdivisions created by private developers outside the formal approval process, in the city’s periphery. After Rojas’s deposition, clientelist politics became entrenched and the city developed informally, as corrupt local politicians approved developments with no regard for comprehensive city planning. These pirate subdivisions proliferated. Bogotá had a history of “clandestine” settlements springing up in the sabana, the fertile plateau on which the city is located (see figure 1.8). The modern pirate subdivisions of the 1960s and beyond ballooned to accommodate explosive and uncontrolled growth in the city. These subdivisions were extremely popular, but were typically created without public space, services, or utilities, and were often constructed on the least expensive and most undesirable land (OCU and Zambrano 2003, 51; Violich 1987, 224). Between 1938 and 1972, Bogotá sustained an annual growth rate between 6.0 percent and 6.9 percent for the general population; the city’s area during those same years

1.8. Bogotá’s informal settlements in 1950. Algunas parcelaciones clandestinas: Alrededores de Bogotá, 1950, by Joaquín Martínez © Archivo de Bogotá. Courtesy of Archivo de Bogotá, Bogotá, Colombia.

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grew from 6.9 square miles (18 square kilometers) to 63.3 square miles (164 square kilometers) (Violich 1987, 204), a massive increase. During this expansion, city density averaged eighty people per acre, a density the city has averaged ever since (Rueda García and Rueda Sinisterra 2005, 21). The settlement by the poor of lower quality land to the south as well as more flood-prone land along the periphery established a spatial logic of “haves” and “have-nots” within the city fabric, entrenching inequality in the city landscape. By 1972, 59 percent of the population was living in pirate subdivisions and that segment of the population was growing at 16.2 percent annually, more than twice as rapidly as the city as a whole (Violich 1987, 224). This pattern of city development is still very evident today; approximately 40 percent of Bogotá’s developed area is composed of areas that were informally settled. Because of a lack of leadership and a focus on private interests rather than public good throughout this period, the city planning process languished, trapped between formal development processes of the state, which had little impact on the city, and those of private interests, which dominated (Livingstone 2004, 40). There was no greater example of lack of leadership in those decades than the rotation of appointees through the mayoral office.

T H E T R AN S I T I O N TO HO PE

The rapid succession of mayors of Bogotá significantly worsened the struggle between the city’s chaotic and informal urbanization process and the efforts of its planning office. Historically, Bogotá’s mayors turned over frequently because until 1988, municipal heads were appointed by the president and served at his whim. Martin and Ceballos report that, prior to 1958, the average duration of a mayoral administration was eight months; between 1958 and 1973 it was three years; between 1970 and 1982 it was two years; and between 1982 and 1986 it was one year (2004, 329). Throughout these periods, the mayors had limited power because the president was the ultimate authority, even in city affairs, and the constant changes in administration were detrimental to planning and carrying out a unified vision for development. In addition, Braun (1994) writes that, in these decades, those in power were so disdainful and fearful of the poor that there was little they would not do to maintain physical and social separation between classes (177). Suspicion and fear amongst the city’s different socioeconomic groups compounded the challenges engendered by rapid growth. Braun (1994) describes the state of personal interaction between Bogotanos in the 1980s as “the peculiar combination of easygoing camaraderie and cold aggression” that left one not knowing whom or what to trust (22). There was seemingly no end to the challenges facing Bogotá. During the 1980s and 1990s, the Colombian government struggled to staunch violence and acquire legitimacy and effectiveness on the world stage. One of its proposed solutions—decentralizing power by distributing it to local governments—promised to bring significant changes to Bogotá. A broad trend of decentralization was sweeping FROM DYSTOPIA TO HOPE

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through Latin America, placing increased political, fiscal, and administrative responsibilities and duties on regional and city government entities with the purported hope of increasing democratic governance. Decentralization was seen as supportive of macroeconomic reforms that prioritized market forces, and this trend was strongly supported by the neoliberal mind-set of international aid and lending agencies, whose influence has dominated the economies of Latin American countries. In Bogotá, decentralization challenged city officials to create stronger democratic modes of local governance—transparency, fiscal responsibility, and participation—and to confront the legacy of dystopia. This legacy, seen in fractured social relations, corrupt police forces (leading citizens to take the law into their own hands), ineffective and unenforced city policies and property tax collection, and, finally, a devastated physical city fabric, had become so deeply entrenched that few knew how to respond. However, a cadre of local figures with the skills, but not the opening to lead, began to seize the window of opportunity created by decentralization in Bogotá. (This process is detailed in chapter 2.) In the mid-1980s, the Colombian government began decentralizing power, and in 1988, Bogotá held its first democratic mayoral elections. While the change from appointed to elected officials was notable, the first two elected mayors, nonetheless, did little to transform the city.4 The third elected mayor, Jaime Castro Castro (1992–1994), however, played a pivotal role in putting the city on a path toward fiscal responsibility and better government organization, effectiveness, and transparency. The country’s new constitution, which took effect in 1991, supported Castro’s processes of modernizing governance, decentralizing state functions to the municipal level, and reorganizing local government (Rueda García and Rueda Sinisterra 2005, 64). Castro laid the groundwork for all future mayors. In particular, his administration established a crucial foundation for two catalytic mayors, Antanas Mockus Šivickas (1995–1997, 2001–2003) and Enrique Peñalosa Londoño (1998–2000), whose administrations I focus on in this book. I call Mockus and Peñalosa the “public space mayors” because of their complementary visions for urban development and governance focusing on transforming Bogotá’s public landscape. Their work and success built on Castro’s, yet their role was unique; without these mayors Bogotá’s transformation would not have occurred. In response to Bogotá’s nadir in the 1980s and early 1990s, Mockus and Peñalosa proposed initiatives in urban design and planning as the key solution to the dystopian conditions. As has occurred elsewhere in post-dictatorship or post-repression states, planning and design practices in Bogotá revived, and the narratives that shape city making expanded once again (McDonogh 1999, 368). The situation was similar to the transformation of Barcelona, Spain, after the Franco regime ended in 1975. McDonogh (1999) explains that the post-Fascist period in Barcelona “was defined by the establishment of institutional action, by core thematics of discourse about the city, and by the relation between this period and continuities in the historical dynamics of urbanism” 20

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(368). Likewise, in the late 1980s, significant changes in governance in Bogotá ended a decades-long dearth of planning practice.5 With the advent of mayoral elections, increased power in local governments, and greater fiscal resources and accountability, urban planning and design became important again. Narratives in Bogotá changed as planning and design practices were recharged, and the city was able to fully return to its goals of modernizing and formalizing the city that had begun in the first half of the twentieth century. This renewed focus on design and planning as a solution was no accident; rather, it was a carefully considered strategy by local government leaders to build a new city capable of instilling hope in its citizens.

C RE AT I N G T HE PEDAG O G I CAL CITY

Urban designers and planners are taught that utopias cannot succeed and that every planned utopia contains the seeds of its own destruction. It is easier to grasp the reality of dystopias—places defined by devastating conditions that persist and degrade quality of life to a significant degree. When a city becomes a dystopia, a lack of urban planning is often blamed. Yet, dystopian conditions can empower people to bring about change, as was the case in Bogotá. Miles, Hall, and Borden (2000) point out, “Although seemingly negative, the image of dystopia can be equally helpful as that of utopia for those interested in social change and progress, offering a way of representing conditions to be avoided in the present and in the future” (287). In Bogotá’s case, even dystopias contain the seeds of their own destruction. In a similar manner, “utopian thinking” allows one to critique the present for the purpose of changing it (Miles, Hall, and Borden 2000, 287). Seen in this way, Mockus and Peñalosa engaged both dystopian and utopian thinking to power their success. And, as expressed through their development visions, they established the conditions for a city of hope. Each had a strong personal vision about what Bogotá could, and needed to, become, and the two shared a profound sense of responsibility for the city. And, most importantly, they needed to signal competence and legitimacy, all while dealing with three-year mayoral terms with no immediate reelection possible. In their drive to create a hopeful city, Mockus and Peñalosa focused on community, identity, and equity. The primary territory within which they disseminated these ideas was the city’s public space. They wanted Bogotá’s citizens to link their private lives with a new public sensibility and to have better access to communal resources. Bogotanos would be encouraged to go outside of their comfort zones and learn once again how to be public citizens based on their daily habits and behaviors. This would be accomplished by creating social programs, building public spaces for interaction and learning, and introducing public transportation networks. The changes enacted by the two mayors over the span of their three administrations transformed the city socially, physically, and culturally. The social life of the city was reimagined through Mockus’s focus on enhancing cultura ciudadana (citizen FROM DYSTOPIA TO HOPE

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culture), or feelings of belonging, respect, and responsibility among citizens, and through Peñalosa’s drive to increase the equitable distribution of collective public space, transportation, and recreational resources. The physical fabric of the city transformed as a new system of public spaces was put into place and boundaries were reestablished between public and private space. The political arena of the city was reshaped by what I call visible competency, the visual demonstration of the capacity to plan, design, and implement development projects to increase or maintain quality of life and place. Demonstrating visible competency quickly established the mayors and legitimized their administrations. The social life of the city changed. As a result, a collective effort of civic spirit—called “Bogotantud” by one faculty member at the Universidad Nacional de Colombia, Bogotá—arose in the city and “pedagogical urbanism” emerged as the city’s collective urbanistic response to these changes. Although the mayors’ efforts to transform the city were successful in many ways, breakdowns in the equitable development and use of public space emerged, as I discuss in chapters 4 and 5.

A SC E N T FR O M DYSTO PI A

Bogotá’s descent into dystopian conditions emerged from structural forces in place in the social and political systems of the country and its capital. These forces came to a head in 1948 with Gaitán’s assassination, which forever transformed the city. The latter half of the twentieth century was a time of great violence and hardship in Colombia; yet, the decentralization movement that swept Latin America in the 1980s and 1990s offered a potential new path toward more transparent and responsive local governance. The advent of mayoral elections in Bogotá in 1988 was a final attempt to interrupt the cycle of social and political violence by increasing a sense of responsibility and accountability between local elected officials and residents. This window of opportunity was firmly grasped by individuals capable of leading, who had been waiting in the wings. As local elections became the norm, a profound transformation of the city began. Building on Jaime Castro’s legacy, Mayors Mockus and Peñalosa transformed the city into the model of urban development analyzed by visitors from other countries from the late 1990s on. Mockus and Peñalosa would go forward to reshape the city to create a sense of belonging and collective empowerment for all Bogotanos. Creating and maintaining the visibility and functionality of public projects was crucial to allowing residents to experience the changes. For many, this provided evidence that life was improving, that they could believe in a local government responsive to their concerns, that wrongs could be righted, and that order could be restored to the city. Opportunities abounded. How the mayoral office transformed, and how the city changed socially, is the subject of the following chapter.

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2. Independent Mayors

The circuitous path toward deepened democracy in Latin America has changed politics in the capital cities. Municipal political institutions, especially local executives and municipal councils, have become stronger. Groups based on activities centered in the capital city region have gained influence, and new patterns of political behavior have crystallized. —DAVID J. MYERS AND HENRY A. DIETZ (2002, 1)

I

n the 1980s and 1990s, a twofold focus on decentralization catalyzed the strengthening of Bogotá’s local government. One aspect of the focus was a general Latin American trend toward liberalization and decentralization. The other was specific to Colombia, where reforms arose from the need to create more responsive and effective municipal governments capable of combating the high level of violence occurring throughout the country (Hoskin 1998). This dual process of decentralization created a window of opportunity for leadership in Bogotá, which had a backlog of intellectual elites who were capable of leading the city but had not been given a chance to do so. Myers and Dietz (2002) describe the changed situation of local governance since the 1980s in Latin America as having a “dynamic of local empowerment,” in contrast to the prior period, in which “most municipal executives in Latin America’s capital cities served at the pleasure of the president” (1). The shift from appointed to elected mayors in Latin America in the 1980s and 1990s represented a turning point from the mayor’s role as an agent of the president to one of a locally elected official accountable to voters. As a result, “elected capital city mayors became the country’s second most important political executive” (3). Gilbert and Dávila (2002) agree: “Bogotá’s mayor 23

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is now considered by many to be the second most powerful person in the country, following the president” (39). Decentralization diminished the negative effects of centralism and corruption in the national government, which were exacerbated by the lack of effective public management (45), and revolutionized the mayoral office in Bogotá. According to former mayor Peñalosa, in Bogotá, local elections lessened the grip of traditional “political lords” and “weakened tremendously the political parties’ machineries” (interview by author, November 14, 2006). As a result, local leaders such as Mockus and Peñalosa took up the challenge to transform the city. And by positioning themselves as independents, they established a unique approach for success.

C H A L L EN G ES TO G OVER N AN C E

While the advent of mayoral elections in Bogotá in 1988 precipitated positive changes in local governance, the mayors faced severe challenges at that time in their charge to lead the city. Even with the decentralization of power to the local level, city leaders had to confront the legacy of a long-standing dearth of leadership. There were also challenges facing Colombian cities at that time generally, as well as for Bogotá in its role as the capital. Structural issues in governance established a difficult atmosphere for the new mayoralty. In 1974, the end of the sixteen-year National Front system—under which the Liberal and Conservative parties took turns occupying the office of president for four-year terms—had created a vacuum in leadership. The resultant political instability led to a loss of rational governance, evidenced in the rapid turnover of mayors with questionable management abilities but powerful political ties. This came about due to “short term and clientelist-based decision making and public management” that replaced professional decision making with self-interest “in a range of institutional structures from the Mayor’s planning office to the local governing boards” (Martin and Ceballos 2004, 62). Layered on top of these issues, negative trends facing Colombian cities at that time included a climate of exclusion and fragmentation, heightened perceptions of lack of safety, and a lack of access to health care, education, and open space (Carrión 2004, 69–73; Velásquez Carrillo 2004, 9). This atmosphere of exclusion and fragmentation was driven by “poverty, social-spatial exclusion, violence, and lack of participation in politics” (Velásquez Carrillo 2004, 9). Many of these trends were worsened by “significant changes in the structure and function of Colombian cities, especially global-local tensions due to structural adjustment and other policies” (DAPD 2006, 55).1 Its role and responsibilities as the capital, the legacy of an absent national government of any effectiveness, and the same troubles as were facing all Colombian cities created insufferable conditions in Bogotá. As mayoral elections commenced in 1988, three challenges, especially, overwhelmed the city. The city struggled with a growing population and informally settled lands, 24

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high levels of poverty, and city finances in disarray. As described in chapter 1, Bogotá during the second half of the twentieth century grew rapidly, averaging 6.0 to 6.9 percent growth overall annually and up to 16.2 percent growth in areas of informal settlement. Informally settled areas occupied large portions of the city’s land area in certain districts, and some people moving to the city survived by living wherever they could find space: on the streets, under overpasses, in parks, and in the lower portions of the mountains on the city’s eastern boundary. Compounding this situation, as the capital, Bogotá was a powerful draw for internal migrants seeking work and trying to escape violence in the countryside. In 2005, Colombia’s displaced population totaled 2.5 million people, placing it second only to Sudan (Human Rights Watch 2005, 1).2 One reporter at El Tiempo, one of two main newspapers in Bogotá, said in 2003 that about twenty people were arriving daily in Bogotá, while another source estimated at least double that number (Martínez 2003, 1). In the mid-1980s, 70 percent of Colombia’s population was living in urban centers (Velásquez Carrillo 2004, 7), which resulted in a concentration of poverty and exacerbated other negative urban conditions (Rueda García and Rueda Sinisterra 2005, 15). This level of urban poverty existed throughout Latin America and the Caribbean, where, on average at that time, 70 percent of the population lived in cities (Habitat 2012, 19).3 While the percentage of urban poor in Bogotá was somewhat lower than the Colombian national average, it was still large. A comparison of poverty rates in the mid-1980s in Colombia and Bogotá revealed that Bogotá fared better overall than Colombia: 49 percent of Bogotanos were “poor,” defined as financially unable to satisfy basic needs, or “very poor,” defined as “in misery,” meaning they had a chronic lack of access to shelter, work, and food, compared to 69 percent of Colombians in those two categories (see table 2.1). In the 1980s and 1990s, in Bogotá, for every ten residents employed, four were underemployed and two were unemployed (DAPD 2006, 55), which translates to a 13 percent unemployment rate and an additional 25 percent underemployment rate. As Mockus and Peñalosa served as mayors from 1995 to 2003, 80 percent of Bogotanos were in estratos 1 through 3, and 20 percent were in estratos 4 through 6 (Del Castillo Daza 2003, 54): eight out of ten Bogotanos that Mockus and Peñalosa worked for were lower middle class to extremely poor.

Table 2.1. Poverty levels in Bogotá and Colombia in 1985.

POOR (%)

VERY POOR (%)

Bogotá

35

14

Colombia

46

23

Source: Data from Rueda García and Rueda Sinisterra (2005, 15).

INDEPENDENT MAYORS

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Compounding these challenging levels of growth and poverty, Bogotá’s governing code, tax-collection process, and financial systems were in shambles. During the late twentieth century, Bogotá’s finances fell into extreme disorder due to the lack of comprehensive tax-collection enforcement, failure of leadership, and a hostile relationship with the national government. In 1992, owing $2.6 billion USD to lenders, Bogotá declared bankruptcy (Castro and Garavito 1994).4 This was due in large part to lack of leadership and widespread corruption as well as the refusal of the national government to adequately fund Bogotá’s administrative and upkeep needs.5 The national government also refused to secure a loan to cover the city’s debts (Gilbert and Dávila 2002, 45). At the same time, however, Bogotá was giving the nation half of what it collected in taxes (45), and, while Bogotá accounted for, on average, 30 percent of Colombia’s gross domestic product (25), it received significantly less than that back from the state in terms of resources. These challenges presented seemingly insurmountable hurdles to the elected mayors, and people questioned the possibility of transformation. In Colombia, many saw a “failure of local government, even with reforms and greater autonomy to successfully meet city challenges” (Velásquez Carrillo 2004, 11). High levels of poverty and growth and their concentration in the periphery of the city, where lower-income and informal housing sprang up, worsened the already chaotic socio-spatial logic of the city (see figure 2.1). The challenge for Bogotá became to create “a collective space for enjoying a dignified life” and to leave behind the exclusion and fragmentation of the disarticulated city (9), which lacked physical and social cohesion.

R E - C RE AT I N G T HE M AYO R ALTY

Despite these very difficult challenges, Bogotá’s elected mayors pushed onward. Their strong sense of personal agency was crucial in establishing the conditions for city transformation.6 In the shift to elections, three things provided key support to the mayors. First was a more adaptable and nuanced context in which to address problems and opportunities. Borja and Castells (1997) write that especially regarding “social and cultural issues . . . the empowerment of local governance resulted in greater legitimacy, flexibility, and a sense of agency . . . ” in Latin American cities (6). Second, changes in the city’s governing code, written in the mid-1990s by Jaime Castro, Bogotá’s third elected mayor, established a strong mayor relative to the city council. Third, the city population is consolidated within the district’s administrative boundaries, streamlining aspects of government management.7 These characteristics made the city’s mayoralty more independent than most—a well-consolidated municipality and a government that was increasingly politically and financially autonomous from the national government.8 Bogotá’s mayor and its city council have traditionally had a divisive relationship. Overlapping responsibilities in city administration complicated this (Gilbert and Dávila 2002, 44), as did competition for positions and opportunities vis-à-vis the national 26

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SUBA U A

US USA U SAQUE AQ AQ QUE QU UEN UE EN

ENGATIVA EN NG GAT ATIV TIV IVA VA VA

FONTI FO F NT N TIBON BON BON N

BARR BARRIO BARRIOS BAR ARRIOS RIO OS O S UNI U N NID NI DOS DO D O OS S

TEUSAQU TE EU US SAQU QUILL UIILLO LLO LL O CH CHAPINERO CH HA BOS BO OSA OS OSA

KENNEDY KE K EN NNE NN N NE ED DY Y PUEN PU P UENTE TE E AR RANDA RAN RAND DA LO L OS OS MAR M MA ART RTIR TIRES T IRE RES S CA C A ANDELARIA N TUN UN UN NJJU JUELIT JUEL UEL LIIT TO T O

ANTONIO ANT AN A NTONIO N T TO ON O NIO IO O NARINO N NA A O

SANTA FE

RAFAE RAF R AFA FA AE EL URI UR U R RIB IIBE B BE E SAN CRISTOBAL S

CIUDAD BOLIVAR

USM USME

District Boundaries Informal Settlements Developed Areas

2.1. Bogotá’s informal settlements in 1990. Redrawn from DAPD (2001, 15).

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government (43), especially prior to the advent of mayoral elections. Mayor Castro (1992–1994) introduced a set of reforms, including a statute change that resolved this overlap and that, as described above, firmly placed the mayor on top. Since Castro successfully revised the law, Castro and Garavito (1994) note, “now it is the mayor who governs and the council that . . . legislates” (56). This was an important step for effective city governance in Bogotá. When he pushed for these reforms, Castro met with significant resistance from the council, which jealously guarded its political scope and influence (Gilbert and Dávila 2002, 43).

T H E “REAL M I R AC LE” O F B O G OTÁ

As these conflicting responsibilities were resolved, Castro pushed ahead with other needed reforms, including revamping the collection of taxes. When he first stepped into office in 1992, tax collection was difficult because “the city was reluctant to raise its own taxes and the tax system was very disorganized and corrupt” (Gilbert and Dávila 2002, 45). The entire system was outdated in terms of record keeping and methods of collection. Its overgrown bureaucracy ate up what little money it took in (46). With Castro’s changes, “the municipal finance section of the Charter modernized the tax code of Bogotá and gave the city instruments to significantly increase its revenues” (45). In 1994, “tax collection was almost double the amount in 1993” (Ardila-Gómez 2003, 2). Carmenza Saldías Barreneche, city planning director from 2002 to 2005, said of this that the “real miracle of Bogotá was that people started paying taxes” (interview by author, October 28, 2006). In fact, during Mayor Antanas Mockus’s first administration (1995–1997), 63,000 Bogotanos voluntarily levied an additional 10 percent tax on themselves to help fund public improvements (Caballero 2004, 5). Mayor Castro was also aided by significant developments in 1993 at the national level, including a transfer of tax monies from the national government as part of President Betancur’s decentralization plan for the country, acceptance by Congress of the disputed 1993 census figures, the availability of new sources of income, and the completion of long-overdue and over-budget infrastructure work (Gilbert and Dávila 2002, 46). These changes, coupled with the reforms that Castro initiated, helped put the city on a path to fiscal responsibility. According to La Rebeca (1998), the budget of the central government, which in 1993 presented a deficit of almost five billion Colombian pesos (COP), underwent major reforms and showed a surplus of twenty-five billion three years later. This budget surplus was significant because it shaped what future mayors could do. Overall, these changes “initiated a process of recuperation that was not only about urban planning, but was also social, administrative, and political, with the object of creating a more equitable, integrated, and secure city” (Martin and Ceballos 2004, 69). While Jaime Castro was the third in line of Bogotá’s elected mayors, according to several people I interviewed, he was the first to set the city on a course toward 28

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transformation. His administration became the turning point in the fortunes of the city; Ardila-Gómez (2003) calls Castro the “money maker” and “founding father” of the new Bogotá (2). While effective administratively, however, Castro did not enjoy the same visibility or synergistic benefits that Mockus and Peñalosa later did.9

I N D E PEN DEN T M AYO R S

Shaping the city’s transformation as well was the splintering of the traditional two-party system, with the gradual inclusion of more parties into Bogotano and Colombian politics. One factor in this process was the trend toward candidates running as “dissidents,” or independents, although these independents sometimes maintained party affiliations while at the same time avoiding backing from their chosen political parties. Jaime Castro ran for mayor as a member of the Liberal Party, but Mockus and Peñalosa ran as independent candidates, rather than on party platforms. They deliberately distanced themselves from politics as usual—the system of ineffective and tradition-bound party politics—in an attempt to support the re-creation of the mayoral office as a responsive, democratic one.10 Mockus and Peñalosa exhibited a sense of passion and duty about running for mayor. They saw themselves as positioned in a pivotal role with responsibility for making positive changes in the city. Of Mockus and his first election in 1995, Saldías explains, “He was a rector of a public university and a mathematician, philosopher, a professor, and his first administrative team was built out of the progressive people who had not been killed in this country . . . nearly all of the people who knew that Bogotá was at a profound point of crisis and the grand challenge for the city was to become a modern city, rather than a pre-modern or underdeveloped city” (interview by author, October 28, 2006). As Lucía Peña (1995) observes of Mockus, who ran two separate administrations, “Neither the candidate nor the campaign was viewed as an end in itself. Rather, the candidate presented himself as an instrument and the campaign as a process that should be placed at the service of a project for the city, committed to the defense of the collectivity and the development of a culture of citizenship” (30). Peñalosa was a journalist as well as a politician. He explains his motivations, “I had studied urban issues for decades before I became mayor. It was my passion. . . . I had written a lot about urban problems and solutions, and was obsessed with the historical importance of what was to be done” (interview by author, November 14, 2006). Mockus’s and Peñalosa’s focus on projects in urban development and planning and design in the city’s public realm was a sign of their responsiveness. As the public space mayors, they created a “quick start” system of social and physical changes to the city that were highly visible and sized so that they could be completed within a single three-year administration, which also demonstrated the ability of the mayors to lead. Colombian mayors originally served for two years, with no consecutive terms allowed. The 1991 Constitution extended the term to three years and retained the clause prohibiting INDEPENDENT MAYORS

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consecutive terms. In 2004, the mayoral term was extended to four years. This graduated approach allowed Colombian cities to adjust to the new institution of elected mayors.11 The short length of terms and being ineligible for immediate reelection pressured the mayors to rapidly demonstrate their competency and legitimacy. Through this transformation brought about by Mockus and Peñalosa, Bogotá became a unique case of the municipalization of Latin American politics and a demonstration of how the national reforms—devolution of power and jurisdiction over local matters—opened up opportunities that clearly the central state could not or would not manage.12 Taking the argument of Bogotá’s uniqueness a step further, the city’s singularity could be found more in the political economy of the city than in the statutory authority of the mayor. Bogotá was distinctive in this in comparison to other Latin American cities. A key dynamic in Bogotá during the years that Peñalosa and Mockus won on independent platforms is that their experience contrasted with that of mayors of other major Latin American cities, where initial elections went to the opposition parties. While the governments of other Latin American countries’ cities were paying attention to their capital in order to govern the country, in Bogotá, leaders were paying attention to the capital because no one could govern the country.

T RA N S F O R M I N G T HE C I TY

Unlike some successful Latin American city-remaking projects, such as Mayor Jaime Lerner’s vision for Curitiba, Brazil,13 Bogotá has not been the subject of a singular vision of development. However, Bogotá’s public space mayors had several aligned goals throughout their administrations. Not only did they work on common themes, but also their administrations had a synergistic effect. Despite differences in approach and ideas, Mayors Mockus and Peñalosa contributed to “a logic of constructive community” (Martin and Ceballos 2004, 146). Mockus primarily focused on “reconstructing citizenship,” changing behavior, creating opportunities for learning, and engendering community spirit, all of which are typically played out in the public realm, such as in personal interactions between people who do not know one another. Peñalosa was mainly concerned with “reconstructing the city” by creating more and better public space (146). People saw their joint leadership as the start of a new culture of politics created through responsible governance, transparency, and non-clientelist-based management (147). Some of the earliest visible institutional actions under these mayors focused on reducing violence. “Public opinion polling over time shows that the residents of Latin America’s large cities view crime, violence, and personal security as among the most important problems that they face” (Myers and Dietz 2002, 15). Bogotá’s mayors had to address violence directly to show their competence and the legitimacy of their governments, and their solutions had to be visible in public spaces, for example, better and safer sidewalks, bike paths, parks, and bus service. 30

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Bogotá’s success in making positive changes was made possible in part by the relative continuity of key staff in the city’s planning department, most notably the planning director, Carmenza Saldías, who served in both of Mockus’s administrations; by key planning documents, such as the city’s general plan, the Plan de Ordenamiento Territorial de Bogotá (Territorial Legislative Plan), and two other master plans, one for public space and one for transportation; and by broader-scale public-administration bodies with the ability to create policy, such as the Mesa de Planificación Regional (Regional Planning Board).14 The public space mayors’ visions were oriented around lo público (the public). More specifically, Mockus focused on the public sphere—the social and political territory of public space. German sociologist and philosopher Jürgen Habermas (1974) defines the public sphere as “a realm of our social life in which something approaching public opinion can be formed. Access is guaranteed to all citizens. A portion of the public sphere comes into being in every conversation in which private individuals assemble to form a public body” (49). The potential quality of the public sphere depends on the caliber, availability, and types of public spaces in a community and whether they facilitate people’s coming together. Peñalosa worked to improve the physical territory of the public sphere. Both mayors hoped that the material geography of Bogotá’s public spaces would help residents engage in the process of community building and learn how to be a more unified and respectful citizenry. The mayors also realized that projects in public space could yield fast results and visible achievements. Salazar Ferro (2003) notes of this time in Bogotá, [Public space] projects had an immediate success because they represented a real possibility of action from an administration that had been totally paralyzed by the lack of resources to realize large projects defined as priorities for the city. . . . The public space projects were visible and quick, and were generally done without buying land and with acceptable costs. They had a clear physical impact—and one has to recall the importance of these physical projects for the work of a mayor—and had fewer problems than the macro-projects [mobility, social housing, public services]; they were executed rapidly, in a manner that the mayors could see them finished during their short administrations. Because of this, the projects were an interesting solution for all of the politicians faced with short time periods who wanted to have something to show at the end of their administrations. (71–72)

Public space projects such as parks, plazas, and avenidas were viewed as easier, cheaper, and more visible to implement than other types of infrastructure and social projects. Mockus and Peñalosa saw public space as a valuable policy arena for delivering communal resources and as the most effective platform for reaching and transforming quality of life for citizens. This realization was underscored by the material and symbolic importance of public space in Latin American cities. INDEPENDENT MAYORS

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Bogotá’s mayoral office and associated departments and institutions channel a majority of the vision, expertise, and financing for city projects through the framework provided in policy plans. The 1991 Constitution requires that each mayor complete a development plan for the city within the first six months of the administration. These development plans contain the officially recognized conceptual framework for how the city is to be managed. Furthermore, each mayor must provide an evaluation of the plan at the end of the term. Mockus’s two plans were “Formar ciudad” (Shaping/forging the city) and “Bogotá para vivir todos del mismo lado” (Livable Bogotá all together now), and Peñalosa’s plan was “Por la Bogotá que queremos” (For the Bogotá we all want). Bolstering the argument that Mockus’s and Peñalosa’s visions were synergistic in nature, the three plans shared a number of common themes, including citizen culture, security and coexistence, public space, social progress, city planning and productivity, and legitimacy and institutional efficiency (Martin and Ceballos 2004, 148).

C I T I Z E N C U LT U R E AN D PU B L I C SPACE

Antanas Mockus’s most visible and successful program was, by far, promoting cultura ciudadana (citizen culture). By his definition, cultura ciudadana is the “conjunction of customs, actions and minimal shared rules that generate a feeling of belonging, facilitate urban coexistence and conduct the respect for common heritage and the recognition of citizens’ rights and responsibilities” (Mockus, quoted in Martin and Ceballos 2004, 150). Further, the goal of citizen culture is the “overall self-regulation of behavior between people,” especially those who do not know one another (150). Elaborating on this point, Mockus says, “The general idea of citizen culture is respect among strangers, reliable interaction with strangers, to have confidence in someone unknown” (interview by author, December 7, 2006). As Mockus first stepped into office, he believed that civil society was experiencing a “divorce between culture, law, and morality” (Mockus 2001b, 150). He focused on the negative consequences of Bogotanos’ “shortcut” mentality, which he believed was systemic in society, from the high homicide rate to the large number of pirate subdivisions. His focus was to create connections among people that encouraged citizens and government officials to think in the long term and of future generations (Mockus 2001a, 2001b; Velásquez Carrillo 2004, 27–28). He worked to reduce violence by limiting gun ownership and creating a voluntary disarmament program. He put a law in place that limited the sale of alcohol late at night and in the early morning. He increased community policing and stressed the importance of allowing official authorities to deal with crimes, rather than relying on citizen vigilantism (interview by author, December 7, 2006). In his first administration, Mockus sought common cultural denominators and concerned himself most with teaching people to hold certain communal values as more important than individual ones. His second administration focused more on the law and on rules of behavior. Consequently, Mockus’s focus on public space was oriented 32

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around the citizen. His goal was “to recuperate the environments in which one is a citizen: public space” because “the improvement of public space favors good citizen behavior” (Mockus 1995, article 10). He believed that public space was the natural location for the discussion and promotion of lo público. Enrique Peñalosa focused on making changes to Bogotá’s public space system, including building new libraries in or adjacent to parks and the construction of the TransMilenio bus rapid transit (BRT) system. He envisioned a “city with multiple parks and green areas that makes possible and optimizes the use of citizens’ free time, stimulates civilized coexistence, strengthens friendship between neighbors, amplifies the possibilities for people . . . to have the same opportunities to enjoy the city, improves citizen security, promotes culture and the care and maintenance of public space on the part of the citizenry and offers a better quality of life to all of its inhabitants” (Peñalosa 1998, article 12). Peñalosa felt that people of different incomes experienced the disparity profoundly during their free time. Therefore, he focused on equalizing access to public space. As he explains his thinking, “All the citizens benefit from the security and civilized coexistence that quality public space favors. However, for the citizens with fewer resources and their children, the theme is particularly critical because they do not have large homes, access to clubs, cars, or recreation spaces to go to. Their only alternative for free time, separate from the television, is pedestrian public space such as the parks and sidewalks” (interview by author, November 14, 2006). Furthermore, he felt that there is a close relationship between public space and citizen security, that well-maintained space signals care and assists in learning good behavior. Peñalosa justified his large investments in public space by citing the ameliorative qualities that access to public space, particularly green space, has on people, especially those living in poverty. According to the website of the Instituto de Desarrollo Urbano (IDU; Urban Development Institute), he spent nearly $212 billion COP on recuperating, remodeling, and maintaining public spaces (content no longer available on the website). Peñalosa believed this would greatly improve quality of life, recreation opportunities, and environmental benefits for all citizens, particularly the impoverished. His administration was responsible for planting 68,688 trees and 183,651 plants, the website reported, and remaking 126 miles (202 kilometers) of streets and 700 acres (280 hectares) of parks. Further, the Peñalosa administration created 82 miles (132 kilometers) of new ciclorutas (bicycle paths). Mockus asserted that by the end of these three mayoral administrations, increased knowledge, rejuvenated collective spirit, and improved civic behavior had reduced violence in Bogotá. Between 1993 and 2003 in Bogotá, homicides fell 72 percent and traffic accident fatalities dropped 54 percent (Mockus 2004, 2). Facilities and services had increased, including new community centers, the TransMilenio system, and new and renovated public spaces, three of which contained new regional libraries. Opportunities for collective experiences had also multiplied. INDEPENDENT MAYORS

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B E COMI N G B O G OTAN O

Crucial to reconstructing a civic culture in Bogotá was tapping into and encouraging a new sense of communal identity that could replace the individual and survivalist mentality pervasive throughout the city. Identity is continually constructed through personal relationships at many different scales, including individual, familial, and civic. Negotiating these scales was essential to Bogotá’s transformation. For positive changes to occur, people’s perceptions of the self in relation to the family, to others, and to government needed to change, and many challenges to this existed. At the time of electoral reform, Colombians did not have a strong or effective national government or concept of country. Because of this, Bogotá filled a symbolic role and also served as a literal refuge for those driven out of the countryside and into the cities to escape civil war and violence. While Bogotá is just one of several Colombian cities confronted with integrating desplazados (displaced persons) into the city, it absorbs 20 percent of the total in the country, the most of any Colombian city (DANE 2005, 1). Bogotá draws desplazados for two primary reasons. As the largest city in the country, it represents a greater possibility of finding peace, food, and shelter and of reuniting with family members who fled there earlier. The city also represents the concept of nation because it is so physically and symbolically linked to state power in its role as the capital. Changes in Bogotá in governance and fiscal management in the 1980s and beyond reinforced this. As the city became better organized and more capable of providing residents with resources and services, in comparison to the national government, Bogotanos began to hold the city in higher regard than the state. At the same time, however, Bogotá’s immigrants traditionally had stronger ties to other parts of the country. As Ardila-Gómez (2003) sees it, “Bogotá was—and is—a city of immigrants from all over Colombia. These folk always spoke kindly about their places of origin and, when visiting them, behaved well. They would never dream of throwing garbage on a sidewalk in their hometown. Yet in Bogotá, fewer than ten years ago, the fashion was to mistreat the city. The city did not meet the expectations of the citizens and as a result the citizens did not feel a bond with it” (1). The challenges of dealing with a pervasive focus on individual well-being, stronger identity ties to other parts of the country, and lack of a sense of belonging created a tremendous need among Bogotanos for a “home,” or a safe place. The public space mayors helped fill this need. Bogotá became a physical and symbolic refuge in comparison with other Colombian cities, and especially in comparison to the Colombian countryside. Organization, resources, amenities, and government presence were far better in Bogotá than anywhere else in the country. This set up Bogotá to be, as a city, a space of amiability, compared with the rest of the country. An illustration of this, of Bogotá as an island in the region, is shown in figure 2.2. This is the city that Mockus and Peñalosa inherited, and the conditions under which they strove to promote hope. The urbanized area is depicted as a network, with Bogotá at the center. The lines and zones depicted outside of the city illustrate corridors of 34

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conflict, which were the prime areas of unrest between guerrillas, paramilitary, drug traffickers, and military groups, and areas where armed groups were located. Throughout the first decade of the 2000s, while many Bogotanos did not feel safe going outside of the city for leisure activities, they felt increasingly safe inside and availed themselves of the city’s spaces. This moment in Bogotá’s history connected with other “amiable” moments in time when the project of building a peaceful and equitable coexistence through social programs and changes to public space dominated the social and political imagination. This was seen in the 1930s in Bogotá, when different socioeconomic classes were “educated” on how to get along (Braun 1985, 32) at the same time that public parks

Bogotá High Density Development Medium-Low Density Development Armed Groups Corridors of Conflict

2.2. Bogotá as an island in the Department of Cundinamarca, at the center of armed conflict. Redrawn from DAPD (2006).

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were expanding, and in Gaitán’s time in the late 1940s, when he tried to reconcile the país político with the país nacional. By creating social programs and new public spaces in which Bogotanos could connect with one another, Mockus and Peñalosa created learning environments to teach Bogotanos how to once again be citizens based on their daily habits and behaviors. This made use of the process Larrain (2000) describes in Latin America in which “identity is constructed not solely by discourse but also by the solidified practices of a people and therefore it can change but in a materially conditioned manner” (37). The mayors recognized that, more than changing policies, teaching citizens to practice better public manners was fundamental to conviviality and to larger identity construction within the city. Creating a new communal Bogotano identity was a necessary prerequisite for civic relationships to flourish.

COL L E CT I VE EXPER I EN C ES AN D NEW NORMS

In addition to building identity, the city’s transformation also heavily depended on creating new social and cultural norms. During Mockus’s first term in office, he took the need for better public behavior to the street with the goal to educate and shape new customs. In 1996, rather than hiring a larger police force to deal with traffic problems, Mockus hired mimes to admonish unsafe drivers (Schapiro 2001). The original twenty professional mimes were so popular that the city trained an additional four hundred (Caballero 2004, 7). Mockus correctly surmised that the initial steps toward learning different behaviors had to happen in a manner that minimized angry confrontation and encouraged humor (see figure 2.3). While these choices were humorous and unconventional, they also sent a not-sosubtle message about behavior. These efforts were part of a move to create a “citizenship culture” that would bring moral and cultural behavior more in line with the law. This move was risky; it could have backfired in terms of how Mockus was perceived. Some machistas (macho men) did call Mockus a clown, but the majority of city residents supported him. Mockus reported that after a short initial period of mime-directed traffic control, 86 percent of the city’s adults said they were willing to learn from the mimes (Mockus 2004, 3). Mockus also created the “Night for Women” event to help emphasize women’s valuable contributions to Colombian society (Caballero 2004, 4, 7). About 700,000 women came out on the first of three designated nights. They went to free concerts, clubs, and bars, and gathered in an area of the city that had been temporarily converted into a pedestrian zone. City officials asked the men to stay at home and care for the children; they were not supposed to go out unless they carried a permiso (pass) written by a woman. Even the police officers on duty those nights in Bogotá were all women. Mockus not only made the point that women play many different vital roles and would enjoy a night out but also sought to feminize the spaces of the city temporarily and to show that violence would decrease on a night that only women were out—and it did. In 1996, 36

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2.3. A mime in the street corrects poor driving (the sign reads “Incorrect”). © El Tiempo. Courtesy of El Tiempo.

he distributed plastic cards depicting thumbs, which citizens were encouraged to aim up or down when they saw a fellow citizen partaking in civil or uncivil behavior. In a similar move, taxi drivers were encouraged to take etiquette classes that emphasized pedestrians’ rights of way. Citizens became more open to learning after these and other playful educational campaigns were introduced in public spaces. In speaking of citizen culture, Mockus claimed, “The public consciousness regarding violence was transformed, rendering violence morally and culturally unacceptable. At the same time, moral self-satisfaction and social recognition even for just being dutiful were promoted. . . . The state’s legal use of force is now . . . seen as a source of authority. . . . Self-defense with guns is less accepted; self-justice seems to be also non-justifiable for the majority of people” (Mockus 2004, 1–9). In interviews following Mockus’s second administration, people frequently mentioned the profound effect of the city’s changes on themselves and their families. A taxi driver reported, “Things have changed a lot. We did not feel safe in the city before, but now we can go out and enjoy the parks . . . and it’s safer here than outside the city.” A shoe shiner in Plaza San Victorino agreed, saying, “I am very happy with the changes. I don’t make much money, but my children have a place to play safely.” Because of changes in attitude like these, people felt “co-responsibility” with other citizens and began to act more calmly and rationally in situations with others (Mockus 2004, 2). Furthermore, Mockus argued that these changes in social norms led citizens to accept the idea that city government had a legitimate pedagogical role to play in their lives.15 INDEPENDENT MAYORS

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By the end of Mockus’s second administration in 2003, Salazar Ferro (2003) noted that life had returned to public spaces and Bogotanos were making up for lost time with “a new form of more profitable and emotional relationship with the city” that was taking place in the city’s public spaces (71). This resulted in a measurable increase in “life on the streets,” as people began moving more freely through the city’s public spaces. The process of civic and individual identity construction changed gradually, as the city became more livable and people became more proud of living there. This newfound pride in living in Bogotá was seen in Bogotanos’ responses to questions about how they felt about changes in the physical appearance of the city. As described in the introduction, my 2006 public space survey revealed that nearly half of all respondents felt Bogotá is the most beautiful city they know; furthermore, nearly half of the respondents across all estratos ranked Bogotá’s appearance highly. This pride helped create Bogotantud, as did the fact that an increased proportion of Bogotá’s citizens were being born there, as opposed to moving there from other parts of Colombia, which also encouraged greater civic pride and self-identification with being Bogotano (OCU and Zambrano 2003, 43).

M OD E RN I ZI N G T HE C I TY

There was a potent desire for Bogotá to become modern. The mayors felt an urgent need to modernize, as the city suffered the effects of a severe, decades-long lack of investment. According to former planning director Carmenza Saldías, as Mockus first entered office in 1995, “Bogotá had arrived at a very profound crisis in which the big challenge for the city was to pass from being a pre-modern city and an underdeveloped one, to being fitted as a modern city” (interview by author, October 28, 2006). Mexican poet Octavio Paz (1986) argues that the history of Latin America consists of a series of attempts to achieve modernity (119). Bogotá, after a rupture of many years, experienced a transformative “moment” of modernity encapsulated in the foundational work done by Castro and the transformation that Mockus and Peñalosa instigated. Larrain (2000) posits Latin American history as intertwined processes of “identity construction” and “the construction of modernity” (6). Modernity and modernization became potent concepts in the hands of leaders in Bogotá because, as Larrain argues, the agenda of modernity is linked to progress, reason, and development, among other things (12). These were the values that the public space mayors wanted citizens to embrace as they moved away from the legacy of dystopia. In the city’s move toward modernization, its goals also addressed, in tandem, social and economic development. According to the Plan Regional de Competitividad Bogotá—Cundinamarca 2004–2014 (Regional Plan for Bogotá’s Competitiveness), the city’s vision for regional competitiveness by 2015 was to become “the most institutionally, territorially, and economically integrated region of Colombia, with a productive and diversified base that emphasizes specialized services and agro-industry, articulated 38

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in the world market, in order to be one of the five primary regions of Latin America in terms of quality of life” (DAPD 2006, 61). Following the end of the public space mayors’ administrations, the city appeared to be meeting these goals. Bogotá claimed to be the only Colombian city poised to meet the Millennium Goals benchmarks laid out by the United Nations Development Program for 2015 (DAPD 2006, 54). Regional Planning Board harnessed economic productivity to local social development, hoping that global competitiveness would also lead to local opportunities. According to the board, “The challenge is to incorporate in a successful manner the Bogotá city region in the dynamics of globalization, guaranteeing at the same time the inclusion and improvement of living conditions for the whole population” (cited in DAPD 2006, 73). While these goals positioned social and economic development in harmony, a tension existed between the two. This tension is explored in chapters 4 and 5. As a result of the changes initiated by elected mayors, especially Mockus and Peñalosa, Bogotá’s visibility exploded on an international scale after 2000. The city garnered accolades in 2004 from the United Nations as the “City with a Heart” and from UNESCO as the “City of Peace.” Carolina Barco Isakson, Colombia’s ambassador to the United States from 2006 to 2010 and former national director of planning for Colombia, delivered the American Planning Association’s 2007 World Planning Keynote presentation, “The Miracle of Bogotá.” Her presentation “described how that Colombian city was lifted from violence and dysfunction to the world capital status it enjoys today” (MacDonald 2007, 1). Barco Isakson further described the “Bogotá Project” as one that “restructured administration and finance, and engaged citizens to help the city rise from its low point in the 1980s to the titles of ‘America’s Cultural Capital’ and the ‘World Book Capital of 2007’” (1). In 2006, the prestigious Venice Biennale awarded Bogotá the Golden Lion Award for cities. The 2006 Biennale of Architecture was organized around the theme “Cities, Architecture, and Society.” The press release declared, This city has in the last decades addressed the problems of social inclusion, education, housing and public space especially through innovation in transport. Bogotá has applied Mies van der Rohe’s dictum “less is more” to the automobile: less cars means more civic space and civic resources for people. The city provides a model for streets which are pleasing to the eye as well as economically viable and socially inclusive. Bogotá is, in short, a beacon of hope for other cities, whether rich or poor. (Biennale di Venezia 2006)

During their administrations, Mockus and Peñalosa instituted key policy changes, established daring social programs in city streets, and channeled significant investment into the city’s fabric, especially its public spaces, in their effort to reinvent Bogotá as a safe and convivial place where civil society could once again flourish. They achieved this in three ways. First, the citizens worked together to reinvent Bogotano identity, INDEPENDENT MAYORS

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2.4. A bus’s reader board displays the message “Del ocaso a la esperanza” (From decline to hope) on the TransMilenio’s first day in operation in 2000.

becoming more civic-minded, tolerant of others, and unified. Creating and expanding a culture of citizenship entailed integrating immigrants, creating greater equality between socioeconomic classes in terms of sharing collective resources, and expanding cultural and leisure opportunities for all. Second, city government became more responsive and transparent, and government bodies worked to create a solid economic base and to increase fiscal responsibility by revamping the city’s governing code and tax-collection system as well as by increasing productivity and economic growth. Third, the city redeveloped its physical fabric in ways that were highly visible and easy for residents to engage. The fundamental political strategy of Bogotá’s public space mayors was to promote highly visible projects for citizen consumption. Because of Bogotá’s dystopian past, in which politically instigated violence led to a significant influx of immigrants from other parts of Colombia, and the city’s search for a collective identity, mayoral projects focused on unifying people through reknitting social relationships, improving physical infrastructure, and creating a better quality of life. Projects that were visual and could be experienced collectively were most successful, hence the focus on public space and transportation. For example, as described in a 2007 PBS documentary on Bogotá, the “sexy, lipstick red” color of the new TransMilenio BRT system buses was carefully chosen to be a new symbol of hope for the city (Albers and Fettig 2007) (see figure 2.4). 40

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In Bogotá, where the public space mayors won on independent political platforms, the need to demonstrate credibility locally and to establish themselves and their administrations globally lent urgency to urban planning and design. As a result, public space was a central policy focus and, in a sense, a state-building project for Mockus and Peñalosa—a means to create and consolidate power within the government apparatus and to effectively make change. These projects made use of available local experts, such as administrators, designers, and planners, and international models of development and design. In turn, the mayoralty raised the status of the experts. During the Mockus and Peñalosa years, a strengthening and solidification of the mayoral office occurred that was the result of strong, consistent vision, directed public policy, and the resources to implement changes.16 The independent status of the public space mayors was a crucial factor in each mayor’s political position regarding visible projects and the need to demonstrate competency. The new politics of municipal governance in Colombia ushered in by mayoral elections and independent candidates allowed mayors in Bogotá to shape public space and the public sphere and, therefore, the city itself, as well as its citizens. Bogotá’s modernization had begun.

INDEPENDENT MAYORS

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3.1. Sketch of the founding of Bogotá in 1538. España. Ministerio de Educación, Cultura y Deporte. Archivo General de Indias. Plano de la provincia de Santa Fe, sus pueblos y términos.

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3. Bogotá’s Public Space Traditions

She points to it with her cane. “See,” she says, “there it is,” a mixture of anger and righteousness in her voice. There has never been any resignation to her. All her views, everything she has always told me about Colombia, are being confirmed right before our eyes. The sidewalk in front of us is barely passable. —HERBERT BRAUN (1994, 79)

P

ublic space traditions in Bogotá have long been shaped by the socioeconomic and spatial logic of the city. These traditions include some things uniquely Bogotano, such as an intensive use of streets and plazas versus parks. Other traditions, including city growth oriented around plazas and a normative role for public space, mirror other Latin American cities, especially those developed under the Spanish Laws of the Indies. After its founding in 1538 (see figure 3.1), Bogotá’s initial development under the Laws of the Indies led to a clustering of neighborhoods around plazas and churches in the colonial center. A ring of outlying development, adjacent to which dumping grounds formed, grew up to surround this nucleus of development. As a second ring of growth began in the 1900s, the former dumping grounds—now enclosed by developed land—became open green spaces (Alberto Saldarriaga Roa, pers. comm.). Since the 1910s, affluent Bogotanos have sought out homes outside the second ring on the north side of the city, in verdant land laced with lakes and wetlands. Those with fewer resources have gone outside the second ring to the south, to pirate subdivisions and smaller homes, onto land that is dry and hilly, and to the west, to the flood-prone 43

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land along the river. This split is pronounced enough that Violich describes the city as “the two Bogotás” (1987, 199). Many residents, especially those in the south, have lacked open space adjacent to their homes or within their neighborhoods. During the terms of the public space mayors, 80 percent of Bogotá’s population was classified by the national government as “extremely poor” to “lower middle class” (estratos 1–3). This majority of citizens lacked sufficient income to provide for many of the recreational and leisure opportunities appropriate for exercise, contemplation, and relaxation. Bogotá has suffered chronically from a lack of ample public space throughout its development and has significant density, at eighty people per acre (Rueda García and Rueda Sinisterra 2005, 21).

S E A R C H I N G FO R CO M M O N G R OUND

In Bogotá, as in other Latin American cities, public space is broadly defined due to the normative role and importance of the plaza and the street in the social life of the city. As defined by the mayor’s office and affiliated departments, public space in Bogotá includes sidewalks, streets and avenues, ciclorutas (bike paths), elevated walkways, bus platforms, parks, plazas, and civic buildings and their surroundings, among other spaces. Mayors Mockus and Peñalosa took advantage of and expanded public space options to create, redesign, and recuperate spaces for the citizens. This required taking inventories to determine what public space the city had and what it had lost to privatization. During their administrations they focused first on finding “common ground” among citizens, then on recuperating space for citizens, and finally on creating a more equitable distribution of public space amenities throughout the city and among different socioeconomic groups. Mockus’s first move as mayor in regard to recuperating public space was to reclaim the alamedas (pedestrian-focused avenues with trees alongside) as one of the primary sites where Bogotanos “could be citizens” (quoted in Martin and Ceballos 2004, 157). From here his vision spread to include the expansion of the popular weekly bicycling social event, the Ciclovía, as well as the initiation of the first cicloruta. When Peñalosa took office, he began an aggressive campaign to create and reclaim public space as well as to ensure more equitable access to open space and educational and cultural resources for all citizens. Key projects and programs that Mockus and Peñalosa initiated will be explored in more detail in chapter 4, but it is first useful to understand the history of public space in Bogotá and the events and policies that led to the impoverished state of Bogotá’s public space as Mockus entered office in 1995. Public spaces are viewed as primary sites of social history, and the actions that traditionally take place within them can be interpreted through careful study. These actions include various types of social engagement: immigrant assimilation, citizen education, public celebration, public protest, people watching, communal recreation, and nature experiences, among many others. Public space has multiple and often 44

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conflicting or contested meanings; Bogotá’s experience is not different from other cities’ in this regard. However, the city has benefited from the important normative role that public space plays in Latin American cities, and, even though historically the city has lacked sufficient public space for its citizens, a tradition of including some public space in city development is long established there. Because Bogotá has maintained a significant density throughout its history, each era has been marked with the need to find recreation and social space and hence, a type of public space appropriate to the times. See figure 3.2 for a typology of Bogotá’s public spaces.

D E V E LO PM EN T T HR O U G H T H E CENTURIES

Public space has evolved out of different planning traditions of providing common territory in cities. In Latin America, these traditions include examples ranging from the preindustrial public plaza of the Spanish-planned cities, where people came to interact with others, to the large pleasure-ground landscapes of late nineteenth-century cities, where people came to escape from daily life, to contemporary urban parks and transit plazas. In Latin America during the colonial era, the plaza was the main form of public space. The New Laws of the Indies, signed by King Charles I of Spain in 1542, laid out strict rules for the physical layout of new villages and towns in the New World and provided one of the world’s earliest design guidelines. The first step was the plaza mayor, or main plaza, which “demarcated in the land, a future village” (Sánchez 1998, 17). Adjacent streets followed. The religious and state functions of the newly established town were gathered around the plaza mayor, with residences and businesses of prominent people close by (see figures 3.3a & b). As the city grew, smaller plazas, usually adjacent to parish churches, provided public gathering space for the residents of surrounding neighborhoods. Bogotá grew in such a manner (see figures 3.4a, b & c). Once the population served by the plaza mayor and its cathedral became too great, the city expanded, parish by parish (Fundación Misión Colombia 1988, 76). The plaza was the heart of the city and, as such, was symbolically open to everyone regardless of socioeconomic status; however, an established social order existed. Some Latin American cities had developed parks by the mid-nineteenth century; they followed the European tradition of creating large landscape parks for hunting or recreation. But the park concept did not come into existence in Colombia until later that century (OCU and Zambrano 2003, 18). Up until then, recreation in Colombian towns primarily occurred in the streets and in the plaza mayor (Sánchez 1998, 17–18). However, by the 1880s, the lack of recreation spaces became evident, especially as the highly mobile upper class began traveling to the outskirts of Bogotá to enjoy more nature-oriented experiences (OCU and Zambrano 2003, 23). Beginning in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, a precursor to formal park spaces developed in Bogotá in the form of alamedas (see figure 3.5). BOGOTÁ’S PUBLIC SPACE TRADITIONS

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1. Plaza

4. Recreation

7. City Center

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2. Linear

5. Neighborhood

8. Ecological

3. Memorial

6. Metropolitan

9. System

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3.2. Bogotá’s public space typology. 1. Plaza: First established in the colonial era by Spanish town planning rules, the plaza was the center for governmental, social, and religious activities in a city. It was open to everyone. In the past, on Sundays, the main day for socializing, men and women often circulated in opposite directions. The plaza remains one of the most central and important gathering spaces in Bogotá. 2. Linear: Early forms of tree-lined avenues (alamedas) are visible in the 1791 Plan of Bogotá. In the early 1800s, alamedas began to expand the boundaries of the city. The alamedas often led to nature spots enjoyed by the leisure class and were prime areas to show off a new dress, horse, or, later, a car. They were open to everyone but were predominantly used by the upper class into the first half of the twentieth century. Contemporary forms of alamedas appeared during the public space mayors’ administrations. 3. Memorial: Introduced in the late 1800s, memorial parks grew in popularity. They were typically dedicated to a hero of independence (often Simón Bolívar) and were designed around passive uses. Some were retrofitted during the next century for more active and programmed uses, with equipment including playgrounds and mechanical rides. Memorial parks have been open to all. 4. Recreation: By the 1930s public sports fields were being developed to meet the demand for active recreation space. Open to everyone, they served mainly the middle and lower classes, which did not have access to private sports clubs. 5. Neighborhood: Small parks in neighborhoods have gone in and out of fashion. In the 1980s, they were “rediscovered” as a place for social integration and substituted for the local village plaza of recently arrived immigrants’ former homes (Vargas 2003, 14). In Bogotá, many were built and/or refurbished during Peñalosa’s administration (1998–2000). They are open to everyone but typically are used by the lower to middle classes. 6. Metropolitan: Created in the 1960s and later, metropolitan-scale parks are designed as large-scale recreation areas and event sites. These parks typically have a very diverse set of programs, from sports to lake activities and, recently, sometimes libraries. The parks are open to all, but the bulk of their users are lower- and middle-class citizens. 7. City Center: Relatively recent parks, these are small to medium sized and have grown in popularity as part of the city’s regeneration schemes. Parks are generally located near public transit and may contain a cultural facility such as a museum. Open to all. 8. Ecological: These parks have become popular since the 1990s. Citizens’ groups initiate many of these projects. They are open to all but have restrictions on use due to the vigilance of the citizens’ groups. They are predominant in middle- and upper-class neighborhoods. 9. System: As in other cities, Bogotano parks are now managed as a system. The concept of “open space” as a collective term first debuted in the 1970s.

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a

b 3.3 a, b. (a) Bogotá in the early 1800s. Note how the city’s form is shaped by the Río San Francisco and the Río San Augustin. (b) Enlargement showing the plaza mayor depicted as the starting point of the city at No. 1, followed by the cathedral at No. 2 and its adjacent chapel at No. 3. Untitled map, ca. 1818, by Francisco Javier Caro © Museo de la Independencia. Courtesy of Museo de la Independencia, Bogotá, Colombia.

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a

b

c 3.4 a, b, c. Early parroquias (parish-based neighborhoods) in Bogotá. (a) Barrio de la Catedral, located east of the plaza mayor, the first parroquia in Bogotá. (b) Barrio de San Victorino, located northwest of the plaza mayor. (c) Barrio Oriental de Las Nieves, located northeast of the plaza mayor. Redrawn from Fundación Misión Colombia (1988).

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3.5. Westward (1790s) and northward (1800s) developing alamedas. Plano geométrico de Santa Fé de Bogotá, 1810 original redrawn in 1921 by Vicente Talledo y Rivera © Museo de la Independencia. Courtesy of Museo de la Independencia, Bogotá, Colombia.

3.6. An upper-class family’s outing in the city’s outskirts in 1918. Photo by Tito © Villegas Editores. Courtesy of Villegas Editores, Bogotá, Colombia.

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3.7. Founded in 1884, the tranvía system in Bogotá was a new form of transportation and a catalyst for outward expansion. Pulled by mules initially along wooden and, later, steel rails, the cars became electrified in 1910. © Villegas Editores. Courtesy of Villegas Editores, Bogotá, Colombia.

3.8. City expansion northward and the new Chapinero district. Bogotá, 1923, by Manuel Rincon © Museo de Bogotá. Courtesy of Museo de Bogotá, Bogotá, Colombia.

As the nineteenth century wore on, alamedas grew increasingly popular, and they encouraged the more mobile upper class to explore the sabana (see figure 3.6). Sánchez notes, “New avenues expanded the range of possibilities for enjoyment, enriched by the upper class’s discovery of natural spaces along the outskirts of the city for strolling and passive enjoyment” (1998, 18). While the city-installed alamedas with space for strolling opened up new land for development, a new transportation system, in the form of the tranvía, did so as well. The tranvía, a streetcar system, went into service in 1884. By 1894, service extended north of the centro to the Chapinero district. Development slowly expanded around the Chapinero tranvía line, creating over time a connected series of neighborhoods. These linear additions immediately changed the size and shape of the city (see figures 1.5 [1910], 3.7, and 3.8). BOGOTÁ’S PUBLIC SPACE TRADITIONS

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Formal public parks began to emerge in the late 1800s in Bogotá. The first public park was the Parque Del Centenario (see figure 3.9), created in 1883 as a memorial for Simón Bolívar, liberator of Colombia and many other South American countries. This first memorial park started a trend for commemorative spaces, and by the 1930s Bogotá had several such parks. City plans prior to around 1890 list churches, plazas, and other buildings in their legends, but not gardens nor parks. In one 1890 map, the rivers are visible and gardens are listed, many of them redesigned plazas (see figure 3.10a & b). At this time plazas began to be seen as parks and, although the normative form of the plaza is an open plane, many were redesigned, from the late nineteenth century onward, to incorporate trees and other plantings. The rivers, later covered by streets built atop them, continued at this point to run on the surface and to shape the spatial structure of the city. A second commemorative park, Parque del 13 de Marzo, was created in 1910 (see figure 3.11); soon after, it was renamed Parque de la Independencia and served as the location of Bogotá’s 1910 Exposition (see figure 3.12).

3.9. Map of Bogotá depicting Parque Del Centenario, Bogotá’s first memorial park. Plano topográfico de Bogotá, 1894, by Carlos Clavijo © Archivo General de la Nación Colombia. Courtesy of Archivo General de la Nación Colombia, Bogotá, Colombia.

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a 3.10 a, b. (a) Map of Bogotá depicting plazas as parks. (b) Engraving of the plaza mayor, the Plaza de Bolívar, remade into a garden. Both from Plano de Bogotá, 1890, by Manuel María Paz © Museo de la Independencia. Courtesy of Museo de la Independencia, Bogotá, Colombia.

b

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3.11. Map of Bogotá depicting Parque del 13 de Marzo, north of Parque Del Centenario. Plano de Bogotá—Almacén del Día, 1910 © Museo de Bogotá. Courtesy of Museo de Bogotá, Bogotá, Colombia.

3.12. Parque 13 de Marzo renamed Parque de la Independencia for the 1910 Exposition. Plano de Bogotá, 1911, by Alberto Borda Tanco © Museo de Bogotá. Courtesy of Museo de Bogotá, Bogotá, Colombia.

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3.13. Parque Gaitán, an active-recreation park in Bogotá, in 1930. Chorro de Padilla, 1930, by Ernesto Duperly © Villegas Editores. Courtesy of Villegas Editores, Bogotá, Colombia.

At the turn of the century, parks throughout Western countries and in Latin America took a turn toward what Cranz (1982) calls reform parks. The reform parks’ progressive feel and organized sports activities and other programs were designed to alleviate the dullness of repetitive factory schedules and facilitate the integration of diverse populations into society (61). In the early 1930s, as the desire to play group sports increased, recreation-focused parks became popular (see figure 3.13). This type of park accommodated the majority of the socioeconomic classes, especially people who did not have access to private clubs. In Latin America, soccer was a major driver of the reform parks. The sport was introduced to Bogotá in the 1930s, and its growing popularity created a demand for larger active-recreation areas. In response to these demands, the decades between the 1930s and the 1950s in Bogotá saw the creation of more sports-oriented parks. Figures 3.14a and b show the expansion of parks as depicted in 1932 and 1933 maps of the city. The city continued to grow and, as more and more industries opened, planned neighborhoods and park spaces followed. Many of the plazas continued to be seen and used as parks. Generally, parks became the main form of public space, providing recreation and relief from the noise and congestion of the city (OCU and Zambrano 2003). Throughout the BOGOTÁ’S PUBLIC SPACE TRADITIONS

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a 3.14 a, b. City parks as depicted in (a) 1932 and (b) 1933. Redrawn from Cuéllar Sánchez and Mejía Pavony (2007, 83, 85).

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b

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1940s and 1950s, parks became an “expected facility of urban life,” and park planners tried to accommodate all users, which demanded inclusion of a wide array of activities (Cranz 1982, 103). Throughout the twentieth century, park development in Bogotá expanded to encompass neighborhood- and metropolitan-scale parks. Neighborhood parks, especially, were seen as the social and spatial hubs of local communities, with a confluence there of religious, sports, recreation, community, cultural, and market activities. In particular, local parks had a social and educative role. In the words of Luz Stella Vargas (2003), the director of Bogotá’s Instituto Distrital de Recreación y Deporte (District Institute for Recreation and Sports), they were “viewed as a space of multiple uses, significant as a structuring element of the social fabric, and surely reproduced the plaza of the villages of recent immigrants” (14). When these formal neighborhood parks first began appearing in the mid-twentieth century, the city integrated cultural, recreational, and political events into them (14). Residents and officials saw metropolitan-scale parks as larger-scale spaces serving people’s desire for nearby nature and social interaction as well as sites for larger cultural events. The most popular park in Bogotá today, Parque Simón Bolívar, a metropolitan-scale park located near the geographical center of the city, was created in the mid-1980s1 and was managed, at its inception, by Peñalosa’s brother, Guillermo Peñalosa, who was a parks commissioner at that time (see figure 3.15). Beginning in the 1960s and 1970s, the open space system became a model for how cities could organize disparate public spaces (Cranz 1982). With the major changes

3.15. Parque Simón Bolívar.

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that urban centers all over the world experienced in those decades, such as extensive in- and out-migrations and losses of funding, city governments struggled to find ways to attract and retain people (137). Little urban land was available, so administrators looked to vacant and underutilized property for development within the city fabric (138). New and existing city parks were reconceived—or repackaged—as a system composed of a range of spatial and functional types of open space. The desire to appeal to the largest number of people and to improve access led to the development of public space sprinkled throughout cities. The conception of a city’s collective public spaces as a system has continued to grow in popularity since that time. Colombian planning and design literature often comments specifically on trends in public space in the second half of the twentieth century, noting that the idea of designing and managing public space as a system surged globally in the 1970s, based on ideas of modernism and rationalism that sought to re-create public space as public infrastructure. However, the quality of and interest in these spaces were not sufficient to prevent decline.2 In Colombian cities, the decline in public space quality revolved around a perceived lack of safety as well as a lack of participation stemming from socio-spatial exclusion and the physical fragmentation of the city. There was also a lack of responsibility for the city’s public space system, seen mainly in a low level of maintenance and the allowance of co-optation of spaces for private use.

B OG OTÁ’ S S I DEWAL KS

The importance of public space in Bogotá, as well as the city’s recent public space history, is best introduced via a discussion of the city’s sidewalks. Sidewalks became symbolic of the fragmented approach to public space development and maintenance seen in the city; they directly reflected the most recent history and public space crisis. Hayden (1995) suggests that cultural identity, social history, and urban design be examined together to frame an inquiry of the social histories of an urban place. In seeking to understand Bogotá’s public space history, we must consider the city’s primary sites of public encounter. In Latin America, the sidewalk is the “traditional ribbon of social exchange” (Holston 1989, 141), and generally, the street can be thought of as the quintessential democratic public space. Neither the forum nor the plaza, two archetypal public spaces that also come to mind, has the unfettered access and the realm of possibility inherent in the casual encounter of street life like that of the sidewalk. The representative nature of sidewalks is well documented by authors writing about Bogotá and other Latin American cities (Braun 1994; Holston 1989; Violich 1987). Braun (1994) describes it thus: “Sidewalks are emblematic of the city and growth of the modern world” because they “join us together” and “are a sign of nationhood, of civilization even” (80–81). Yet in Bogotá in the late 1980s, when elected mayors first became a reality, the city struggled with a breakdown between the public and private realms because of the BOGOTÁ’S PUBLIC SPACE TRADITIONS

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absence of state institutions, regulations, and leadership, and because of the daily struggle to get ahead. Braun (1994) argues, “Even though the sidewalks probably belong to the nation, it hasn’t built them. . . . The sidewalks are neither private property nor public lands, so the private domain prevails” (128). Holston (1989) notes that although the street façade is the boundary between the private and public domains (254), the lack of definition between them in the 1980s in Bogotá allowed private uses to transgress boundaries and co-opt public space. Because of this sense of individual territory, people felt they could do what they wished with the sidewalks adjacent to their residences and businesses. Some kept them clean while others left them “barely passable.” During this time, Bogotá also began focusing on becoming a neoliberal success story. This took the form of restructuring the economy in terms of the international market, increasing foreign investment as well as the import of foreign goods. As a result, both conspicuous consumption and public life on the streets increased (Braun 1994, 84). Rather than improving conditions, this increasing prosperity for some did little to decrease dystopian conditions for the majority of the population. Because of the demand for goods and services, businesses scrambled to improve their appearance to get their share of the expanding trade. Car ownership had been increasing dramatically since the 1960s, and a tug-of-war ensued between parking on sidewalks, which merchants encouraged, and eliminating parking from sidewalks, which residents attempted (Braun 1994; Violich 1987). As a result, the sidewalks became balkanized, an apt metaphor for the state of the city at that time and especially for its public space. Braun (1994) describes the period thus: So now there are three or even four sidewalk patterns in one section of a block, each competing in beauty and quality with the next. And often there are huge, ugly iron rods jutting out from the cement to separate one sidewalk from the next. Rods, boulders, even chains, have been put in place by people who live there or by store managers who want to keep others from using their sidewalk, from parking on it. . . . The sidewalks have also been rebuilt to make room for parking. There has never been any real space for cars in Bogotá. They’re stationed on the sidewalks in front of the new stores and in front of restaurants that were once private residences. A store owner can’t make money if people can’t park. Those who want to walk past, rather than in, are in for trouble, for it’s hard to make their way around the cars. Usually they’re better off walking in the street while paying close attention to the cars that speed past. (127–128)

Violich (1987) reports that starting in the mid-1960s in Bogotá and other Latin American cities, the worst city planning issue was the unplanned explosion of automobile use, which led to the aforementioned widespread use of sidewalks for parking, reduced public open space, and dramatically changed the character of the streets (8). This, argues Braun (1994), was an analogy for the lack of care Colombians had for one another 60

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and a sign of the absence of the state (80). It also signified a lack of urban planning practices and leadership. The changes proposed by Mockus and Peñalosa were enacted within this context.

B OG OTÁ’ S PU B LI C S PAC E PR OJECT

In Latin America in the 1980s and 1990s, a backlash against the poor conditions in public space emerged in the form of a critique centered on the lack of quantity, quality, and suitability of the public space infrastructure to serve people’s needs. In Bogotá, as in all of Colombia, public space was commonly viewed as dangerous due to criminal activity and lack of upkeep. The idea of public space systems appealed to people; however, existing public space was seen as neither attractive nor comfortable. This critique helped lead to a reexamination of public space generally. Beginning in the mid-1980s, a series of policy documents and new laws codified public space within Bogotá. These directives created a foundation for recuperating public space that helped trigger initial interest in public space in the 1990s and supported the transition to a publicly focused urban-development process. In 1986, a plan for redeveloping Bogotá’s centro was passed. This plan focused on the recuperation and maintenance of historic downtown Bogotá via its sidewalks, parks, and plazas, and sought to garner citizen and business support for its goals. The centro plan served as a model for all large Colombian cities (Salazar Ferro 2003, 72). In 1990, revisions to the city’s urban code further elevated public space, defining it as more than just designed open spaces within the city. Rather, public space was conceived as the complete landscape of natural hydrological and topographical features—essentially an expanded concept of the public urban environment (Salazar Ferro 2003, 73) articulated by the 1986 centro plan. Finally, the 1991 Constitution obligated the state to protect the “integrity” of public space, which was understood as three integrated systems: (1) natural elements, such as areas conserved to protect water resources, scenic areas, and undeveloped areas; (2) complementary elements in public spaces, such as vegetation, site furniture, and signage; and (3) constructed elements, such as sidewalks, streets, parks, plazas, and historic preservation areas (Beltrán Gómez 2003, 102). The constitution also protected public space as a right for all people and laid out clear rules for recuperating hundreds of acres of public space that had been co-opted by private interests (Martin and Ceballos 2004, 267). These examples demonstrated a growing interest in and evolving definition of public space. In Bogotá, the public space mayors benefited from ongoing innovations in policy concerning public space prior to and during their terms in office and also took the charge of public space forward in their own projects. Previously, government projects had been oriented toward larger infrastructure and social development (Salazar Ferro 2003, 69), which often followed clientelist priorities. Following the “lost” decades in Bogotá, the 1970s to 1990s, a period of interrupted urbanism, where limited city design, BOGOTÁ’S PUBLIC SPACE TRADITIONS

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planning, and management took place, a national project of remaking public space began in Colombia in the early 1990s with a renewed focus on the public interest (Castro Jaramillo 2003, 77; Salazar Ferro 2003, 71). As the capital, Bogotá was the primary site for three major changes: a new legal and policy framework for public space in Colombia, a shift from privately focused to publicly focused urbanism, and a new institutional focus on the strategic territory of public space. These transformations laid the foundation for the city’s physical transformation.

P R I VAT E TO PU B LI C U R B AN I S M

Prior to the 1990s, Bogotá’s public administrators focused on a privatized approach to urbanism (Del Castillo Daza 2003, 47). This management style favored investments in urban infrastructure that benefited affluent socioeconomic groups, such as roads, utility improvements, and other projects that supported auto ownership; new housing; and business opportunities. The initial turning point from a private to a public focus on city development and management occurred in the early 1990s. The change in outlook was solidified when the city’s general plan, the Plan de Ordenamiento Territorial de Bogotá (POT; Territorial Legislative Plan), was passed in 2000. With this, a regular process commenced. Bogotá’s general plan must be updated every ten years, and the process allows for updates as needed. The authors of the POT focused on creating a transition to a more equitable, public-focused city planning strategy. By “equitable,” local leaders meant that the areas and people of the city that had been denied resources such as infrastructure, housing improvements, and public space would receive attention to redress those issues. Mockus and Peñalosa, whose administrations bookended the period in which the POT was written and passed, strongly supported the plan. The first planning efforts based on POT directives focused exclusively on public space (Del Castillo Daza 2003, 47); this public space theme was seen as a “new form of public action” and public space, the privileged site of culture (Salazar Ferro 2003, 74, 70). The ethos of Bogotá’s public space remaking was characterized as the “political expression of the need to give form to the idea of community and collective life” (Balfour 1999, 275). The city was viewed as a concentration of multiple points of encounter in public space and described as a “system of significant places for socially heterogeneous people,” and public space was a central component of these opportunities for collective life (Velásquez Carrillo 2004, 1). With this belief came a new focus on public space and a charge to remake the city in the image of the desired citizen: welcoming and community oriented. As new goals were introduced in Bogotá for public space, new administrative departments and institutes were formed to help achieve them. In 2000, Peñalosa even created a department to protect public space, to guide its development, and to coordinate with other city government bodies: the Departamento Administrativo de la Defensoría del 62

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Espacio Público (Administrative Department of the Defense of Public Space). Public space became the official domain of city entities focused on urban design, urban planning, recreation and sports, and culture and tourism. This new institutional focus on public space in Bogotá was accompanied by increased interest in urban design. Rather than focusing on individual buildings, the city and its designers and planners focused increasingly on the fabric of the city and how that fabric served the citizens. City officials described this process as bringing together the plan and the project to create city design projects that were more than the sum of their parts (Salazar Ferro 2003, 70). Charged with providing and managing opportunities for residents to enjoy recreation activities throughout the city, the Instituto Distrital Recreación y Deporte (IDRD; District Institute for Recreation and Sports) laid out goals for the public space system that focused on increasing mobility and improving cultural and social development. The IDRD’s mission was to “physically integrate the system with the city, particularly the roads and ciclorutas, to support the environmental functions of landscapes including drainage and wildlife habitat, to establish the system’s role in the cultural life of the city and the construction of the public, and to support the formation of tolerant citizens who support development” (Vargas 2003, 15). The IDRD focused particularly on metropolitan-scale parks because of the range of activities and cultural events that could be accommodated in parks of that size. Bogotá’s metropolitan parks, including Nacional, Tunal, and Simón Bolívar, were extremely popular with city residents. The director of the IDRD saw these parks as “testaments” to the transformation of the city in their ability to “create urban structure, help articulate the social, help make the economy more dynamic, and [be] recreational refuges for all of Bogotá’s inhabitants” (Vargas 2003, 15). Great care in investment choices underlay the actions of administrators. Velásquez Carrillo wrote in 2004 that livability in the city “depends significantly on the capacity to rationally target investment to certain areas” (34). The importance and the cost of planned development were major considerations in the city’s general plan, which required the redistribution of resources. Writing about the role of the POT, Velásquez Carrillo argued that regulated city development could provide an answer to poverty, improve productivity, and increase fiscal sustainability (33).

A N E W PU B LI C S PAC E TYPO LOGY

Bogotano public spaces have long been shaped and categorized by desired use. In the case of the public space mayors, they deliberately reordered the city through a radical set of projects designed to improve a dystopian city: they created a pedagogical typology, with new types of public space that joined the long-standing public space traditions of the city. These projects demonstrated that deliberate action had returned to Bogotá, helped create the physical appearance of a more orderly and welcoming city, demonstrated mayoral competency, and provided the space and the programming to BOGOTÁ’S PUBLIC SPACE TRADITIONS

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reinvent civil society via citizen engagement. Bogotá’s public space could therefore be viewed as the key site for the re-creation of the citizens as well as the city. Based on how Bogotanos and others were intended to interpret and use the newly created or renovated public spaces, I categorize the public space mayors’ projects into three new types: equalizing networks, hybrid hubs, and civic spaces. While these new types intersect with Bogotá’s historic and contemporary public space traditions (cf. figure 3.2), for example, via “linear” and “city center” types, they make up a new typology organized by pedagogical intention, and each project type changes the city’s spatial logic. Supported via a group of complementary programs and projects, equalizing networks include the transportation projects built to increase mobility and access. They promote greater mixing and interaction among all socioeconomic groups and were meant to provide people with opportunities to learn about the city and other residents. Equalizing networks include the repaired and expanded sidewalks, as well as projects like the cicloruta system, alamedas, the weekly Ciclovía, and the now well-known and much-studied TransMilenio BRT system. The investment in public transportation provided new and much-needed infrastructure and helped Bogotá move toward its goal to modernize. Hybrid hubs include major civic institutions such as the national and city archives, but are best exemplified by three new metropolitan libraries initiated during Peñalosa’s administration, the Virgilio Barco, El Tunal, and El Tintal libraries, all constructed in public parks outside the city center. Locating these libraries in the southern and western peripheries was meant to empower nearby residents and the surrounding communities and to improve community access to cultural and educational resources and to increase equity and civic pride. The placement of the libraries was also meant to support another strategy—increasing social mixing by encouraging people from different parts of the city to travel to the libraries. Carefully linking the libraries to public open spaces and bike, pedestrian, and bus networks encouraged mixing, as did dividing the central library’s holdings among the new facilities. Civic spaces are the new or remade plazas and parks that serve as the city’s primary pedagogical territory and enforce the practice of civic culture. Some of the best-known examples include Parque Tercer Milenio and Plaza San Victorino in the centro, Parques El Tunal and El Tintal in the south and southwest, and, in the north, Parques El Virrey and de la 93. Key goals for civic spaces included citizen formation, increased interaction, and the learning and practice of civic behavior. These spaces were also meant to provide a more even distribution of public open space throughout the city’s localidades (districts) and to improve equity in terms of recreational resources, amenities, and social interactions. Civic spaces are staffed with civic guides and security personnel and are programmed with community activities. They also serve as the sites of anchoring events for the Ciclovía, such as yoga and aerobics classes. Bogotá’s public space history is significant to the city’s development. Each era has 64

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produced a distinct type of public space reflective of the social needs of the times that also shaped the physical fabric of the city. This includes the public space mayors’ responses to a dystopian Bogotá. Like other cities in the late twentieth century, especially Latin American capitals, Bogotá faced a host of challenges related to public space, including lack of funding, concerns about safety, and inequities in access and mobility within the city. Less typically, public space in Bogotá was eaten away by co-optations for private use. As the public space mayors entered office, they faced significant challenges in recouping the public realm for Bogotanos. Three changes provided direct support for Bogotá’s transformation: a new legal structure that defined and protected public space and the right of each citizen to it, a change from private to public urbanism, and an institutional focus on public space. Three new types of public space in Bogotá emerged from all of this. The next chapter explores specific projects and their implications for the city.

BOGOTÁ’S PUBLIC SPACE TRADITIONS

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SUBA USAQUÉN

ENGATIVÁ

BARRIOS UNIDOS

FONTIBÓN

CHAPINERO

KENNEDY

TEUSAQUILLO

BOSA PUENTE ARANDA LOS MÁRTIRES

CANDELARIA

SANTA FÉ

ANTONIO NARIÑO RAFAEL URIBE URIBE TUNJUELITO

SAN CRISTÓBAL

CIUDAD BOLÍVAR

USME LIBRARIES PUBLIC SPACE PROJECTS CICLOVÍA CICLORUTAS TRANSMILENIO

4.1. Bogotá’s new spatial logic based on the work of the public space mayors.

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4. The Pedagogical City

The public space project ought to be understood as a gesture of generosity and focus on quality for the city, and not as the production of a beautiful city. One doesn’t want a beautiful city; one wants a city that is well made, durable, and worthy of the citizens. All of this reflects a qualitative leap in what we have learned over the last fifteen years about public space in Bogotá. —JOSÉ SALAZAR FERRO (2003, 76)

New types of constructed public space have typically changed sociability and people’s manner, use, and expression of themselves in public space. —FABIO ZAMBRANO PANTOJA (2003, 37)

T

he social and physical transformation that Mayors Mockus and Peñalosa instigated in Bogotá—in essence, a state-building project focused on public space and the transformation of the public realm—reformed the spatial logic of the 1 city (see figure 4.1). In remaking the public landscape, they also remade the manner in which the fabric of the city functions. And, while projects were located throughout the city, this new, intentional logic was shaped in particular by recuperating the city center and engaging the periphery via hybrid hubs and civic spaces, linked together by equalizing networks. While city centers, especially historic ones, are considered crucial assets in city remaking projects, the peripheries of cities in the developing world are another thing entirely. Traditionally areas beyond the consideration of city leadership and housing the poorest citizens, peripheries are frequently forgotten spaces in the narrative of city progress and development (see figures 4.2 and 4.3). In contrast, the centro is one of the most important districts in Bogotá (see figure 4.4). It contains much of the city’s architectural and cultural patrimony, and, as a result, the densest layering of projects has occurred there. Major equalizing-network elements 67

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4.2. The edge of the Patio Bonito neighborhood along Canal Cundinamarca.

4.3. In the periphery, the Patio Bonito neighborhood and city outskirts.

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4.4. The Plaza de Bolívar with the centro histórico in the background stretching to the Andes. © Villegas Editores. Courtesy of Villegas Editores.

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such as the Avenida Jiménez, the TransMilenio BRT system, and a network of sidewalks and ciclorutas traverse this area. The significant civic spaces of Plaza San Victorino and Parque Tercer Milenio are located here, as is the hybrid hub of the National Archive; the City Archive lies just outside of the center to the south. The complexity and overlap of these projects created in the city center a coordination of efforts and expertise not seen in other parts of the city and not replicable in other parts of the city during its transformation because of the sophisticated response required.

C I RC U L AT I N G T HE C I TY’ S LI FEBLOOD

The importance of recuperating the center—historically, culturally, and socioeconomically—was first recognized two decades before the public space mayors entered office and before anyone was thinking about recuperating other areas of the city. In the 1970s, legal and institutional support was established to help the centro, and in 1979, the first renovation plan was created. In the 1980s, the Corporación La Candelaria (Candelaria Authority) and the Oficina Plan Centro (Center Plan Office) were established. In the 1990s, the latter began a renovation program. Unfortunately, these organizations and plans became bogged down by competing visions of what the centro should become. Peñalosa entered office just in time, in 1998, to weigh in on these debates and to persuade people that the centro could not become an island in the midst of a vast city; rather, it needed to be the heart. Peñalosa recognized that a highly integrated plan would be required and should be prioritized to recuperate the most visible part of the city. He also realized that addressing concerns in the periphery was fundamental to his goals to increase equity and to encourage the mixing of social groups. This linking of center and periphery would prove to be one of the biggest moves in creating a new spatial logic for the city. One way that the center and the periphery were addressed together was through the design and construction of alamedas. While Bogotá has several alamedas, the two best known are the Avenida Jiménez and the Avenida El Porvenir. Called the widest pedestrian walk in the world, the historic Avenida Jiménez, located in the centro, was designed as a multimodal space. Located in the periphery, Avenida El Porvenir stretches through the localidades, or districts, of Bosa, Kennedy, and Fontibón and connects to the neighboring city of Soacha; it is called the longest pedestrian walk in the world. Though Peñalosa initiated the El Porvenir and Jiménez projects, Mockus had previously established the foundation for all alameda projects. He created the alameda program during his first administration (1995–1997) and focused on both the recuperation of old and the creation of new avenues. Because nothing on the scale of this program had been done before in terms of designing linear open spaces, Mockus’s administration had to start by creating an inventory of existing alamedas. The linear form of the open space was historic, but the project scale was novel. The city’s 2000 general plan established rules for constructing alamedas. These rules included minimum length and width guidelines and the requirement that, at 70

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alameda and street intersections, the alamedas, which privilege pedestrians, be made the priority. This program continued beyond the initial administration with a focus on establishing recreation zones that promote enjoyment as well as the idea of Bogotanos as the “makers of the city” (IDU n.d. [a], 5) in the sense that they could access the city by way of the alamedas and create new patterns of living. PR OJ E CT S NAPS HOT: AV E NIDA JIMÉNEZ • Location: Calle 13, between Carrera 1 and Avenida Caracas • Size: 1.1 miles (1.8 kilometers) long and, on average, 100 feet (30 meters) wide,

as measured across the pedestrian and BRT areas • Estratos: All; surrounding area is estratos 2–4 • Timeline: 1999–2002 • Administered by: Aquaducto Agua y Alcantarillado de Bogotá (water and

sewer), Departamento Administrativo de Planeación Distrital (city planning) Avenida Jiménez is an avenue built atop the Río San Francisco. From Bogotá’s founding near its banks, the river has played a major role throughout the city’s history. As the largest river flowing through Bogotá, it was the major source of water for the city until the end of the nineteenth century. The river ran through the district of Las Aguas and followed the course of the present avenida. Due to concerns about flooding and disease, as well as a desire to increase convenient travel, in the first half of the twentieth century the river was channelized and the avenida built on top. With its location in the historic downtown, Avenida Jiménez became a desired address for many important buildings and institutions. However, the 1970s saw a decline in the quality and safety of the area, as businesses and service providers began moving north into the newer financial district. The remaking of the avenida as the Eje Ambiental (Environmental Axis) between 1999 and 2002 was a needed renovation of this area that sought to reconnect the city visually to the mountains beyond and to the river, which still runs beneath the pavement. The project also incorporates the BRT into the fabric of the centro. In its current form, Avenida Jiménez is a brick-surfaced, multimodal linear public space that accommodates TransMilenio buses running from the Avenida Caracas transfer station, the first and a major hub in the BRT network, to the Las Aguas station, a terminal stop serving the northeastern edge of La Candelaria and the many universities, offices, and businesses in the area (see figure 4.5). It features a generous central walkway that separates the TransMilenio from car traffic. The well-lit, tree-lined promenade designed by architects Rogelio Salmona and Luis Kopec contains a cascading channel of water that mimics the path of the Río San Francisco (see figure 4.6). The avenida is a pleasant place for strolling or relaxing, and it allows for easy movement east or west in the downtown area. THE PEDAGOGICAL CITY

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400 ft

4.5. Avenida Jiménez in context.

100 m

4.6. A view up the Avenida Jiménez looking toward Monserrate, with TransMilenio buses in view. Photo by Haakon S. Krohn. Courtesy of Wikimedia Creative Commons. https://creativecommons .org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/deed.en.

While it accommodates cars and buses, its primary pedagogical goal was to connect everyone in its path, from the upper-class students in the universities at the avenida’s eastern terminus to the poorer denizens of the San Victorino area to the west. The redesign uses native tree species, such as the wax palm and the California pepper tree, which link visually and ecologically to the adjacent Monserrate and Guadalupe mountain ridges. While not using water from the river itself, the avenida provides an example of a visible and interpreted natural system in the city fabric. One challenge to this is 72

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that, because of the cascading basins, the system is difficult to maintain and requires draining and cleaning on a regular basis. PR OJ E CT S NAPS HOT: AV E NIDA EL P ORVENIR • Location: Western edge of the city, generally following Carreras 92, 94, and 95a • Size: 10.5 miles (17 kilometers) long and 50 feet (15 meters) wide • Estratos: All; surrounding area is estratos 1–3 • Timeline: 1998–2000 • Administered by: Departamento Administrativo de Planeación Distrital

(city planning) Also well known, but serving a different part of the city, is Avenida El Porvenir. The subject of multiple documentaries on Bogotá, it has become a national tourist destination and is one of the most frequently cited projects when people talk about Bogotá. Avenida El Porvenir provides a nonmotorized transport option that connects several localidades as well as the municipality of Soacha, just outside of the Capital District boundaries (see figure 4.7). Its generous, well-lit spaces for pedestrians and cyclists promote enjoyable, dignified, and safe travel. Peñalosa said the city should treat its inhabitants well because then both the people and the city are cared for. He felt that one learns to be a citizen by being treated as one; a key action for him regarding this was creating a more generous and supportive public environment, something that Avenida El Porvenir exemplifies (see figure 4.8). FONTIBÓN

KENNEDY

BOSA

NTS

4.7. Avenida El Porvenir in context.

THE PEDAGOGICAL CITY

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4.8. A quiet day along the Avenida El Porvenir.

Created to link communities of different socioeconomic status, the Porvenir is a highly functional equalizing network. It is a spine that links effectively to a number of other types of spaces, such as parks and sports courts, but one problem it has continually faced is the fact that motorcycle and scooter riders sometimes use it as a cut-through street. Despite small ongoing challenges, the alamedas and equalizing-network projects in general were some of the best of the public space mayors’ projects. As a whole, the network-focused projects were very successful in terms of establishing order by linking neighborhoods, creating new paths of travel in the city fabric, and improving mobility and access within the existing spatial logic of the city.

R E W R I T I N G T HE PU B L I C L AN DSCAPE

A city’s public landscape plays many roles. It has intricate connections with the life of the city. It is also the locus of visible change made by state power. Where state presence increases, changes register in the built fabric, especially in the public realm. Shaped by everyday decisions and by major events, the public landscape reveals narratives about the city, and it is an instrument for achieving social goals. In Bogotá, pedagogical change was the dominant narrative; equity provided the social lens. Mayors Mockus and Peñalosa rewrote the city’s public landscape, and this was a crucial component of hoped-for success with the public space “project”: spatial changes became bolder, areas were opened up, and neighborhoods became easier to navigate. Scott (1998) points out that this is an ineludible part of the process of demonstrating 74

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state power in which legibility is increased for the purpose of creating improved order and greater control. As a result, in Bogotá new public landscapes were created—with varying results. Some of the most significant results arose out of difficulties in marrying new ideas to a premodern city fabric and out of the opportunities that arose from bringing informal parts of the city into better relationship with the city’s formal fabric, but rectifying “difficult” landscapes was troubling. For example, sidewalks and ciclorutas were extended through the city fabric, improving it or, at times, forcing confrontations between public and private use and conflicts with existing social patterns. A basic and fundamental way that officials improved equity in the physical fabric of the city was in building or extending sidewalks. Figure 4.9 depicts a much-needed and desirable sidewalk extension on Carrera 15, between Calles 92 and 93 in the upscale Zona Rosa shopping district. One example of a heavyhanded rectification of a difficult landscape is seen in the Parque Tercer Milenio project. In contrast, the Paseo de Patio Bonito project displays unique and positive hybrid results. These two projects are discussed in detail further on. Into the 1990s, those with cars ruled Bogotá. Cars were parked everywhere, especially on sidewalks. With Mockus’s push toward cultura ciudadana and Peñalosa’s passionate campaign to curb the car, the use and appearance of sidewalks dramatically changed. Guidelines created in 1998 for sidewalk construction and performance focused on providing more generous dimensions for pedestrian space (IDU n.d. [c], 2). Car removals; widening, repairing, and creating new sidewalks; and the liberal addition of bollards to prevent car parking reinforced the goal of keeping cars curbed (see figures 4.10, 4.11, and 4.12). As a result, during Peñalosa’s tenure, the traditional relationship of parking and shops began to change. Also, during this time, city officials restructured fees and taxes related to cars to benefit the city and citizens. Officials increased parking fees by up to 100 percent and deregulated parking fees in private lots to allow owners to charge whatever the market could bear (Díaz 2014). Additionally, the city imposed a gasoline tax to raise additional monies for road maintenance and for the TransMilenio bus system (3).2 In tandem with the move to recover sidewalks, officials established carfree areas. One example of high-quality pedestrian space in Bogotá is the Zona Rosa. Located in the wealthier northern part of the city, the Zona Rosa is one of the most popular areas of Bogotá, where there is a concentration of trendy shops, restaurants, and nightclubs. Its core, the Zona T, is a T-intersection that is fully pedestrianized, and it would lose much of its charm and safety if cars were allowed through. In some areas, there were conflicts of use as pedestrians walked in the ciclorutas. Ciclorutas were also installed in locations made difficult by a challenging existing urban fabric. They bisected paths of travel from sidewalk to street and were sometimes placed at the tops of steep driveways, where drivers could not see cyclists until their vehicles were in the cicloruta itself. Figures 4.13 and 4.14 show the extension of a sidewalk and cicloruta into a residential neighborhood where none existed before. THE PEDAGOGICAL CITY

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7

2

3

12

(2)

(.5)

(1)

(3.5)

7 (2)

2

3

8

(.5)

(1)

(2.5)

ft (m)

12 (3.5)

ft (m)

4.9. Before and after the sidewalk extension on Carrera 15.

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4.10. Overhead walkway and bollarded sidewalk in the Barrios Unidos district.

4.11. Bollards protecting a sidewalk from vehicles in Barrios Unidos.

4.12. Bollards and paving demarcating public space in the informally developed space of Patio Bonito.

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4.13. A sidewalk and cicloruta under construction in the Castellana neighborhood.

4.14. An apartment’s security fence is demolished to reclaim public space in the Castellana neighborhood.

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Here, as construction intersected with a building’s front yard and security fence, the fence was demolished to make room for public circulation. Once the fence was reinstated, it was located directly beneath the building’s second-floor balconies and windows, creating a new security issue. PR OJ E CT S NAPS HOT: T HE CIC LORUTA SYSTEM • Location: Citywide • Size: 186 miles (300 kilometers) long • Estratos: All • Timeline: 1995–present • Administered by: Departamento Administrativo de Planeación Distrital (city

planning), Instituto Distrital de Recreación y Deportes (sports and recreation) The initial cicloruta was designed and implemented as a recreational amenity in the Suba district in the northern part of the city during Mockus’s first administration. Building on the popularity of the Ciclovía, Mockus began a process of institutionalizing bicycling into the city’s built environment, a move reinforced by a national fascination with the sport. The cicloruta system would become an essential component of the public space mayors’ equalizing networks. While the first routes focused on recreation, when Peñalosa entered office he made them a key component of a new multimodal transportation system for the city. Because of this change, the cicloruta system evolved into an interconnected network linking residential neighborhoods, workplaces, and public spaces. The system is now composed of four overlapping networks, which are hierarchical in terms of the importance and size of what they connect. The primary network connects major educational and employment centers with the densest residential areas; the other networks connect smaller centers and areas to the next network above them, all the way down to neighborhood circulation (IDU n.d. [d]) (see figure 4.15). Guided by the Plan Maestro de Cicloruta (PMC; Bike Path Master Plan), the cicloruta system promoted “daily bicycle travel in Bogotá with the goal of reducing traffic and congestion, and achieving positive social, economic, and environmental dividends” from bicycle travel to centers of work, study, and recreation (IDU n.d. [d], 2). Created by the mayors’ Instituto de Desarrollo Urbano (IDU; Urban Development Institute), the PMC was incorporated into the 2000 city general plan. The city promoted the cicloruta system as a successful new democratic public space that provided a practical solution to providing mobility, conviviality, recreation, and more public space (OCU and Zambrano 2003, 45). At the time of Mockus’s second administration, bicycles were being used for 4 to 5 percent of trips. While welcomed overall, in the city center the ciclorutas are difficult to navigate and frequently obstructed by parked cars and pedestrians. Some ciclorutas run in the middle of sidewalks, rather than adjacent to THE PEDAGOGICAL CITY

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SUBA USAQUÉN

ENGATIVÁ

FONTIBÓN BARRIOS UNIDOS

KENNEDY

TEUSAQUILLO

CHAPINERO

BOSA PUENTE ARANDA

LOS MÁRTIRES

ANTONIO NARIÑO

TUNJUELITO

CANDELARIA

SANTA FÉ

RAFAEL URIBE URIBE SAN CRISTÓBAL

CIUDAD BOLÍVAR

ESTRATOS USME

1 2 3 4 5 6

4.15. The growing cicloruta system seen in relationship to the city’s estratos.

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the street, which creates user conflicts. Pedestrians, sometimes indifferent to the lanes or dealing with crowded sidewalks, regularly walk in and across them (see figures 4.16 and 4.17). This is especially a problem along popular avenues where people must cross the bike paths to enter vehicles in the street. The cicloruta system presents a safer option than the previous practice of riding bikes in the streets, but the push to radically expand the system within the narrow time frame of three-year administrations resulted in some paths that were unusable or difficult to use, both logistically and behaviorally. It is well intentioned but underutilized, especially in the city center. Interestingly, after Mockus’s second administration ended, ridership began to drop. People reported concerns about personal safety and the lack of the types of amenities needed to support urban bike commuting, such as secure 4.16. People walking in a cicloruta. Photo by Mike Ceaser © Bogotá Bike Tours. Courtesy of Mike Ceaser.

4.17. Car blocking sidewalk and cicloruta. Photo by Mike Ceaser © Bogotá Bike Tours. Courtesy of Mike Ceaser.

THE PEDAGOGICAL CITY

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bike storage and showers, lockers, and changing areas at places of work. The IDU studied why the system was underutilized and found that the main problem was the risk of theft of bikes and other items (Peñalosa 2005). The drop in ridership can likely also be attributed to a couple of other things. First, the focus on the city as a whole inevitably shifted as Luis Garzón replaced Mockus as mayor and began to concentrate on the poorer south. This may have led to diminished focus on the city’s overall infrastructure. Second, as an architect from Mockus’s second administration noted in 2005, the “TransMilenio effect”—better civic behavior in response to new means of transport—was wearing off and crime was back up on buses and along ciclorutas (anonymous staff member, interview by author, May 16, 2005). This phenomenon is an issue in many cities after the novelty of infrastructure has worn off, but it is exacerbated in situations where planning and installation are rushed, the system is not primed with excellent support and optimal locations, and/or the attention of city leaders turns away. Increasing ridership and creating safer spaces ultimately rests upon two needed changes: activating spaces around the routes and providing services and infrastructure for riders. The system needed more around it, and connected to it, to help activate the network and make it more usable. Without monitored bicycle storage, showers, lockers, and other end-of-trip facilities for cyclists—elements that encourage buy-in and use—the cicloruta system and projects like it are vulnerable to the ending of the “TransMilenio effect” and the impact of robberies or fear of theft. PR OJ ECT S NAPS HOT: PARQUE T ERCER MIL ENIO • Location: Carrera 10 • Size: 41 acres (16.5 hectares) • Estratos: 2–3 • Timeline: 1998–2005 • Administered by: Instituto Distrital de Recreación y Deporte

(sports and recreation) While the cicloruta example describes some of the challenges posed by existing limitations in residential neighborhoods and the downtown, a more troubling and consequential example of dealing with a “difficult” landscape is found in Parque Tercer Milenio, a downtown park project initiated by Peñalosa and further developed during Mockus’s second administration. The act of rewriting, especially when addressing a desire for order and visibility, is never a smooth one. There are conflicts with the existing spatial logic and physical fabric of the city, as well as with behavior and everyday practices. Rewriting can increase equity, yet more often it is used to effect “removals” and “erasures” of difficult or idiosyncratic places and people. Parque Tercer Milenio is an urban park located in Bogotá’s downtown, close to the plaza mayor and the historic Plaza San Victorino (see figure 4.18). It was envisioned 82

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in 1998, and construction began in 2000. It is the first park to be constructed in the city center in many decades and contains multiple types of space, including a children’s play area and a stage. For Peñalosa, the Tercer Milenio project was the most ambitious urban-redevelopment project in the city’s history, one in which he could kill two birds with one stone—remake a difficult place and erect a park. Long an eyesore and a breeding ground of delinquency, the Cartucho neighborhood occupied strategic territory in the downtown, space that many thought could be better used. Villegas notes that this was an area “whose decay fed the progressive deterioration of the historic center” (2004, 198). The Calle de Cartucho area slated for redevelopment was part of the neighborhood of Santa Inés, just a few blocks west of the Presidential Palace. Formed during the downturn in the city in the 1970s and 1980s, the Cartucho area was representative of dystopian conditions, especially the lack of governance. It was a hot spot of violence, drug use, prostitution, and poverty (Peñalosa, interview by author, November 14, 2006; Berens 1999, 90). And it looked like a dump, given the large number of residents who

Plaza San Victorino

Plaza de Bolívar Parque Tercer Milenio

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4.18. The plaza mayor and the “competing centers” of Parque Tercer Milenio and Plaza San Victorino.

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4.19. Raw edge between Parque Tercer Milenio and the surrounding Cartucho neighborhood.

4.20. Parque Tercer Milenio.

4.21. In Parque Tercer Milenio, people making use of a berm to see into and out of the park.

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were storing junk and materials for recycling outside their homes. For the park project to move forward, the city estimated that 3,985 people, 615 buildings, and 1,069 businesses had to be relocated or torn down (Martin and Ceballos 2004, 320–321), a considerable number of displacements, although part of the neighborhood would remain in place at the edge of the park. For the overall project area of 150 acres, the numbers were higher. The removals were completed by 2000, and the park installation commenced. The Peñalosa administration was responsible for this project, although due to its size and complexity, the administration received significant help from other actors, including collaboration with the National University of Colombia, Bogotá,3 as well as continued oversight by Mockus’s second administration, which began in 2001 (see figures 4.19, 4.20, and 4.21). Parque Tercer Milenio is either a bankrupting vanity project—a “prestige park”—or an excellent idea, though either judgment is possibly premature. Detractors called it a project “for the project’s sake” rather than for the city. Perhaps the better question is whether it was a project for the current city or for some future one. Propelled by ideas and a project area larger than just itself, the park was the most visible piece of a bigger project meant to remake 150 acres of the downtown in a more orderly and engaging manner. There were three aims in this. First was the aforementioned “social renovation” of removing Calle de Cartucho and its influences. The second goal, following the removal of the neighborhood, was to improve the quality of life by reorganizing the space in accordance with the law and the city’s general plan. Third was to transform the area aesthetically by changing the face of the district, creating the park, and redesigning Avenida Caracas to accommodate the TransMilenio. This desire for legibility and attractiveness in the city center came at the expense of “erasing” much of a difficult neighborhood. While the city reported that nearly 4,000 people would be displaced by the project, other sources concluded after the fact that closer to 12,000 people were ultimately displaced (Martin and Ceballos 2004, 320). Ironically, the wholesale displacement of the Cartucho neighborhood created a series of “cartuchitos,” small enclaves of displaced people and problems that splattered out into the larger downtown area and remain today. Replacing a troubled landscape moved the problem; it did not solve it. This rewriting was to have been accomplished via three new land uses for the area; however, of the three initiatives—a commercial zone north of the park, a housing zone south of the park, and the park itself—only the park was built, although as of 2014, the planned commercial development north of the site was underway again. The associated plan to offer properties south of the park for redevelopment with publicly funded financing through a land bank did not get off the ground due to lack of funding. Opened in late 2005, the park is vast and sometimes feels almost abandoned. There is so much space and not enough people. While many of the programmed spaces, especially the children’s play areas, are used, the overall scale of the project in relation to the surrounding blocks is too big. And although there are areas for children and THE PEDAGOGICAL CITY

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a permanent stage, there are no bathrooms. Other design mistakes are also readily apparent. Basic pedestrian connections east–west between Avenida Caracas on the park’s western edge, along which the TransMilenio runs, and Carrera 10 to the east of the park were not planned into the design, so there are many walking paths carved into the grass—at times creating a muddy mess for commuters and others crossing the park. The project, which is composed of beautiful and expensive plant and hardscape materials, nonetheless feels somewhat like an open sore; the edge is raw. Cartucho, after all, was shaved back but not completely eliminated to fit the park in, and the transition between the two is extreme in places. Because the park has bermed edges, views into and out of it are a problem, which creates another safety issue. Many visitors sit on makeshift seats around the edges so that they can see what is going on inside and outside the park. And with few people living in the surrounding area, there are limited park visitors. A former city council aide who worked at the edge of the park said that hundreds of thousands of people flow through the center of the city during the day, but in the evening it is uninhabited. He believes that the city lacked a vision for how to provide incentives for use of the park, so the project as it emerged was isolated, especially without the proposed housing and commercial development to support it. Critics felt that the overall system of city functions and requirements needed to come first, followed by the infrastructure, and then the project.4 Peñalosa felt differently. As he stepped into office, he was very aware that it was an opportune time to reclaim land because the future of the centro was under debate. For him, the decision to create the park was an obvious one. It was driven by a supply-side decision to catalyze the market and pride in the city by creating a downtown that was cleaner, less problematic, and more under control. Peñalosa supplied it, believing that people would come, eventually. After all, it is called “Third Millennium Park.” He explains, “This is a park for the next 1,000 years. . . . Of course it’s having a recovery effect now . . . but if not . . . I don’t care . . . the space is saved and eventually it will be surrounded. All Colombians will go to Parque Tercer Milenio at least once in their life and leave the park without being mugged and will have confidence in their institutions . . . not feeling like a dog with its tail between its legs” (interview by author, November 14, 2006). Peñalosa wanted Colombians to think big, bigger than the traditional plaza mayor, which rankled some who thought the plaza mayor ought to continue to set the precedent as the largest public space necessary for a colonial-era centro. Another challenge that arose was a long-running debate surrounding Parque Tercer Milenio about whether the park should have had a community center or a museum in it. A museum was proposed with the original plans but was not built. Other people clamored for a community center. The site was large enough to accommodate both, but no decision was made to make either or both work. Instead, people went back and forth on what is essentially a debate between focusing on local needs (a community center) or global presence (a museum). Bogotá already has several museums in the 86

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downtown that draw national and international tourists; this debate, then, highlighted the tension between local needs and global presence, and how place identity is partially conditioned by audiences that are not local (Massey 2004). It also highlights how social priorities versus economic priorities can easily come into conflict. Some people find the park to be pleasant and peaceful, while others find it empty and lonely. It is definitely a park that has yet to fully connect with people, although its role is up for negotiation.5 For example, homeless people have made use of the space by camping there, and others have occupied it in protest. Yet for now it remains what some have called “a competing center” and others “a new, but dead, center.” PR OJ E CT S NAPS HOT: PAS E O DE PATIO BONITO • Location: Calle 40b Sur and Calle 41 Sur, between Carrera 86 and Carrera 101 • Size: 1.5 miles (2.4 kilometers) long • Estrato: 1 • Timeline: 2003–2006 • Administered by: Departamento Administrativo de Planeación Distrital

(city planning), Aquaducto Agua y Alcantarillado de Bogotá (water and sewer) During the public space mayors’ administrations, informally developed neighborhoods began to be woven into the formal city fabric through the extension of bus service and other infrastructure, such as water lines and public space. In the Patio Bonito neighborhood, located near the Bogotá River in the Kennedy district, a city water main was extended down one of the primary streets. On top of the large pipes, the city built an elevated public walkway—a paseo—forcing traffic lanes to either side. A very practical solution to adding open space, this project allows people to step up out of the muddy, unpaved traffic lanes and more easily walk to other locations, including bus stops. It is a solution that explicitly privileges pedestrians and bicycle riders over people in cars. However, it is interesting to note that this linear solution, as first constructed, was not an alameda, based on the city’s own definition; it did not have trees, though this has since changed (see figures 4.22 and 4.23). One creative response to the new paved surface and linear nature of the paseo was the advent of bicitaxis (bicycle taxis) in the area. While sensible and popular, they are illegal. It is likely that the bicitaxis became caught up in the struggle between promoting the TransMilenio BRT system and attempting to shut down the colectivo system, which has not been successful. Colectivos—private buses and vans that run fixed routes—have been used for many years in Bogotá to convey people from place to place. They create additional noise, pollution, and overcrowding in the streets and were one of the many reasons that Peñalosa pushed to create the TransMilenio. Though ultimately unsuccessful in closing down the colectivo system, the city focused at this time on shutting down entrepreneurial modes of transport in favor of a centralized and regulated system. THE PEDAGOGICAL CITY

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4.22. Paseo de Patio Bonito in context.

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4.23. The Paseo de Patio Bonito under construction.

4.24. Alimentador (feeder bus). © El Tiempo. Courtesy of El Tiempo.

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While they do not employ the same routes, the bicitaxis compete somewhat with the green feeder buses that bring people to the main TransMilenio lines (see figure 4.24). Incorporated into the life of Patio Bonito, the paseo is a well-liked example of residentserving infrastructure. Interestingly, the push to create the paseo in Patio Bonito was driven by a desire to extend infrastructure into the neighborhood to formalize aspects of it by linking it to the larger city fabric. Yet once this formality was extended, informal operations began immediately in response—both as moneymaking opportunities and to fill in gaps in desired services.6 But this so-called struggle between informality and formality could be considered less of a fight and more of a complementary situation, especially here. While having a legible city—one capable of being understood and comprehended—was of paramount importance for the public space mayors, the response to a need for order can be managed in many different ways. When improvements to the city are focused more on content than on image, a greater range of people is likely to “win.” When difficult landscapes are dealt with primarily from the point of view of order and image, problems only become displaced—such as with the imposition of Parque Tercer Milenio and the subsequent explosion of cartuchitos across the downtown landscape. But whether the projects were welcomed, “difficult,” or “informal,” project by project the city’s public landscape transformed to produce a larger whole.

Each of these projects—the equalizing-network examples of the cicloruta and paseo projects and the civic-space example of Parque Tercer Milenio—illuminate different ways in which the mayors focused on rewriting the public landscape of the city. Extending ciclorutas, along with recuperating sidewalk space, throughout the city privileged bicyclists and pedestrians for the first time; this was especially meaningful at a time when auto ownership, which had been rising since the 1960s, began to really soar. The Paseo de Patio Bonito has been an unqualified success, even with co-optation of the space by informal uses that the mayor’s office fought. Parque Tercer Milenio has not been a success, especially as a civic space. It lacks the community infrastructure needed for comfortable daily use—paved walkways and bathrooms. It also displaced thousands of the city’s poorest residents into other areas of the city, without substantially addressing any of the underlying issues. What it did accomplish was to temporarily present an appealing image of a beautiful park at the heart of the centro. With changes to the surrounding land in the form of commercial development north of it, the park may start to exhibit the potential that Peñalosa insists is there.

SYM B OL I S M AN D M EAN I N G I N TH E PUBLIC LANDSCAPE: L I B RA RI ES I N T HE PAR K

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and Purinton (1998) write, “Stories are only knowable through some form of communication. Narrative refers to the story, what is told, and the means of telling, implying product and process, form and formation, structure and structuration” (3). Bogotá did this extremely well. The merging of public space and “citizen culture,” with its assertion of equity and civility, created a cyclical process that provided Bogotá’s residents with a sense of shared responsibility and destiny. Peñalosa is especially interested in the symbolism of built projects. He describes his work as oriented around the sacredness of life and equality: “When you put a library in a poor area, you are saying that you believe in them. . . . People get to know reality through symbols. . . . Every detail in a city should reflect that human beings are sacred. . . . Parks are symbols; sidewalks are very important symbols” (interview by author, November 14, 2006). One of the best opportunities to inscribe meaning in the public landscape came in the form of Peñalosa’s “library in the park” concept. As Mitchell (2000) maintains, landscapes have an extremely good ability “to control meaning and to channel it in particular directions” (100). In Peñalosa’s mind, Bogotanos, and especially the residents in the neighborhoods surrounding the new libraries, would become library patrons and “worthy citizens.” Through these hybrid-hub projects, other areas of the city, including the “periphery,” would be engaged. Library holdings that had previously been available only in the centrally positioned neighborhood of La Candelaria were split up and distributed, creating access where it had not existed before as well as the impetus to travel to unfamiliar neighborhoods. In addition to the “worthy citizen” implication ascribed to library patrons, the libraries as hybrid hubs were meant to serve as cultural landmarks for the surrounding neighborhoods, linked together as an educational infrastructure. Part of the libraries’ success is related to their integration with surrounding circulation networks. As Peñalosa describes this, “We’re creating different values . . . linked to bikeways and paths that lead you to the library; it’s designed that way. You can go to Tunal or to Tintal or any other library. . . . We end up with a totally different city full of pedestrian streets and sidewalks. . . . People now realize that they like it . . . even the private builders who fought so much, now they do very fancy sidewalks because they make more money” (interview by author, November 14, 2006). Three metropolitan-scaled libraries initiated by Peñalosa—Virgilio Barco, El Tunal, and El Tintal—were foundational for inscribing meaning into the landscape. PR OJ E CT S NAPS HOT: B IB LIOTECA VIRGIL IO BARCO • Location: Carrera 60 and Avenida Calle 63 • Size: 173,300 square feet (16,100 square meters) • Estratos: All; surrounding area is estrato 3 • Timeline: 2000–2001 • Administered by: Bibliored Bogotá (libraries)

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Biblioteca Virgilio Barco is located near Bogotá’s geographic center in the Teusaquillo district (see figure 4.25). Using his characteristic elemental forms and rich brick patterning, Rogelio Salmona, Bogotá’s famous grandfather of architecture, designed the library, which can accommodate 150,000 books (see figure 4.26). Named for former president Virgilio Barco Vargas, it is one of the most popular libraries in the

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4.25. Biblioteca Virgilio Barco in context.

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4.26. View of the design and detail of Biblioteca Virgilio Barco.

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4.27. Parque Simón Bolívar in context.

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4.28. Boating on the lake in Parque Simón Bolívar.

city. It is also located in the city’s most popular park, the metropolitan-scaled Parque Simón Bolívar.7 The library is managed as a programmatic element of the park, and it hosts a range of additional uses including a café and a water garden. Parque Bolívar is the largest park in Bogotá. Early work on the park began in the 1960s, but it was substantially developed in the mid-1980s. It serves as the city’s living room, especially on the weekends (see figures 4.27 and 4.28). THE PEDAGOGICAL CITY

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Libraries are typically good locations for vendors, and the vendors working near Biblioteca Virgilio Barco who were interviewed in my 2006 public space survey said they like it because they meet different kinds of people there. Their responses to the question of what they like best about the location included “the tourists,” “important people,” and “decent people.” Visitors felt that Biblioteca Virgilio Barco and the surrounding green spaces are “comfortable,” “attractive,” and “peaceful”—in short, they are pleasurable to use. PR OJ ECT S NAPS HOT: B IB LIOT E CA EL TUNAL • Location: Calle 48b Sur • Size: 73,500 square feet (6,828 square meters) • Estrato: 1 • Timeline: 2001–2005 • Administered by: Bibliored Bogotá (libraries)

Biblioteca El Tunal is located within Parque El Tunal. Both the library and the park are centered in the district of Tunjuelito in the far southern part of the city. The Biblioteca El Tunal building won a public competition for the design of libraries in Bogotá in 2001. Designed by Suely Vargas Nobrega, Manuel Antonio Guerrero, and Marcia Wanderley of Tactus Design Studio, the library was constructed using the red brick for which Bogotá is known. It has a capacity of 110,000 volumes. About 104,000 people on average visit the library monthly from seven surrounding districts (Santos Molano 2006, 141). One visitor to Biblioteca El Tunal that I interviewed offered that what she likes best about the space is the feeling of peace she experiences when she enters the library. Other library goers generally shared this feeling. People surveyed at Parque and Biblioteca El Tunal said that the area is chévere (cool), with fresh air and ample space for sports. Both places are well served by vendors, who create a line of food stalls outside the library doors. People from the park and the library frequent the stalls. All the vendors said they like the activity and flow of people that the library and park provide, because they have steady customers. The park is open and inviting, with places to relax and children’s play areas. This very popular park serves the southern part of the city in many of the same ways that Parque Bolívar serves the middle. Visitors surveyed here had interesting interpretations of what public space means to them. Their answers ranged from “spaces of healthy coexistence,” “mobility for people,” and “spaces where anyone can enter” to “the happiness of the city.” People said they like the activities the library offers and are happy to have an alternative to traveling all the way into the center to go to a library. People also spoke positively about “the order imposed by the new construction” and said “the space has changed with the introduction of the library, people are learning” (see figures 4.29 and 4.30). 94

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4.29. Biblioteca and Parque El Tunal in context.

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4.30. Walkway and cicloruta in front of Biblioteca El Tunal, with the park beyond. Photo by Ana María Ewert.

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PR OJ ECT S NAPS HOT: B IB LIOT E CA EL TINTAL • Location: Carrera 86 • Size: 71,602 square feet (6,652 square meters) • Estrato: 2 • Timeline: 1998–2002 • Administered by: Bibliored Bogotá (libraries)

Biblioteca and Parque El Tintal are located in the Kennedy district in the southwest of the city, home of more than forty neighborhoods with residents predominantly in estratos 1 through 3. This project was initiated by Peñalosa and completed during Mockus’s second administration. It was an adaptive-reuse project by the architect Daniel Bermudez Samper, something that set it apart from the other libraries. The area in the immediate vicinity of the library was, at one time, one of the most productive haciendas in Bogotá; however, as the area fell into neglect and disrepair, people began dumping garbage on the land. In fact, when the library project was proposed, the immediate area was still being used as a dump. The library is a successful adaptive reuse of a former garbage-transfer facility; it contains space for 160,000 volumes and logs monthly visitors in excess of 73,000 (see figures 4.31 and 4.32). According to Santos Molano (2006), the Tintal library became a “fundamental element in the integration of the communities of that sector and the spreading of a new attitude of civic-mindedness” (61). Now the building is considered to be a cultural monument and center for community gathering for the surrounding districts, though

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4.31. Biblioteca and Parque El Tintal in context.

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4.32. Worn landscape in front of Biblioteca El Tintal. Photo by Ana María Ewert.

many have noted a lack of transportation options to help people get there. Survey respondents said that Biblioteca El Tintal is the most difficult to get to out of the three new libraries.

In general the hybrid-hub project model of “library in the park” has been tremendously successful in Bogotá due to the community pride and educational opportunity presented by each library, and at least for Parques El Tunal and Bolívar, the open spaces are ample, well programmed, and popular. Parque El Tintal, on the other hand, is another story. While the landscaped space near the library is functional, much of the actual park is in incredible disrepair. There is little programming, equipment, or maintenance, and vast worn areas in the grass run right up to the walls of the low-income housing that flanks the park. Clearly there was little planning for the use and care of this space.

D R E AM I N G T HE EQU I TAB LE CITY

The public landscape plays a role as social instrument, frequently serving to assimilate immigrants, offer “managed” leisure and social experiences, and provide a space of unmitigated encounter where strangers may freely meet. This encounter of the “other”—that which is not self—is a defining aspect of a public space ideal, an ideal that is shaped by those in power, who get to say what kind of other is allowed. In THE PEDAGOGICAL CITY

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Dreaming the Rational City (1983), Boyer contends that planning is the mechanism for disciplining both the urban masses (to prevent unrest) and the spatial growth of cities. In essence, the disciplining of spaces that emerge from city planning practices and design projects can be effective in establishing a similar discipline for citizens. So, in Bogotá, planning and design discourse and practice–vis-à-vis the “worthy citizen” and the “engaged citizen”—shaped the “other.” Peñalosa, in particular, has two scenarios that he often likes to highlight about how an equitable city should function. The first is to give the good, well-designed space to the pedestrians and the people on bicycles, and not to people driving cars. Second, he says that a rich man and a poor man are equal when they are side by side on their bicycles. As a result of this kind of thinking, public space in Bogotá, where all people had a “right” to be, became the focus for distributing collective goods such as bike paths, walkways, bus service, parks, and plazas. It is important to note that this move was not about equality per se, as parity was not an achievable goal. Rather the focus was on equity, on providing a more fair and even-handed distribution of resources than in the past. Peñalosa recognizes the distribution of high-quality public space as a means of addressing inequities between the rich and the poor: At first it may seem that in Third World cities with so many unmet needs, high quality pedestrian spaces would be a frivolity. On the contrary, where citizens lack so much in terms of amenities and consumption, it is quicker and more effective to distribute quality of life through public goods such as parks, plazas, and sidewalks than to increase the personal incomes of the poor. It is impossible to provide citizens certain individual consumer goods and services such as cars, computers, or trips to Paris. It is however possible to provide them excellent schools, libraries, sidewalks and parks. . . . While the upper income people have cars, go to clubs, country houses, theater, restaurants and vacations, for the poor public space is the only leisure alternative to television. (2002, emphasis added)

In addition to providing more-equitable access to leisure activities and to transportation options, Peñalosa recognizes public space and sidewalks as “essential for social justice . . . and the most basic element of a democratic city” (2002). He continues, “It is frequent that images of high-rises and highways are used to portray a city’s advance. In fact, in urban terms a city is more civilized not when it has highways, but when a child on a tricycle is able to move about everywhere with ease and safety.” He further emphasizes the conflict between drivers and pedestrians: “A city designed for dignified human life is not dictated by the automobile and remains a livable place for all people, whether rich or poor. Developing bike paths and sidewalks is more respectful of human dignity and more equitable than simply continuing to develop the road network for cars” (interview by author, November 14, 2006). As public spaces were built or refurbished, what I call “cues for caring,” or signals 98

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about communal values, how to care for public spaces, and how to behave in them, emerged on signage throughout the city. Park signs began featuring messages such as “Parks for learning how to live” and “The park is life, take care of it.” City employees working in public spaces wore uniforms emblazoned with mayoral development slogans, such as “Livable Bogotá all together now” and “For the Bogotá we all want.” The 2006 public space survey revealed a lot about how Bogotanos felt about their city. It showed that citizen defense of and care of public space had increased in response to Mockus’s and Peñalosa’s changes and to new cues in the landscape. Specifically, the survey found that 93 percent of people surveyed said they were doing one or more things to take care of the public spaces they used, in stark contrast to years of behavior such as throwing trash in the street. People reported that they “kept the space clean,” “respected and cared for the space,” and were “good citizens.” When they were asked about who is responsible for Bogotá’s public spaces, over one-third of the respondents indicated that they themselves are, and over one-half believed they collectively are the owners of public space. Eighty-two percent of respondents also felt that public space ought to belong to all Bogotanos. Overall, the public space changes were well received: on a four-part scale of responses including “poor,” “okay,” “good,” and “very good,” 74 percent of those surveyed rated the changes as “good” or “very good” in the public space survey, in comparison to a related question about their feelings on improvements to social programs (infrastructure, housing, etc.), to which 57 percent of respondents chose “good” or “very good.” Civic spaces were used to help teach citizenship, but equalizing-network projects such as the Ciclovía were also excellent opportunities to provide positive communal experiences. PR OJ E CT S NAPS HOT: T HE CIC LOVÍA • Location: Citywide • Size: Has grown to 79 miles (127 kilometers) of routes • Estratos: All • Timeline: 1982–present, with some precursors • Administered by: Instituto Distrital de Recreación y Deporte

(sports and recreation) One of the most if not the most popular and successful long-term events in the city’s public space is the Ciclovía. This weekly social event takes over Bogotá city streets every Sunday morning and early afternoon, and on holidays. It is an excellent example of an equalizing-network project, one that builds equity via communal experience. It is the one program begun prior to Mockus’s and Peñalosa’s administrations that significantly aided their visions for the city. Mayor Augusto Ramírez Ocampo formally inaugurated the Ciclovía between 1982 and 1984. He saw an opportunity in the relatively empty streets on Sunday mornings and began closing down select streets to vehicular THE PEDAGOGICAL CITY

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traffic to allow pedestrians and cyclists full use of the space.8 While the Ciclovía program started small—in 1985 there were fifteen miles (twenty-four kilometers) of network, between 1995 and 2005 the network grew to cover all sectors of the city (IDRD n.d.). The public space mayors made great use of this event and set in motion what has become a model program for hundreds of cities around the world9 (see figure 4.33). The Ciclovía’s popularity arose from its ability to provide a safe, social, and recreational experience for people of all ages. Its popularity is so well solidified that it is referred to as “the beach” of Bogotá, where thousands of people come to see and be seen (Martin and Ceballos 2004, 305). The weekly Ciclovía draws approximately 700,000 people, especially adolescents. Employees of the Instituto Distrital de Recreación y Deporte (IDRD; District Institute for Recreation and Sports) oversee this event and assist users. The Ciclovía’s success has resulted in the creation of special holiday versions; the number of people at the Christmas Ciclovía has been estimated at as high as three million. Its popularity and clear ties to ideas of citizenship, identity, and equality highlight the importance of the Ciclovía to communal life in Bogotá. More affluent citizens cycle into the historic district in the centro and into the south to visit the libraries, while poorer people gain access to the north and areas they might not normally visit. As the then director of the Departamento Administrativo de la Defensoría del Espacio Público (Department of the Defense of Public Space), Diana Margarita Beltrán Gómez, explains, “The Ciclovía, for example, is the most typical and best case of what public space is. . . . There, social differences do not constitute an obstacle to coexistence. The climate of security, solidarity, and equality that one breathes in the Ciclovía makes this an excellent example of public space in the city” (2003, 106). To Peñalosa, the Ciclovía is clearly about equity. He maintains, “In the Ciclovía everyone is equal, rich or poor, it is the only place where the father of a low-income family, which does not have access to sports clubs, can offer his children a secure place to do sports and relax. It is during free time that people feel poverty most and because of this it is necessary to give an option for recreation and enjoyment” (interview by author, November 14, 2006) (see figures 4.34 and 4.35). These values are ideals, but the Ciclovía is a program where intention and realization are well aligned. The Ciclovía is a microcosm of much of Bogotá; people are out to get exercise and be with friends and family, and buskers and vendors are out entertaining folks and working to make a living. The meanings people ascribe to this weekly ritual were clearly expressed in their own words as they responded to questions in the public space survey: “It is a space that is truly open to all,” and “One simply leaves the house and enters the street to participate.” People said they like the “ease of doing sports in the street” and enjoy “the break of the Ciclovía” because it is “relaxing and safe.” Ciclovía routes in outlying residential areas and near parks are often busier than the ones in the centro, where the residential population is lower. Interestingly, the Ciclovía draws so many people that vendors change their selling patterns on Sundays to be among the crowds; it also draws in vendors from a wider range of estratos.10 100

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SUBA USAQUÉN

ENGATIVÁ

FONTIBÓN BARRIOS UNIDOS

KENNEDY

TEUSAQUILLO

CHAPINERO

BOSA PUENTE ARANDA

LOS MÁRTIRES

ANTONIO NARIÑO

TUNJUELITO

CANDELARIA

SANTA FÉ

RAFAEL URIBE URIBE SAN CRISTÓBAL

CIUDAD BOLÍVAR

ESTRATOS USME

1 2 3 4 5 6

4.33. The Ciclovía network in 2000, in relationship to the city’s estratos.

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4.34. Two-way traffic during the Ciclovía. Photo by Mike Ceaser © Bogotá Bike Tours. Courtesy of Mike Ceaser.

4.35. People dancing during Recrovía Bogotá, one of the free exercise classes that take place during the Ciclovía. Photo by Mike Ceaser © Bogotá Bike Tours. Courtesy of Mike Ceaser.

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For a city where people formerly were afraid to use public spaces and focused primarily on their and their family’s day-to-day survival, the Ciclovía is a tremendous success. Findings from the public space survey also supported the values underlying the Ciclovía by revealing the importance of sociability to Bogotanos at that time. Seventyone percent of people responded that they regularly encounter people they know in public space, and for those who see people they know, it is important that they do so.11

C H A L L EN G I N G T HE PR OJ ECT

Through cues for caring, new norms, and equity-balancing projects, a new narrative became possible in Bogotá. In 2005, more than 2.5 million people attended events in Bogotá put on by the Instituto Distrital de Cultura y Turismo (District Culture and Tourism Institute), an increase of 700,000 people from 2003 (Semana 2006, 166). Citizen participation of this type helped to fuel Bogotá’s rise as a global urban-development model. Due to the increase in cultural events and attendance, in 2007 Bogotá was named the “Latin American Capital of Culture” by UNESCO and the “World Capital of the Book” by the Union of Capital Cities of Ibero-America, and it became the seat of the Congress for Artistic and Cultural Development for Latin America and the Caribbean (166). Many of these cultural changes were tied to the promotion of Bogotá as a travel destination and place to do business, which “internationalized” Bogotá by putting it on the radar of potential tourists and firms from countries around the world. Bogotanos had changed their sense of ownership and responsibility toward public space, and that was also reflected in how outsiders saw the city. In my survey, Bogotanos overwhelmingly expressed that the right to the city is everyone’s and that this right comes with responsibilities. In the minds of Bogotá’s citizens, the city changed physically from “ugly Bogotá, to coquette Bogotá, to beautiful Bogotá” (Martin and Ceballos 2004, 390). A similar process of change in social norms accompanied this—from fraught relations, to better relations, toward harmonious relations. Yet, there were breakdowns in the transformation that were occurring outside of the limelight being cast on the city. Issues arose, mostly having to do with differences between ideals and reality. The promise of equity was extended, but addressing socioeconomic inequities through public space proved difficult. Along with cues for caring came layers of surveillance and monitoring, from passive statements of how to behave to more active monitoring of public spaces by city workers and police. And the right to the city was, in reality, extended to some but withheld from others. The project of transforming the city through the public realm during Mockus’s and Peñalosa’s administrations was intended to create more equitable access to collective resources. Public space did increase during this time, but to be completely successful, the program also had to address socioeconomic inequities. Fundamentally, the ideal of public space as developed in Bogotá conflicted with reality, and this conflict became a core issue in evaluating success. This discord arose from differences in the roles that THE PEDAGOGICAL CITY

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public space was thought to play. Castro Jaramillo (2003) contends, “Public space has no estratos and any investment that is made in it is for the benefit of the entire city” (86). This idea of public space with no socioeconomic divisions is based on the belief that public space is a democratic place of encounter to which all people have equal access and which all are able to use as they want within a commonly agreed upon code of conduct. However, the reality of public space in Bogotá was that many aspects of the city’s public spaces and investments reinforced preexisting socioeconomic disparities. These disparities were especially seen in three areas: strategies of public-private investment, ways of coping with the city’s existing spatial logic, and levels of participation in public space. Each created a challenge to equity. The first area of inequity in Bogotá’s public space project is the contribution of private funding toward public spaces in neighborhoods of different socioeconomic levels. The investment of private money into public spaces greatly affects their appearance and the quality of their programmed activities. Decisions made about public spaces, such as determining funding priorities and deciding where to create public-private partnerships, as well as which public spaces private companies are interested in partnering on, can easily exacerbate inequality if donations are not distributed in an equitable manner. PR OJ ECT S NAPS HOT S : PARQUE D E L A 9 3 AND PARQ UE EL TINTAL

Parque de la 93 is located in the Zona Rosa, a commercial and entertainment zone in the wealthier northern part of the city. The park proudly displays a plaque with the names of individual and corporate sponsors who support it. • Location: Carrera 13 between Calle 93a and Calle 93b • Size: 0.12 acres (0.05 hectares) • Estrato: 6 • Timeline: 2001–2003 • Administered by: Instituto Distrital de Recreación y Deporte (sports and

recreation), Asociación del Amigos del Parque 93 (friends of the park group) Parque El Tintal is located within a public housing project in the southern part of the city that is surrounded by low-income neighborhoods. Parque El Tintal has no private sponsorship or support. • Location: Avenida Ciudad de Cali • Size: 0.3 acres (.11 hectares) • Estrato: 1 • Timeline: 2001–2002, with limited updates after • Administered by: Instituto Distrital de Recreación y Deporte (sports and

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The images of the two parks shown here (figures 4.36 and 4.37) reveal disparities in their appearance and care, reflecting the inequity of public space quality across class divisions.

4.36. Parque de la 93. Photo by Pedro Felipe. Courtesy of Wikimedia Creative Commons. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/deed.en.

4.37. Parque El Tintal. Photo by Ana María Ewert.

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It is apparent that Misíon Bogotá—the city entity that helps with graffiti and other clean-up in public spaces—did not apply the “broken windows” theory in Parque El Tintal. The broken windows theory asserts that promptly fixing small maintenance issues will prevent escalation of other urban ills in the same area, for instance, breakins or theft (Wilson and Kelling 1982). The assumption is that not providing cues that a space is cared for will lead to the space being vandalized. Figure 4.38 shows signage in Parque de la 93 and Parque El Tintal, respectively. The clean sign in Parque de la 93 displays a logo of a green apple (manzana means both “apple” and “city block” in Spanish) and reads: “Pardon us while we beautify our appearance.” Conversely, Parque El Tintal’s sign, which contains behavioral admonishments such as reminders to throw away trash, is covered in graffiti. The one sign assumes people will appreciate and care for an area, the other assumes they will want to spoil it. When faced with expectations, people generally do what is expected of them. The importance of visual cues was paramount in Bogotá’s transformation and in the development of the pedagogical city. The differences in the messages of the signs and their correlating states of repair highlight disparities in care on a governmental and citizen level. Jacobs (1992) is helpful here, in noting that people in public housing, who have no equity in their living arrangements, often have no interest in maintaining public spaces, nor do they have the assets to do so. Parque de la 93 is a one-block-square neighborhood park located in the heart of the Zona Rosa. With its cadre of financial sponsors, it is always well maintained and it

a

b 4.38 a, b. (a) Parque de la 93 signage. (b) Parque El Tintal signage.

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is a pleasant and relatively friendly space. Every square inch is designed and planted, and it is decorated for the holidays. During the Christmas season the decorations are almost over the top: lights hang from all the trees, and a tall Christmas tree echoes the Andean mountains on the near horizon. People come just to see the decorations. Many older folks who live around the park go there to sit on the benches and people watch. Even in December there are flowers in bloom. The area is noteworthy for the density of shops, restaurants, and bars in the immediate vicinity, and there is a lot of foot traffic. Vendors reported in the public space survey that they like the park for the movement of people, especially office workers, as well as for the shoppers that the “elegant location” draws, since the crowds bolster their sales. Parque de la 93 is even better liked than the high-end centros comerciales (shopping malls) located in the area.12 The park design is formal and there is little flexibility; it is a highly programmed, small space, yet many people seem to be able to enjoy it without coming into conflict with other users. People plainly enjoy walking past it almost as much as walking through it. Incredibly troubling, however, is that this is one example of a trend reported in the public space survey in which some citizens who work in or visit public spaces said they were taking on an unofficial role as “strong-arm” caretakers for the spaces. Many of these so-called caretakers were vendors, and some of them reported that they were expelling indigentes (homeless people), many of them likely desplazados (displaced persons), from the spaces or preventing them from entering; this behavior was reported more often in the richer northern parts of the city. These caretakers reported that they were doing this to maintain a sense of order and a more favorable setting for vending.

Generally, civic-space projects experienced the most challenges to success. Success depended on a wide range of factors, including location in the city, openness of the space and surrounding community to other people, what kind of residents were participating in activities in the space itself, what kind of access there was to the space, how much control was being exerted over the space, and how many informal activities were allowed to exist within the space. The second inequity in Bogotá’s public space project related directly to the socioeconomic division between the northern and southern parts of the city, a historic aspect of the city’s spatial logic that has arisen from wealthier residents locating in the north and poorer residents locating in the south. There was an existing unequal distribution of public space “goods”—parks, plazas, and walkways—that persisted throughout the transformation. This imbalanced distribution was partially created and reinforced by the segregation of the poorer part of the city in the south and the typical settlement pattern there, which left little to no room for public amenities, and the city’s focus on using funds to redevelop the gentrifying center. A major consequence of the existing spatial structure is that the amount of park and green space per person continues to vary significantly between localidades across the city. Table 4.1 demonstrates that a THE PEDAGOGICAL CITY

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Table 4.1. Park space per person in Bogotá, by select localidad.

PA RK A N D G REEN A REA S, SQUA RE F EET

LO CA LI DA D

PO O R

VERY POOR

(SQUA RE M ETERS)

( DI ST R I CT )

(%)

(%)

PER PERSON

Ciudad Bolívar (south)

29

9

21.5 (2)

La Candelaria (center)

13

2

11 (1)

Teusaquillo (north)

1

1

151 (14)

Source: Data from Martin and Ceballos (2004, 293).

higher percentage of low-income residents in a given district generally correlates with smaller amounts of park space per person. However, La Candelaria in the centro runs counter to this trend. La Candelaria is currently a middle-income district experiencing gentrification. It is also the site of the historic colonial center and was developed without large amounts of public space from the start. Furthermore, this inequitable distribution is revealed most starkly in areas of informal settlement. Figure 4.39 shows the localidad of Ciudad Bolívar in the southern part of the city, where much of the housing has been developed informally. (See figure 2.1 for a plan view of Bogotá’s informal settlements.) These areas have traditionally received the least amount of public investment because they developed outside of the official city planning process, and improving informally developed and poorer areas such as these involves disproportionately high costs due to lack of public space and infrastructure. During Mockus’s second administration, it cost approximately $4,500 USD per family to retrofit areas of informal settlement in Bogotá with basic utility services and public space. Mockus (2001a) noted that strong political will was required to bring this slow and costly process to fruition. The third equity challenge in the public space project emerged out of constraints on the ideal of unmitigated and un-policed encounters in public space. Stemming from the “social project” aspects of Bogotá’s redevelopment, which sought to direct behavior via the monitoring of public space, this challenge centered on what kind of behavior was acceptable and who was allowed to be in public space, which became an issue in some strong-arm caretaker actions, in particular in Parque de la 93. The cues for caring discussed above can also be interpreted as a deliberate new vocabulary for good citizenship. In addition to the idealistic reminders highlighted above, such as “Parks for learning how to live” and “The park is life, take care of it,” other signage reminded people that “the success of the park depends on good use,” exhorted visitors to “take care of ” the park, and explicitly prohibited vendors. This new 108

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4.39. Dense informal housing in Ciudad Bolívar. Photo by Alison McKellar. Courtesy of Wikimedia Creative Commons. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/deed.en.

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4.40. City workers and local police surveil Plaza Veinte de Julio.

4.41. Military police surveil Parque Tercer Milenio.

vocabulary was woven into people’s daily experiences. Mockus (2004) wrote that valuing duty was crucial to the remaking of the city and that social recognition and personal self-satisfaction would result from good and sociable behavior (1–9). The premise was that learning how to behave in public space settings, where encounter of the “other” occurs, would translate into being a better citizen. This premise was problematic for several reasons. The city monitored and directed behavior with techniques that ranged from passive (signage and security cameras) to active (civic guides, public space monitors, security guards, and local and military police). One example was the city workers employed in public spaces. These workers provided help, such as giving directions and leading recreational activities, but they also directed people to pick up trash and behave properly. They did so while wearing uniforms emblazoned with the current mayor’s development-program slogan; those same slogans appeared on banners throughout public spaces. Local and military police were also regularly seen in public spaces, even taking over the spaces, especially in the centro, close to the government buildings. 110

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Figure 4.40 shows city workers in the background, behind local police, assisting visitors in Plaza Veinte de Julio, while figure 4.41 shows military police surveilling Parque Tercer Milenio. In the public space survey, vendors reported being persecuted in public space. Nearly half of all vendors reported police or city employee harassment, and different types of vendors reported receiving different treatment. Those who sold food from mobile carts in public spaces and those who sold directly on the street most frequently reported interference with selling. The public space survey questioned both visitors and vendors in the city’s public spaces. When asked why he does not go to certain spaces, a vendor in Parque El Virrey responded that the spaces “are not of my social class,” meaning that he feels unaccepted in upper-class areas. A crafts vendor in the Parque de la 93 replied that he avoids certain spaces out of concern he will be harassed: “I cannot sell there freely,” he said. These responses highlight the formal and informal exclusion and monitoring that officials evidently believe is necessary to maintain “good” publics in Bogotá’s public spaces. In formalizing the physical, the public space mayors, especially Peñalosa, desired to manage informal uses. Vendors were also considered “difficult,” and where they besmirched the “well-ordered scene” and “usability” of public space, they were moved. Figure 4.42 show vendors excluded from public space, selling at the entrance to Parque Tercer Milenio. Interestingly, who was missing in public spaces was also a concern. One challenge to constructing a common social identity through interactions in public space was that the richest Bogotanos—estratos 5 and 6—interact in public space in an extremely limited

4.42. Vendors, excluded from public space, sell at the entrance to Parque Tercer Milenio.

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Table 4.2. Comparison of estratos responding to survey and citywide.

PU B L IC S PACE SU RVEY

CITY

R ES PO NDEN TS (%)

RESID EN TS (%)

1 and 2

52

50

3 and 4

44

45

5 and 6

2

5

No answer

2

n/a

E ST R ATO

way, if at all. Only one estrato 6 resident was interviewed in the survey, and just over 2 percent of respondents were from estrato 5, despite being 4 percent of the general population.13 (See table 4.2 for a comparison of estrato percentages by general population and by participation in the public space survey.) It is well known that Bogotá’s elite recreate more often in private clubs and out of town. The elite are somewhat elusive; as one interviewee said, “estrato 6 . . . they don’t even shop in Colombia.” At a combined 5 percent of the city’s population, people from estratos 5 and 6 do not represent a large portion; however, their relative absence from public space limits the concept of a shared social identity. Peñalosa’s concept of equity was predicated on the increased mixing of people of different incomes; without representatives from all estratos interacting in public space, the concept of a common social identity is by definition limited. While a significant number of Bogotanos regularly use public spaces, the absence of the most powerful in the city and the nation cannot help but undermine the goals of the project. PR OJ ECT S NAPS HOT: PLAZ A S AN VICTORINO • Location: Calle 13 • Size: 3.5 acres (1.4 hectares) • Estratos: 2–3 • Timeline: 2000–2001 • Administered by: Departamento Administrativo de Planeación Distrital

(city planning) Issues that arise from dealing with vendors in public spaces are well illustrated in the case of Plaza San Victorino. Located in La Candelaria near the plaza mayor and Parque Tercer Milenio, the plaza is one of the oldest public spaces in the city. Originally founded around 1650, the plaza was established at the edge of the city. Over time, the Plaza San Victorino became a popular gathering spot for residents and visitors traveling in and out of the city along its western boundary. Its prime location on the edge of the 112

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city also meant that it became the starting point for the city’s first two alamedas. As the city expanded outward, the district surrounding the plaza became a central neighborhood and slowly grew into an elegant residential zone that remained established into the twentieth century. Much like those in other big cities in Latin America, Bogotá’s colonial centro once housed the upper classes, which later moved to outlying neighborhoods, creating a vacuum in the center. Flush with money from coffee sales in the 1930s, upper-class Bogotanos started leaving the centro to go north to settle in unspoiled land dotted with lakes and wetlands (Violich 1987). As a result of this exodus, urban ills began to invade the center and a floating population of people without work or housing developed; the centro was busy during the day, but empty of activity at night, which made it less safe and increased the chance of criminal activity. Vendors had been “invading” public space there to sell their wares since the mid-1800s, and in May 1964, a fixed-stall market began operating in Plaza San Victorino; by 1998, it was the largest such market in the city and was moving large amounts of goods and money. Many people, especially Peñalosa, felt it was wrong that the private-market function was overriding any use that correlated to the public or historic value of the space. The Peñalosa administration determined that the recuperation of the plaza was necessary to improve security in the downtown and that the historic value and public nature of the space ought to be prioritized. Peñalosa likened it to the gravity of the Parque Tercer Milenio project, saying later that “San Victorino and Cartucho were killing downtown. . . . If we have a downtown that dies then it’s a dead city” (interview by author, November 14, 2006). The vendors in San Victorino were cast as using public space to make private profit and were not viewed as a poor or vulnerable population (Martin and Ceballos 2004, 323). Both Peñalosa and, later, Mockus supported the relocation of these vendors. However, because of the amount of goods and money the market moved—both legally as a market and illegally in terms of drugs and weapons—it was a challenge to relocate. In 2000, the vendors relocated or were moved and the city implemented the plaza redesign, directed by a unique combination of city planners, a Spanish design firm, and the United Nations (Berens 1999, 90).14 The design transformed the plaza back into an urban open space, but one that included new elements: a sculpture, Mariposa (Butterfly), by the famous Colombian artist Édgar Negret; an ornamental fountain; and trees, creating a space in which one could again “appreciate the colonial and republican architecture surrounding the plaza” (Villegas 2004, 29). The space was reopened to the public later that year with a new “social imaginary” in place (Martin and Ceballos 2004, 323) and was introduced via large pictorial spreads in coffee table books about Bogotá. The overwhelmingly desired result for this project was to have in place the conditions that would support a new type of genteel social life in public space—a life that was more civic in spirit and could take advantage of the surrounding history and culture of the area. In interviews, most people agreed that the reclaimed plaza is much more THE PEDAGOGICAL CITY

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pleasant and less chaotic than the former market. However, the Peñalosa administration missed some important opportunities in the reclamation to incorporate vendors into the process and create a public space that works for all users. This gets at a fundamental conflict in the use of public space in Bogotá, as in cities worldwide: vendors versus other users. In 2004, a survey of residents citywide showed that 61 percent of Bogotanos buy from informal vendors (Peñalosa 2005); vendors form a vital part of local economies. What resulted in the plaza after its reopening is telling. There is almost always a lot of activity in the plaza. The eastern and western ends are given over to shoe shining, and in between those ends everything else is for sale: coffee from thermoses pushed in carts, homemade ice cream from Styrofoam coolers strung by a cord over an old man’s neck, clothing hawked by young women, as well as other, less legal goods and services.15 The plaza is dirty and there is graffiti all over Negret’s sculpture, but the plaza pulses with life. Thousands of people cross through the middle, and many others find places to sit but seldom sit on the built-in concrete benches. People sit on and around the sculpture and on top of the raised planted areas, with their feet firmly on the benches—just looking for a better view. The western edge is not very well defined, as the raised planting areas angle down to the ground and the grass gets trampled, and the vendors organize themselves via the geometric layout of trees in the southwest corner, establishing individual work areas (see figure 4.43). Without protection, the trees are getting battered by the sheer amount of activity in the plaza.

4.43. A San Victorino vendor sets up next to a tree. Photo by Ana María Ewert.

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4.44. San Victorino shoe shiners occupy plaza seating with their customers. Photo by Ana María Ewert.

It is impossible to tell whether anyone notices the surrounding colonial and republican architecture, the viewing of which was one of the reasons, ostensibly, for renovating the plaza. By failing to work with everyday social patterns, the plaza’s spatial programming is controverted in several ways that better suit daily needs and activities (see figures 4.44 and 4.45).

Bogotá’s centro is layered in history and composed of a heterogeneous population and territory. At its heart are many public buildings, universities, museums, foundations, and restaurants. It stays busy throughout the day; over one million people move through the centro daily, and the area accommodates more than three thousand vendors. While the centro is dynamic and alive, it is also crowded and dirty. In the public space survey, some people reported that they seek out this area because they like how exciting it is to be there; others were plainly turned off by the crowding, noise, and dirt. And San Victorino lies at the center. Generally, the vendors interviewed in the plaza like the business scene there and would not change anything about the physical space. THE PEDAGOGICAL CITY

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a

b

c

4.45 a, b, c. Plaza San Victorino space and use comparison: (a) the market in the plaza, (b) the newly designed plaza, (c) the newly designed plaza with dots where vendors cluster.

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However, over two-thirds of the vendors surveyed said police regularly harass them. Visitors’ reactions to the plaza were by and large extremely negative. They do not like it and believe it is unsafe; they come primarily for the concentration of merchants surrounding it. However, most people also said they feel that it is much improved since being recuperated. In the case of Plaza San Victorino, it is apparent that the mayors’ desires for the space—a highly visible space at the heart of the city and a space from which people can enjoy the surrounding architecture—do not match up with peoples’ opinions and experiences of it. Plaza San Victorino is simultaneously a renewed heterogeneous and dynamic public space and a stage for Bogotanos and global citizens to observe the history and witness the rebirth of the city. In the plaza, Peñalosa and his staff marshaled international capital and design expertise to effect a radical change in one of the most historical and central urban spaces in Bogotá. One group of users—vendors—was forced to leave the space because their use of it ran contrary to the use of the space for other groups. This space was redesigned to serve the city and the global gaze, but has been “retaken” by vendors, although a different mix than those there before. Plaza San Victorino provides an excellent example of what Massey (2004) calls relational identity, an identity that is partially established as local place and as space with global ties, both of which shape place identity. The plaza has a dual identity as a cultural space that was meant to provoke a new and focused global future and as everyday open space in which vendors still tread, but carefully; it has an identity constructed out of multiple “publics.” The focus in the mayors’ plans on major infrastructural investment in cultural sites must also be examined as the “spaces that house culture with a capital C” (Balibrea 2004, 211): in Bogotá’s case, its libraries, plazas, and avenues. This twofold layering of local and global significance covers all the sites of cultural interest in Bogotá and was most strongly advocated for by Peñalosa. Of the last several mayors, he is the one who pushed the hardest for the development of public space and cultural facilities as a means to draw foreign investment and tourism. Redeveloping the downtown was a key piece of the new pedagogical urbanism focus, which contained a “discourse on the need to monumentalize and rehabilitate the city so as to serve its citizens, creating spaces of identification for the community” (211). It is no accident that many of Peñalosa’s projects focused on the most visible part of the city—the historic center. When a city improves its center, it is improving the “collective consciousness” of the society (212) and creating a symbol of identity. The final chapter examines public space as a commodity in contemporary public space redevelopment projects vis-à-vis what Bogotá has to teach other cities.

THE PEDAGOGICAL CITY

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5. Learning from Bogotá

Landscapes provide a stage for human action, and, like a theatre set, their own part in the drama varies from that of an entirely discreet unobserved presence to playing a highly visible role in the performance. —DENIS COSGROVE (1993, 1)

The connections between public space and political and cultural economy deserve closer scrutiny because public spaces are simultaneously an expression of social power and a force themselves that help shape social relations. —SETHA LOW AND NEIL SMITH (2006, VII)

A

round the turn of the millennium, people began coming to Bogotá to examine the city and its transformative process, looking for “takeaway” lessons borne out of pedagogical urbanism. In a document titled Cloning Bogotá, Oscar Edmundo Díaz tracked the process: “While Bogotá itself has been guided by global best practices, it has now become one” (pers. comm.). Of particular interest were public space and the TransMilenio, the BRT system based on the Curitiba, Brazil, model and former mayor Jaime Lerner’s work in that city. The TransMilenio was studied in depth, as groups such as the New York–based Institute for Transportation and Development Policy analyzed and broke down the system elements and began educating big cities globally about BRT. The TransMilenio and the Ciclovía became the most well-known examples of Bogotá’s equalizing-network project type. What Bogotá was modeling best in the years during and immediately following the public space mayors was how to encourage the reemergence of civic life within cities; to reincorporate people into public space, both those of lower income in need of recreation space and those of higher income, a group becoming increasingly absent in urban public spaces (Caldeira 2000); to enhance the communal spirit and identity of communities; and to increase equity, 118

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5.1. Bogotá’s global best practices. Transmilenio photo by Pedro Felipe, courtesy of Wikimedia Creative Commons, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/deed.en; Parks photo by Jairo1005, courtesy of Wikimedia Creative Commons, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/deed.en; Ciclovía photo by Mike Ceaser, Bogotá Bike Tours; Libraries photo by Vtooto, courtesy of Wikimedia Creative Commons, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/deed.en; Bike Paths and Recreation photos by Mike Ceaser, Bogotá Bike Tours; Avenidas photo by Rafael Callamand, courtesy of Wikimedia Creative Commons, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/deed.en; Plazas photo by Andrea Gaetano, courtesy of Wikimedia Creative Commons, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/deed.en.

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or opportunities for equity, among different areas of a city through public space and other infrastructure projects (see figure 5.1). PR OJ ECT S NAPS HOT: T RANS M ILENIO BUS RAP ID TRANSIT (B RT )  SYST E M • Location: Citywide • Size: 64 miles (103 kilometers) of main lines; 412 miles (663 kilometers)

of feeder lines; 151 stations • Estratos: All • Timeline: 2000–2015, three phases • Administered by: TransMilenio SA (transit agency) Upon entering office in 1998, Mayor Peñalosa quickly rejected plans for a city subway system, arguing that it would be too expensive and too disruptive. He looked south instead, to the regional capital of Curitiba, Brazil. With its then 1.6 million people to transport, Curitiba had an innovative BRT system. What was special about Curitiba’s system was that it ran like a subway, but on the road surface. It featured prepay points and a flush surface from raised platforms onto the buses, which made loading and unloading faster and safer. The buses had extra wide doors and were articulated, meaning that they had more than one section connected by an expandable joint; they were double the length of a regular city bus, or about eighty feet (twenty-five meters) long. Peñalosa borrowed from this system model, re-creating it—writ large—for a bigger city. Phase 1 of Bogotá’s TransMilenio BRT was entirely envisioned, designed, and built during Peñalosa’s three-year administration (1998–2000)—visible competency at its best. The TransMilenio system, with its vivid, lipstick-red buses, provided a symbol and a metaphor for the new Bogotá. Goals for the Bogotá BRT system were to move people rapidly and inexpensively and to shut down the colectivos, a private transport system using vans and buses that local government had deemed dangerous, polluting, loud, and difficult to regulate. In terms of use, the TransMilenio is very popular and carries more people per hour than many subway systems in other cities. The current price to ride is $1,800 COP (75 cents USD) for peak travel versus about $1,200 COP (50 cents USD) to take a colectivo. In my 2006 public space survey, people reported that they like the stations for their generous open space and for the range of activities around them. People said that it is easy to meet friends at the stations, which shows how the stations function as puntos de encuentro (points of encounter). Some stations have areas literally labeled “Puntos de Encuentros,” with tourist information and refreshments for sale. Also, the stations and the bright red buses are generally very clean, and the concentration of people makes the stations good areas for vendors. While popular, however, the TransMilenio is not without its challenges. At many times of the day, the system is extremely crowded, and 120

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people report thefts by pickpockets.1 This overcrowding is primarily related to two things. First, there are concerns that the system is already operating over capacity. Second, the TransMilenio SA limits the number of buses running in the system at any one time with the goal of matching up the supply of buses with the demands of ridership as closely as possible. The widely held opinion is that, because the TransMilenio managing group is a for-profit endeavor in a public-private partnership with the city, profits are prioritized over riders’ access, comfort, and convenience. As the TransMilenio system has expanded, there have been new challenges regarding opposition, capacity, and organization. People reported in the public space survey that they were somewhat less happy with the TransMilenio than with the overall system of public transportation in Bogotá.2 In 2010, frustrations led to the creation of a group and event called El día sin TransMilenio (The day without TransMilenio). Modeled after car-free days, this event was a boycott of the TransMilenio for a day in hopes of registering the group’s complaints with the transit authority and with city government. In response, the group Yo no apoyo el día sin TransMilenio (I do not support the day without TransMilenio) formed, citing the vast improvements of TransMilenio over the colectivo system. Both groups found a home on the Internet as Facebook groups. There have been a handful of organized protests related to the TransMilenio, including these in 2010 as well as others, in 2006 and 2012. According to the TransMilenio website, by 2008, the system was moving about 1.4 million people each day and 149,000 people per hour during rush hour, which is the equivalent of 930 TransMilenio buses on the road (content no longer available on the website). As new troncales (bus lines) have come online, route maps have become more complex and difficult to understand and the system has grown more chaotic. As a result, city workers are now posted on the platforms to help explain how to get from one place to another. The final phase of the TransMilenio system, Phase 3, has faced opposition from the upper-class residents living north of the centro, who have resisted the extension of a line northbound on Carrera 7, which was planned to run through several wealthier neighborhoods (see figure 5.2). Phase 3 was due to be completed in 2015, as concerns about capacity have been a concern for several years. Planning has long been underway for complementary transit networks to accompany the TransMilenio system (anonymous El Tiempo reporter, interview by author, March 22, 2006). The TransMilenio was an enormous investment and is incredibly successful, but it has not created the urban renewal that it could have. Gustavo Petro Urrego, mayor of Bogotá from 2012 to 2015, describes the process of its development as creating “scar tissue” along the edges of the TransMilenio corridors, which he says dissect and segregate areas of the city (Petro 2013). Because of limited funds and rapid timeline, not enough land was purchased along the BRT corridors, limiting the redevelopment of adjacent buildings and land uses to support the transit corridors, especially during Phase 1. Several people have pointed out that because the process was hurried, it led to a half-planned system. The corridors also are not easily accessible along their lengths. LEARNING FROM BOGOTÁ

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SUBA USAQUÉN

ENGATIVÁ

FONTIBÓN BARRIOS UNIDOS

KENNEDY

TEUSAQUILLO

CHAPINERO

BOSA PUENTE ARANDA

LOS MÁRTIRES

ANTONIO NARIÑO

TUNJUELITO

CANDELARIA

SANTA FÉ

RAFAEL URIBE URIBE SAN CRISTÓBAL

CIUDAD BOLÍVAR

ESTRATOS USME

1 2 3 4

Phase 1

5

Phase 2

6

Phase 3

5.2. Expansion of the TransMilenio BRT system as of 2013, seen in relationship to the city’s estratos.

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Because their dedicated lanes often run in the center of the road, they are accessible by foot and bicycle only at certain locations, for example via the pedestrian bridges built over the top of vehicular traffic (see figure 5.3). Additionally, the TransMilenio’s construction created, in places, a series of leftover spaces that do not fit existing norms and cannot legally be developed. In response, some property owners have bribed officials for development rights and built what some call “Mickey Mouse” buildings with twenty- to thirty-foot depths along the bus lines—buildings that are not desirable. In places, the city has created open spaces out of the leftovers (see figure 5.4). While imperfect, the Bogotá BRT is one of the most widely copied best practices in the world.

5.3. Pedestrian walkway over Autopista Norte to the Calle 100 TransMilenio station.

5.4. A leftover space along a TransMilenio BRT line.

LEARNING FROM BOGOTÁ

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U RB A N DES I G N AN D PO L I T I CAL ECONOMY

Political and economic objectives have long been embedded in large-scale urbandevelopment projects because these projects absorb or “fix” in place excess capital and labor (Harvey 1981) and herald political achievements. Political economy and urban design go hand in hand. In particular, Harvey (2006) asserts that unpacking the role of public space is key to understanding the complex relationship between urban design and political economy. Bogotá provides an excellent test case for exploring this relationship. Those who work to reshape the built environment, especially in the case of Bogotá’s public space mayors, disrupting a city’s existing spatial logic, must contend with the formidable preexisting social, economic, and political forces that drive urban form and function.3 The TransMilenio BRT system is one example of urban design implemented to create metropolitan-scale change. By choosing to work on a metropolitan scale, the mayors were better able to address broad social and economic needs than they would have been if either or both of them had developed plans for less than the whole of the city. Spatial logics that have developed over time form the context for understanding a city’s political economy. Despite arguments that “urban design is dead” (Sorkin 2006) and that there has been a significant decline in public-sector involvement in city visioning (Loukaitou-Sideris and Banerjee 1998), in Bogotá, the mayor’s office’s vision in urban design led the city’s transformation. In large-scale change proposed by cities such as Bogotá, both social and economic objectives shape the interplay between governance and design decision making. Public space projects are traditional territory for urban designers, who focus on shaping the built environment and especially the shared public realm of cities. LoukaitouSideris (2012) calls for increased “scope and perspective” in urban design (476). Bogotá and cities like it offer a counterpoint in which in the service of meeting significant political, social, and/or economic goals, urban design is operating within a territory of design concerned with large-scale economic and urban-revitalization efforts. This kind of “project,” in which the entire city is implicated, draws from a genealogy of public space project types that have developed from the 1960s onward, and they are contextualized by a new era of globalization driven by global interconnectedness via digital and informational networks (Castells 1996). A discussion on differing analyses of globalization lies outside the scope of this chapter. The point I wish to emphasize here is that, within the context of globalization in the second half of the twentieth century, as described by Castells, in The Rise of the Network Society (1996), and others (Dicken 1998; Geyer and Bright 1995), new types of public space projects emerged. These projects were increasingly shaped by the global circulation of best practices, which the rise of network societies allowed, and by the economic and political pressures contingent upon increased interconnection on regional and global scales. Fragmented combinations of infrastructure, access, and mobility characterize this reshaping of the 124

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urban condition based on socioeconomic status and where businesses choose to invest (Graham and Marvin 2001).

P U B L I C S PAC E PR OJ ECT T R ENDS

Creating car-free historic or central districts began in 1962, with Copenhagen’s conversion of the Strøget area to a pedestrian-only space. This and similar projects sought to recuperate space for pedestrians from areas dominated by the automobile. Between 1962 and 2005, Copenhagen’s pedestrian-only zone expanded sixfold.4 Since Copenhagen began the practice, city districts around the world have developed car-free zones. Bogotá, which has pedestrian-only areas throughout the city, is also considering converting a portion of its historic centro to a car-free district. Car-free days and events have grown increasingly popular. From its beginning in Bogotá, the Ciclovía movement has expanded across the globe: events are now being held in cities as diverse as Los Angeles, Brussels, and Jakarta.5 A second broad trend seen from the 1960s forward is the remaking of waterfront districts and the creation of linear open spaces as aging or damaged infrastructure has been replaced.6 Within the United States, the timing of these projects was predicated on obsolescence and availability of funding, but also was part of the responses to natural disasters such as earthquakes and to social protest—especially against freeway building. The legacy of decades of activism and freeway protests in US cities, initiated by the “civic vanguard”—concerned citizen groups working with city leaders or pushing those leaders where they lacked will—can be seen today in pedestrian- and bicycle-friendly best practices developed in New York, Portland, Oregon, and other cities (Snyder 2015) and exported around the world. These projects provide significant benefits to cities through the addition of needed open space and habitat connections. The linear nature of many of these projects increases human contact with green space and maximizes edge area, drawing upon principles driving eco-friendly city plans such as those for Copenhagen and Stuttgart (Beatley 2000). An excellent example in Bogotá is the redesign of Avenida Jiménez in the centro (discussed in chapter 4), which connects universities, museums, and a historic business and residential district with the TransMilenio BRT system by way of a native-tree-lined street and walkway along which runs a linear fountain that mimics the Río San Francisco running beneath it. Beginning in the early 1980s, in post-dictatorship Barcelona, careful removal of select buildings and insertions of designed open space established a third public space project trend, that of an acupunctural response to designing public space and recuperating the public realm. Other iconic examples of this trend include Brazilian politician and architect Jaime Lerner’s reinvention of Curitiba’s public realm with inexpensive moves to claim public space and expand public transit in the late 1980s.7 Commenced in 1995, the Favela-Bairro Program in Rio de Janeiro is a variation that partners state sponsorship with the support of international organizations. The program name signifies the LEARNING FROM BOGOTÁ

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transition of a favela (slum) community into that of a bairro (neighborhood). Tactical approaches to create and populate public space continue to evolve, as seen in diverse projects such as the parklet movement—building mini-parks by expanding sidewalks, typically, often taking over parking spaces—observed in New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Seattle, and in the expansion of programs supporting public life, including bike share; art exhibition, food truck, and public space pop-ups; and mobile community services. A fourth trend focuses on projects that are primarily used to boost the image or “brand strength” of cities. The Diagonal Mar development in Barcelona, created for the 2004 Universal Forum of Cultures, signaled the use of public space to invite investment and increase tourism. The Forum development was critiqued as exemplifying a “second Barcelona” model, one that is much more exclusive, private, and driven by those who will benefit economically (Miranda 2010). Projects overtly designed to create and support brand strength are often less palatable to citizens, sometimes becoming contested. Another means of using public space to boost place recognition involves the so-called mega events, such as the Olympic Games and World Cup series. The Beijing Olympic Green and Rio de Janeiro’s hosting of the 2014 World Cup and 2016 Summer Olympics are exemplary in this regard. In the quest for easy “imageability” and brand strength, the actual content of this type of project, especially planning for what to do with the constructed space and buildings after the event is over, is often de-prioritized. The perils are all too evident, as in the cases of the 2006 Winter Olympics in Turin and the 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens. In Greece, public debt for structures that remain unused following the Games has been monumental, helping to bring the entire country to its knees. The Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia, were no different. Built in haste, with the support of private investors who sought to benefit financially, and with no long-term plan for future use of the structures, the Russian public is now fronting 90 percent of the $51 billion USD price tag as investors renege on their commitments (Segal 2014). Sochi’s Olympic Games were the most expensive Olympic Games of all time (Vasilyeva 2015), costing more than all previous Winter Games combined (Waldron 2014).

P U B L I C S PAC E AS A CATALYST FOR DEVELOPMENT

Good urban design is now equated with sound economic development strategy; public space projects are tools in the political economy of cities, especially when used to create or expand the assets, such as attractions or infrastructure, that help build city brand strength (Michael and Sedghi 2014). Low and Smith (2006) note that “the connections between public space and political and cultural economy deserve closer scrutiny because public spaces are simultaneously an expression of social power and a force themselves that help shape social relations” (vii). Recognition of this dual role for public space—as signified and signifier—is a key aspect of why Bogotá’s transformation was so successful for a time. With it, the mayors created a pedagogical city in which citizens 126

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gained satisfaction and meaning from the mayors’ visible innovations in governance and policy as well as new public space types. In return, citizens shaped the city through their participation in its daily life. In the 1990s and the first decade of the 2000s, Bogotá presented important exceptions to significant global public space trends. In many cities public space has become structured rather than serving as a structuring element of the built environment. Scholars writing on public space have tracked a profound decrease in the importance and democratic use of public space (Amin 2006; Cuthbert 2006; Low 2006; Low and Smith 2006; Sennett 1992; Smith 1996). Low and Smith (2006) note that, globally, “public spaces are no longer, if they ever were, democratic places where a diversity of peoples and activities are embraced and tolerated” (vii). “A creeping encroachment in previous years has in the last two decades become an epoch-making shift culminating in multiple closures, erasures, inundations, and transfigurations of public space at the behest of state and corporate strategies” (1). Scholars also note the gradual restricting of rights and uses within public space, including a decline in public space importance and safety (Low and Smith 2006); an increase in confrontations and rights violations (Mitchell and Staeheli 2006; Berney 2012), especially among homeless individuals attempting to live in public space (Mitchell and Staeheli 2006); and an increase in the monitoring and management of public spaces. Yet, in contrast to experiences of loss and privatization of public space in North America and Europe (Berrizbeitia 1999; Low and Smith 2006) and previously noted challenges in Latin American cities (Salazar Ferro 2003), public space in Bogotá increased in these decades in quantity and in importance as a normative element of the city’s form as well as in the daily lives of its citizens. This meant that, within the paradoxical trends of a simultaneous decline in quality, meaning, and use of public space, and a renaissance of public space projects, including new and rehabilitated spaces headlining city remaking and branding efforts around the world, Bogotá countered the pervasive trend of privatization and loss of public life. Not only did the public space mayors literally reverse the trend in privatization, leading the move from a “private” to a “public” urbanism and recouping land owned by the city and bringing it back into the public realm (described in detail in chapter 3), they also successfully encouraged the rebirth of public life, creating opportunities to break down “otherness” by inviting people to socialize in the city’s public landscapes. The Bogotá transformation privileged daily activities and in so doing established them as pleasing, even beautiful, creating an aestheticization of everyday life. Through everyday urbanism (Chase, Crawford, and Kaliski 1999), the daily material practices of people—life patterns, habits, and decisions, all things that definitively shape the space and relationships around them—became complicit as spectacle in the political economy of the city. In essence, everyday scenes of Bogotanos going about their daily business in public landscapes became the best signs of recovery and success that the city could provide to the world (see figure 5.5). LEARNING FROM BOGOTÁ

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5.5. Everyday activities in Bogotá’s public spaces. Biking and Vending photos by Mike Ceaser, Bogotá Bike Tours; Sitting photo by Hanneorla (Flickr); Shopping photo by Mike Ceaser, Bogotá Bike Tours; Reading photo by Stephanie Rocío Miles.

D I C H OTO M I ES O F DEVELO PM E NT

Mixing public interest with private investment in and management of projects in the built environment can lead to confrontations between the haves and the have-nots, the housed and the homeless, and the well behaved and the unruly, especially when there are conflicts between stakeholders (the different publics who want to use public space or manage it according to their own agendas). While inadequate to encapsulate the complexities of urban life, the study of dichotomies can be valuable. The Bogotá experience provides several such dichotomies that warrant close consideration. Redevelopment projects are regularly rationalized by city governments and boosters as responding to pressing social needs or issues, but in fact are frequently a means for local and foreign elites to profit. In Bogotá, the mayors assumed that groups working for social and economic development would work together cooperatively, believing that each could aid the other. The city’s approach was, as discussed in chapter 2, “to incorporate in a successful manner the Bogotá city region in the dynamics of globalization, guaranteeing at the same time the inclusion and improvement of living conditions for the whole population” (DAPD 2006, 73). Despite this, a tension existed between “content,” the substance of what projects were meant to accomplish, especially in terms of positive social outcomes, and “image,” pleasing pictures or representations of projects. Learning from Bogotá means unpacking and understanding what these dichotomies 128

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have to teach us, which can help move cities toward being more user-focused when they make decisions about design and development. When concerns about physical qualities of the built environment are at the forefront, and allowable uses of public space are determined by the desire to present an appealing image, “quality of place” comes into conflict with “quality of life.” The criteria for measuring quality of life are the quality and availability of food, shelter, and work, as well as the basic human needs of meaning, well-being, and health in daily life. Quality of life does not preclude quality of place—a sound and attractive physical environment enhances health and well-being; however, the reverse is not always true because quality of place concerns often become tightly focused on aesthetics. In cities, especially those confronted with massive socioeconomic inequalities, acknowledging that quality of life is a better measure of success than quality of place is crucial, especially when quality of place is mistakenly thought to create quality of life. Façade improvements are beneficial, but may not substantially address deep-seated needs; rehabilitation programs such as Favela-Bairro in Rio de Janeiro and Quiero Mi Barrio in Santiago, Chile, while tremendously beneficial in terms of improving infrastructures pertaining to daily living, such as shelter, sewer, and water, fall short of addressing other significant social problems faced by their targeted populations, such as access to food and work. Likewise, cities striving to create “livability” sometimes define it too narrowly, not allowing for sustainable livelihoods for all (Evans 2002).8 In cities, friction between the decline in public space and the renaissance of public space projects used to front civic branding efforts has led to seemingly intractable tensions. These challenges are exacerbated by pervasive socioeconomic inequalities and fierce competition for business investment in cities. The hegemonic value system of neoliberalism, which prioritizes private, market-driven decision making over state planning, contributes significantly to these tensions (Purcell 2009). As a result, cities around the world are strategizing to secure and protect economic investment in public space, which requires creating controllable environments and minimizing conflicts between users of public space. This task is frequently handed off to private entities to manage. In 1994, Bogotá’s Fundación Compartir (Sharing Foundation) established a program for the city’s parks and public spaces to “recuperate public spaces . . . with the active participation of the private sector, the authorities and neighboring communities through the creation, in many cases, of a neighborhood association” (Fundación Compartir 2006, 54). Within six years the foundation had recuperated more than 125 acres (51 hectares) of public space in 71 parks (Fundación Compartir n.d.). The work continued. For example, in 2006, Compartir invested $200 million COP ($98,000 USD) in five of Bogotá’s city parks, rehabilitating 4 acres (1.6 hectares) of public space (Fundación Compartir 2007, 32). Interviews with officials in Bogotá’s Defense of Public Space department revealed that they too felt the need to involve private interests. In 2006, the department director, Germán Darío Rodríguez, said, LEARNING FROM BOGOTÁ

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The public resources aren’t enough for all of the investments that are required, that is to say that there are cases . . . where the participation of the private actor is fundamental. . . . If there is a private actor [willing to invest] in one area, I can direct the district’s resources to another area and invest there. . . . In the case of Bogotá and in the theme of public space the participation of private actors would be . . . a marvel because we could have public spaces permanently cared for on the schedule that they required—safe, illuminated—but it is very difficult for everyone to understand that type of social responsibility and understand that the public spaces belong to everyone. (interview by author, October 31, 2006)

Not surprisingly, Bogotá’s city government tapped some of the city’s largest employers to help fund public space. For example, in Parque de la 93 in the Zona Rosa, a private company decorates the park every year for Christmas, in exchange for advertising in the park (see figure 5.6). Parque de la 93 was highlighted in Fundación Compartir’s 2006 annual report because the park’s friends group provided funds to redo pathways and electrical wiring and to buy security cameras for monitoring the area (2007, 33). Parks in the northern, wealthier areas of the city are far more likely to receive private support than any others; this is especially true of the parks in the Zona Rosa entertainment area. The city’s push for public space during the public space mayors’ administrations was not fully reconciled with its limits to funding and maintaining the spaces. Thus, the willingness of private groups to step in significantly affected the city’s ability to provide

5.6. Christmas in Parque de la 93. Courtesy of GO, Guía del Ocio.

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amenities (access to public space). While in 2006 the city claimed to be adequately planning for maintenance (Rodríguez, interview by author, October 31, 2006), many acknowledged that the city’s planning and public space departments could not handle the design and construction process or costs alone (Castro Jaramillo 2003, 84; Fundación Compartir 2006), which opened the door to continued private investment. Governments and special-interest groups in Bogotá (and other cities) desire to protect landscape scenes that are developed and promoted because they are important to demonstrating the groups’ success. As a result, such organizations frequently turned to tactics such as behavior monitoring and utilizing private interests to manage and orchestrate public spaces for the “public good.” This has been seen in Bogotá over the last few decades, where public-private partnerships and business-improvement districts have increased. These projects often blur boundaries between public and private, resulting in, for example, an increase in systems designed to create and maintain order, from video surveillance through closed-circuit television to ambassador programs; insertions of programming and concessions into public spaces; and efforts to fix norms for public behavior within narrow limits, thus excluding potentially disruptive political activities and people who do not fit the new city image. Activities such as doing business and sleeping in public—which have long been practiced in Bogotá—came to be seen as problematic. PR OJ E CT S NAPS HOT: PARQUE EL VIRREY • Location: Calle 88, between Carrera 7 and Autopista Norte • Size: 26 acres (10.5 hectares) • Estrato: 6 • Timeline: 1999 • Administered by: Alcaldía Mayor de Bogotá (mayor’s office), Compensar

(foundation focused on health, recreation, and tourism), Aquaducto Agua y Alcantarillado de Bogotá (water and sewer), Jardín Botánico José Celestino Mutis (botanical garden) A neighborhood park that runs in a linear fashion east–west through the Zona Rosa commercial and entertainment district, Parque El Virrey, opened in 1999, has a shaded and verdant appearance, plus a fantastic display of Christmas decorations each year and permanent stalls for flower sellers (see figures 5.7, 5.8, and 5.9). Parque El Virrey is organized around a channelized stream and has more varied vegetation than many other city parks. It features ciclorutas, walkways, and children’s play areas. Built during the Peñalosa administration, Parque El Virrey represented a new type of park for Bogotá, one that is ecologically focused.9 Users of Parque El Virrey who responded to questions in my 2006 public space survey said they see the park as “secure and visually pleasing,” a place of “tranquility and beauty.” They appreciate the “stream, LEARNING FROM BOGOTÁ

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400 ft

5.7. Parque El Virrey in context.

100 m

5.8. The channelized stream in Parque El Virrey. Photo by Pedro Felipe. Courtesy of Wikimedia Creative Commons. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/deed.en.

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5.9. Parque El Virrey flower vendors at their permanent stalls. Photo by Ana María Ewert.

the cleanliness of the area, and the landscape.” The park draws people who are commuting and those who want to stroll, buy flowers, and meet friends. It is a peaceful space, though punctuated by traffic jams in the cross streets during rush hour. The majority of the vendors in the park are flower sellers. Their main concern with the new design was that their customers no longer have ample parking, though they still remain busy. Parque El Virrey demonstrates the tension between private conceptions of the public good versus the freedom of users to use public space as they like. For example, the range of acceptable behavior in Parque El Virrey narrowed after its opening in 1999, as the nearby neighborhood association grew increasingly vocal about limiting certain activities, such as informal vending and teaching classes in the park. During the time that I spent in Bogotá in 2006, people living in the neighborhood reported that the citizens’ group was preventing people from conducting business, including a musician who wanted to play music and provide lessons there, because it felt he would disrupt the tranquility of the space. This response marked a change from how public space was previously utilized in Bogotá as well as within the normative uses of public space in Latin America, generally, where people conduct business within public space (Low 2000).

In Bogotá, the new public space projects that got “content” right and were most successful at increasing quality of life along with quality of place focused on things that LEARNING FROM BOGOTÁ

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contribute directly to livelihood and health and well-being, including access to recreation and availability of affordable and convenient means to commute to and from work. The Paseo de Patio Bonito project extended water service into the neighborhood and provided, at the same time, a safe, elevated place to walk and bike through the neighborhood and a spine that linked the community with the formal city by way of infrastructure extensions and TransMilenio service. Food vendors and bicitaxis (bicycle taxis) operated by both men and women, carrying people along the paseo, sprang up in response. Biblioteca El Tunal, located within the regional park Parque El Tunal, was another success because people enjoyed coming to both the park and the library. In the public space survey, visitors reported that the area is easy to get to and that the diversity of people seen there enriches their daily lives. These equalizing networks— linear projects connecting neighborhoods of different types and means—and hybrid hubs—cultural and educational institutions co-located with public parks—were generally more successful than the civic-space project type—plazas and parks—in combining content and image. Civic spaces were the most challenging type of project for the public space mayors because within them lay the territory where issues of behavioral reform and spatial control directly confronted individual freedom and rights (Berney 2012). The cautionary tale in Bogotá, as in other cities, is that it is tempting to think of public space as a relatively easy choice for change, since it appears to offer cheap, fast, and visible solutions. But what emerges out of an image-focused, rather than content-focused, design are landscapes, or tableaux—striking scenes of public order rather than public spaces. In articulating the difference between landscape and public space, Mitchell (2000) contends, “Landscape is where one recreates—it is literally a resort—and where one basks in the leisure of a well-ordered scene. Public space is a space of conflict, of political tussle, of social relations stripped to their barest essentials. A place cannot be both a public space and a landscape, at least not at the same time” (136). For Bogotá’s parks, plazas, and streets to be public spaces, the rights of every citizen have to be valued and protected. In Bogotá, we see an example where public space users were meant to be a willing and receptive audience for everyday spectacle, to become actors populating tableaux rather than citizens using public space. This is more likely to occur where projects have a global, rather than local, focus (meaning that they are not grounded in local priorities, social needs, and desires); where “cues for caring,” as described in chapter 4, overrule the free use of public space; and where representatives of the orderly city, including civic guides, police, and even vendors protecting their territory, reduce people’s free access to public space or even keep them from it entirely. Global audiences, real or desired, for local public spaces complicate this. With globalization has come an extended audience for local places. Massey (2004) posits that place identity is constantly renegotiated within a constellation of local and global narratives. The Plaza San Victorino redesign process discussed in chapter 4, for example, 134

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5.10. Bogotá as “a city that constructs spaces of citizen encounter” (DAPD 2001, 5). Redrawn from DAPD (2001, 5).

showcased adjacent historic architecture at the expense of responding to contemporary user needs and behaviors. The redone plaza, highlighted in coffee table–book visions of Bogotá, was envisioned by the city for global consumption as an idealized space “of citizen encounter” (see figure 5.10). However, the local population has retaken the space, subverting many of its intended uses to suit their own needs.

COM M O DI FI ED L AN DS CAPES AND COMMODIF IED CITIZENS

During the public space mayors’ time in office, the city’s public landscape served as representation (symbol), stage set (display), and agent. Latour’s concept of actant helps define landscape as agent. In The Politics of Nature (2004), Latour describes an actant as anything that “modif[ies] other actors through a series of . . . actions” (75). New public spaces in Bogotá created changes in people’s behavior, conveying a message of inclusion to be integrated in the new city narrative. This was part of a process of establishing place consciousness, the process in which a city (or other place) goes from being “in itself ” to being “for itself ”: “If it is to become the latter, that is, if it is to begin to think of itself politically, it must, for a significant part of its population, become a project” (Friedmann 2002, 63). The city’s parks, plazas, rapid transit system, avenidas, and libraries were depicted as citizen spaces—framed, messaged, and staffed as spaces LEARNING FROM BOGOTÁ

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of citizen encounter that, in turn, shaped citizen relations (Berney 2011) and international response to the city. A commodified landscape is one that is perceived as a product or good that is tradable; it has exchange value rather than merely use value. Once the experience of public space becomes a tradable product or experience, in this case citizen space, that product is protected and managed for its monetary value. Consequently, citizen space becomes a tableau; it ceases to be public space. Mitchell (2000) calls this type of space “well-ordered” (136); it may exist in public space, but is often more privatized and programmed in nature. In Bogotá, the public space mayors chose to manage informal uses of the space by restricting what vendors could do in order to create public spaces they believed would be more inviting to a range of people and also more attractive to a global audience. This helped establish an orderly city. It also supported visible competency. The rejection of undesirable behavior and, at the extreme, undesirable people from Bogotá’s public space pushed the experience of those spaces past a tipping point at which public space failed as an ideal and became instead a commodified scene. As the presence of an agent of control increases in an area, whether state power (Scott 1998) or the pressure of capital (Harvey 1981), that area’s spatial logic changes. In most cases, that part of the city is expected to become easier to read and navigate, which gives authorities greater control over the space and renders the space more open to outsiders (Scott 1998) and lessens local control. The development of Parque Tercer Milenio in the city center is an example of changing the legibility and with it the story of an area. Peñalosa carved out a portion of the Cartucho neighborhood adjacent to the historic centro, replacing the chaos of that neighborhood with the order of a new park. Public officials and citizens removed vendors and the homeless from the park to improve its “scenic” qualities. Mitchell (2000) explains, “In such landscapes, the intrusion of undesirables—the homeless, the unemployed, or the otherwise threatening—seems to imperil the carefully constructed suspension of disbelief on the part of the ‘audience’ that all theatrical performances (and hence all landscapes) demand” (137). The process of managing public space experiences even extends, at times, to cities managing “informal” and “spontaneous” use of space in the other direction, that is, putting people into public space, for example, in the form of permitting vendors to sell in previously disallowed places to enliven spaces and permitting restaurants to “rent” sidewalk space for use as outdoor dining areas, creating “actors” for tableaux (Berney 2013). Clearly, the further Bogotá traveled down the path toward the Regional Planning Board’s goal of becoming “fully articulated in the world market” (DAPD 2006), the more pronounced the exclusions and regulation seemed to become. The city sold tableaux conveying Bogotá as “world class” as part of the narrative of Bogotá as a safe, desirable place to do business, live, and visit. Ironically, Bogotá’s well-loved and well-used public spaces inevitably became the site of the creation of commoditized experiences to help sell the city to outsiders—tourists and investors—as well as to its own inhabitants. 136

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B LU RR I N G PU B LI C AN D PR I VATE

As discussed in chapter 3, under Mockus’s and Peñalosa’s direction, the city reversed previous land privatizations in line with the move from private to public urbanism. This directive returned public land to public oversight. However, as public space became a major agenda item for city transformation, as well as international exposure, boundaries between public and private in Bogotá began to blur in new ways, and activities and behaviors came into conflict in the city’s public spaces. This occurred partially because the range of stakeholders had increased, creating a more diverse set of publics than had existed before; this amplified different views of what constituted appropriate use and behavior. Conflict also occurred in public spaces themselves, as notions of what public space was meant to accomplish in the “new” Bogotá clashed with formerly normative uses. As Bogotá remade itself, the appeal of the city and the ability of the city to care for people improved dramatically. This led many people to choose to come to Bogotá seeking shelter and work, and some of them began living in the city’s public spaces. Immigrants, especially desplazados, newly arrived to the city were especially vulnerable. Collectively, these changes set up a conflict between “public” and “private” activities, which Watson (2006) describes as those “framed with reference to bodies and corporeality” (161), such as sleeping, working, and living in public spaces, which were increasingly seen as interfering with other people’s use of Bogotá’s public spaces, such as friends of the parks groups. With public spaces to share in Bogotá, the need to accept a significant amount of difference increased. Yet at the same time, pressure for public space to appear orderly did as well. Hence, normative ways of “doing business” in public space, including vending, were discouraged or prohibited.

W H OSE R I G HT TO T HE C I TY?

No examination of Bogotá can overlook questions about the right to the city, especially given the public space mayors’ goals to increase equity and expand citizen rights related to the city and to public space. Lefebvre (1996) describes the right to the city as “a cry and a demand . . . [for] a transformed and renewed right to urban life” (158).10 Harvey (2012) calls the right to the city a “means” rather than an “end,” contending that the process of defining the right to the city, as well as determining who gets a say, is an ongoing struggle; and that negotiating meaning is as important as creating the material conditions that support it (xv). From Bogotá’s perspective, the right to the city was broadly conceived of as the right of each person to have equal access to the city and its resources, to exercise full citizenship, and to be provided the capacity to construct his or her life and to participate in the equitable development of the city (Velásquez Carrillo 2004). Citizens’ views supported this assessment. The public space survey revealed a strong sense of collective responsibility for societal norms for public behavior. When asked whether everyone has a right to the city, 93 percent of people said yes, everyone LEARNING FROM BOGOTÁ

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has a right to it, either freely or within the limits of acceptable behavior.11 Challenging this was the expansion of private interests and the diminishment of tolerance for conflicting user groups; in reality, defining the right to the city was limited by desires to modernize Bogotá and to present it on the world stage.

G LOB A L B EST PR ACT I C ES

The public space projects and their underlying new logic made a project of the entire city and established place consciousness. Many of these projects completed under Mockus’s and Peñalosa’s direction are viewed as exemplary. Fernando Montenegro, vice rector of the National University of Colombia, Bogotá, linked the city’s redevelopment to the evolution of new social customs: “The most noteworthy aspect of the development of the city is comprised by the extremely swift improvement made to the transport system and to the public spaces in the city. The urban improvement was accompanied by a new form of behavior and growing social identification by most of the citizens” (n.d., 251). In the PBS documentary Bogotá: Building a Sustainable City (Albers and Fettig 2007), Peñalosa succinctly says that the city is not a model, yet he often promotes its best practices. What is agreed upon is that the city was transformed in unexpected ways—more completely and much faster than anyone could have imagined. A celebratory notion of Bogotá as a model rejuvenated by Peñalosa is perpetuated in books such as Happy City: Transforming Our Lives through Urban Design (Montgomery 2013). But by assigning Bogotá’s success solely to Peñalosa and disseminating a singular vision of change, this book presents an incomplete picture. In reality, it illustrates that as models or best practices are removed from their original contexts, often through a process that essentializes—stripping detail and creating a narrative of inherent success—it becomes crucial to analyze the social milieux from which they emerged, so that physical results can be properly weighed against their genesis. It is even more important to take care with global best practices, given the broader transnational circumnavigation from city to city. Using the Ciclovía as an example, Montero (forthcoming) explores the process of sharing urban-policy best practices, noting that the process of legitimizing/ legitimating “appropriate ways of governing, organizing, and managing urban space” (2) is driven by a complex array of “actors, networks, and agendas” (10). The effects of Bogotá’s transformation rippled across the region, and its impact on other Latin American cities is especially interesting. Following the TransMilenio’s opening in 2000, work commenced in Quito, Ecuador, on its own Metrobus, a BRT line. Rolled out in 2003, it was built to enhance the existing Ecovía and Trolebús systems. Cuenca, Ecuador, a tourist destination because of its UNESCO-designated centro histórico, began planning for bus rapid transit as early as 2001 because of struggles with unregulated bus service (similar to Bogotá’s colectivo system) and particulate- and noise-pollution levels above World Health Organization guidelines (Wright 2001, 14). Cuenca’s Unidad Municipal de Transito y Transporte Terrestre (Municipal Transit and 138

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Transport Unit) commenced service in 2008. The city and the Inter-American Development Bank jointly developed the plan guiding Cuenca’s transportation changes. With its Metrocable gondola lines, outdoor escalators, and redevelopment projects, Medellín, Colombia, is hailed as “Latin America’s next superstar” (Scruggs 2014). Drawing upon the model established by Bogotá’s public space mayors, the mayor of Medellín, Sergio Fajardo Valderrama (2003–2007), ignited an urbanismo social (social urbanism) agenda with the goal to channel investment and quality architecture into the poorest areas of the city and to better connect those areas to the rest of the city with public transportation solutions appropriate to Medellín’s steep topography. The first Metrocable gondola line opened in 2004. Since then, two more have been constructed, as well as one extension; the city’s transit company manages all of its transportation projects.

L E S SO N S FR O M B O G OTÁ

There are many lessons to be learned from Bogotá’s experience, key themes and dynamics that drove the success of the city. The public space mayors experimented, open to any positive change. Transforming across the spectrum of ideas, experiences, and ways of being and doing, Bogotá shows us important ways forward in terms of city management and design. First, leadership was crucial to Bogotá’s transformation. The public space mayors possessed a moral authority borne out of desperate circumstance. They had vision, a sense of responsibility, and the necessary skills to lead. Transforming a city like Bogotá requires strong vision, along with the will to implement it. Mockus and Peñalosa engaged the everyday environment for people throughout the city in a vision that was deliberately inclusive. They interwove projects at many different scales into a synergistic whole, creating a grand, strategic vision, yet they worked without a singular master plan. The daunting circumstances that the public space mayors began with, especially Mockus, in 1995 (and Castro before him), cannot be overstated. It was incredibly difficult and dangerous to assume leadership of the city; they faced tremendous obstacles. The city had become synonymous with the international drug cartels—a tough image to crack and extremely difficult to remake. Undertaking projects with broad appeal aided their success. In contrast, later mayors laid out visions that were partial in scope and scale, which have not been as successful. Second, cities have become the driving force for human and economic development. Because of this, big city mayors rank as some of the most important figures creating change on a global scale. The public space mayors demonstrated this power through their work. The United Nations reports on its website that 54 percent of the world’s population lives in cities; by 2050 that number is expected to rise to 66 percent. In areas of the Global South, that percentage is much higher. In Latin America, the most urbanized region in the world, the urban population has been close to 80 percent for LEARNING FROM BOGOTÁ

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many years. On its website, UN Habitat predicts that Latin American cities will hold 90 percent of the region’s population by 2050. Cities are also increasingly the source for individual and group identity—a new tribal identity for some—as they supersede nationstates and regions in holding the loyalty of their citizens. Similarly, “Bogotantud” was born and thrived during the public space mayors’ years. City leaders now make many of the decisions that shape people’s daily lives and their quality of life. This is especially impactful because cities have become vast in structure, scale, and function. Because of this, city visioning processes have the potential to address the needs of all citizens. Third, the spatial logics of cities are in constant revision, and improvements in spatial logic can increase opportunities for more equitable uses of a city, including sharing collective resources. In Bogotá, legible landscapes contributed to learning, inclusion, and stewardship. Public space became easier to navigate, which led to activities that helped provide a sense of collective identity, and many people found a place within it. With greater legibility comes opportunities for developing sustainable places, practices, and policies in cities. In Bogotá, safe and well-designed civic spaces helped citizens develop feelings of stewardship and a sense of collective ownership. Participation and stewardship can contribute to increasing the sustainability and resilience of cities. Bogotá’s focus on delivering access to collective resources in public space can be emulated in similar types of programs in cities throughout the world. Fourth, access and mobility can be great equalizers. Bogotá’s equalizing networks dramatically reshaped the city as well as expanding people’s mobility by means of public transit. In the process, the TransMilenio became a model of a best practice for cities globally. Bogotá’s system of feeder buses, the alimentadores, was a positive example of how to get people to and from the troncales through both formal and informal city fabric, meeting the challenge many commuters face using metropolitan-scale transportation systems—having difficulty traveling the first and last miles of their journeys, which is one of the most important factors determining system use and success. However, providing more bicycle facilities and strategically engaging redevelopment opportunities along the main lines, especially at pedestrian- and bicycle-access points, were challenges for Bogotá. Bogotá’s experience reminds us that for cities making investments in transportation infrastructure, vision must be comprehensive. Whether following a public or public-private operating model, excellent circulation and mobility within a city are crucial to extending the definition of, and helping to secure, the right of all to the city. Fifth, elements of the built environment that perform political functions, such as, in Bogotá’ case, establishing identity or a sense of pride, can be analyzed as landscapes of power (Zukin 1991). While many analyses of landscapes of power focus on special events and iconic spaces as the most consequential, Bogotá revealed that daily activities and the spaces of the city in which they take place are equally significant in conveying visible success in governance and policy, if not more so. The success of Bogotá’s transformation stemmed, in large measure, from the public space mayors’ successes 140

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in creating a spectacle of the everyday in the city’s public landscapes. This resulted in an everyday city organized in form and function around responsiveness to daily living needs and patterns, one in which the city’s public landscapes established “a taste for events” (Bryant 2011) by presenting activities in which to engage.

CON CLU S I O N S

While Bogotá’s transformation was inevitably incomplete—it is impossible, after all, to completely remake a city socially, physically, or otherwise—other cities still can learn much from Bogotá. Bogotá offers the lesson that a citywide strategic approach that is not master planned can be very effective. This contrasts with the traditional master-plan process, with the prevalent role of private development in shaping cities, and also with postmodern piecemeal, project-by-project development. The scale of growing cities, in the Global South and elsewhere, calls for a metropolitan perspective and response; Bogotá’s transformation happened by planning at this scale. The role of the public sector was immensely important in this process, again, in contrast with many cities. In Bogotá’s case, the elected local leadership functioned as city builder and employed proactive and visionary municipal support. The public space mayors placed deliberate focus upon ordinary spaces and places— the everyday city—and the creation of livable, humane, and comfortable spaces that offered access to resources, if not the resources themselves. Both Mockus and Peñalosa focused on ways to connect people and to support collective empowerment. Their work demonstrates an understanding of, or at least a belief in, how the redesign of public space can positively impact political, economic, and social issues on a societal scale. Looking at that in reverse, the design process used cultural and social issues as motivation and inspiration, something Loukaitou-Sideris (2012) notes is lacking in current practice in urban design. Mockus and Peñalosa were able to bridge, socially and physically, populations in the city that had been separated. They sponsored design projects that created links between the formal and informal city, connecting areas of the city of very different socioeconomic status and lessening the divides that exacerbate inequality. Those who are more affluent tend to be able to exercise more control over the built environment. This is true in Bogotá, but changes to the public realm there privileged the underprivileged. And, by countering the trend of privatization and loss of public life, the city supported all of its citizens, in a fundamental way. Bogotá models many qualities of the built environment that can make everyday life—especially public life—more comfortable, including recreational space close to home, equalizing networks that enhance mobility, public spaces that are safe and easy to navigate, and ample opportunities for inhabitants to participate in the life of the city. Finally, Bogotá demonstrates that urban design is capable of and should engage issues of social justice. Designing is a political act. LEARNING FROM BOGOTÁ

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Epilogue The Changing City

W

ith the three mayors who followed Mockus and Peñalosa, Luis Eduardo “Lucho” Garzón (2004–2007), Samuel Moreno Rojas (2008–2011), and Gustavo Petro Urrego (2012–2015), leadership style and vision inevitably shifted. Perhaps most telling is that none ran as an independent, as Mockus and Peñalosa did because they were convinced that freedom from party ties was necessary to serve the city and to offer a comprehensive vision of a better life. Lucho Garzón, an activist and former union leader, ran as a member of the Polo Democrativo Alternativo (PDA; Alternative Democratic Pole party), a social democratic party. His focus lay with the poorer south. He is known for his program to bring milk and bread to the poor, and one of his lasting accomplishments is the construction of a number of comedores comunitarios—community kitchens—in southern Bogotá. He accused the public space mayors, Peñalosa in particular, of superficially improving the city, comparing their public space projects to makeup that Garzón believed would crack. Samuel Moreno, a lawyer and a politician, also entered office on the wings of the PDA, but he failed to serve the full term of his office. He struggled to articulate a clear vision, finally latching onto Phase 3 of the TransMilenio BRT after his proposal 142

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to pursue a subway system was widely criticized. While in office, he was investigated for his ties to irregularities and corruption in public construction bidding. He was sentenced to prison. Gustavo Petro, a former M-19 guerrilla member, was a member of the PDA for many years but was elected as a member of the Movimiento Progresistas (Progressive Movement). Petro’s term in office has been marred by questions of effectiveness. Many view him as a divisive figure. In December 2013, Colombia’s inspector general, Alejandro Ordoñez, removed Petro from office based on perceived corruption, but the president, Juan Manuel Santos, reinstated him in April 2014. Before being kicked out of office in 2013, Petro strong-armed an update of the city’s general plan, the Plan de Ordenamiento Territorial, through the city council, against their will. His vision focused on large-scale moves to reshape the city; he wanted to demonstrate visible competency in his own way. As the third mayor following their terms, Petro has perhaps been less affected by the legacy of the public space mayors than the first two. Nonetheless, he had to deal with Phase 3 of the TransMilenio, which was the most contentious. Because it stretches into upper-income neighborhoods, residents contested it.1 I had the opportunity to hear Petro speak about his plans for Bogotá at Harvard’s Graduate School of Design in November 2013. He strategically linked climate change to social justice by pointing out that some of the city’s poorest live at the periphery of the city in low-lying land along the Bogotá River, which is regularly in danger of flooding. He imagines that the solution is the wholesale resettlement of those citizens into the geographic center of the city. Petro’s plans rely on developing an expanded center (centro ampliado) in the area that includes Parque Simón Bolívar and a range of institutional and commercial functions along Calle 26, the main road west to the airport. This area corresponds with the wedge that Le Corbusier’s and Gustavo Rojas’s plans for Bogotá inserted into the city’s form in the 1950s to develop an axis of commercial and economic development centered on the airport, a wedge that further solidified the differences between the rich north and the poorer south. Petro’s vision for city transformation is grand in scope but limited in vision and creativity because it neither focuses on the everyday city nor is responsive to daily living needs and patterns. In direct contrast with the public space mayors, who were successful in great part due to their vision for the entire city and all of its citizens (at least in principle), Petro’s vision marks a return to a modernist, top-down, nonreflexive, and utopian approach to the city. During Petro’s time in office the city sponsored an international design competition for the design of a new civic center, meant to consolidate government functions into a campus-like setting and shift the financial and institutional center of the city toward this expanded center. Above I discussed how the public space mayors used both utopian and dystopian thinking to imagine a new city. Both were done reflexively; Petro’s vision shows no such signs. According to Rem Koolhaas’s Office for Metropolitan Architecture (OMA 2013), Petro’s plan for a new civic center would be the largest planned development in a Latin EPILOGUE

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American capital city since the modernist capital of Brazil, Brasília, was constructed between 1956 and 1960. Brasília’s founding reflected the desire to create a capital located in the center of the country. Developed on a rural site unsupported by infrastructure or resident population, the city was created by a team of modernist designers including Lúcio Costa, Oscar Niemeyer, and Roberto Burle Marx. Monumental in scale, it was viewed as a utopian fantasy of what the future might look like. But the city has been plagued with difficulties since its inception. The workers who built it were not able to live there because it was too expensive, so they established communities outside of the city. Politicians and their support staff regularly fly into the city to conduct the business of governing, then fly out to their preferred residential locations in other parts of Brazil. The OMA was selected in a 2013 international competition to build the new civic center for Bogotá. Called the Centro Administrativo Nacional, the 680-acre (275-hectare) OMA civic center plan provides space for government offices, residences, schools, cultural venues, retail, and open space (OMA 2013). Described as having “a footprint as large as the National Mall in Washington, DC,” the design takes over and reshapes part of Parque Simón Bolívar, connecting the park on one side of the site to the Universidad Nacional on the other (OMA 2013). The project is funded by Empresa Virgilio Barco, a consortium of interests operating at the national level in Colombia supporting urban-renovation and urban-development projects (see figures 6.1 and 6.2).

6.1. An architect designs the Centro Administrativo Nacional, 2013. © Office for Metropolitan Architecture. Courtesy of Office for Metropolitan Architecture.

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6.2. Bogotá’s Centro Administrativo Nacional as imagined by the architect, 2013. © Office for Metropolitan Architecture. Courtesy of Office for Metropolitan Architecture.

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It is unclear if Petro’s planned resettlement of citizens from the flood-prone periphery along the Bogotá River into this new center would have substantial benefits for those who are being moved or if the majority of the benefits would accrue to those who have a financial stake in such a relocation. Like Brasília, the proposed civic center for Bogotá is based on several conflicting and problematic notions. It is a “comprehensive, state-sponsored master plan” focused on political achievement (Holston 1989, 56). It deals with a symbolic and difficult physical geography in the city—a westward axis of development—called for by Le Corbusier in 1951 and separately exploited by Bogotá’s only dictator: Gustavo Rojas Pinilla (1953–1957). As Holston argues about Brasília in The Modernist City (1989), Petro’s plan proposes to make a stratified society more egalitarian by introducing a physical means of transforming society. Most importantly, it imposes an imagined future, intending it not only to symbolize the city but to create it. Mockus and Peñalosa, too, sought to create a new city, but their vision was different in key ways. While Petro’s plan imposes change, for the most part, Mockus and Peñalosa encouraged and promoted change. While Petro relies on a master plan, Mockus and Peñalosa collectively contributed to a human-centered, strategic vision that depended on the synergy of coordinated projects and actions over a period of time. This vision did not include much citizen participation, but there were several checks along the way in the form of people opting into programs and voting with their feet and their bicycles, by showing up at events and using new infrastructure.2 Mockus and Peñalosa connected with citizens in areas where help was badly needed—transit, recreation space, enjoyment of the city, and better relationships among inhabitants. They shined a light, so to speak, and slowly led the city out of terrible straits. The public space mayors captured people’s imaginations and their hearts; all Petro has captured is the global gaze of designers and investors. One of the definitive realities of Bogotá is that people like to go their own way. Despite attempts to shut both systems down, they like to shop at vendors and they like to use the colectivo system of private buses. Bogotanos were interested in the public space mayors’ messages while they were in office especially because the city, as well as the country, was in crisis. Mockus and Peñalosa were both incredibly charismatic, visionary leaders; they were also ambitious and strategic. Their ideas to transform the city felt good to citizens. With a new logic for the city, new types of socially focused public space emerged during their administrations. The mayors imposed order and purpose on the public landscape, but once they left office, a vacuum developed. This can be seen, for example, in the decline of the transportation system (Ardila 2007; Bassett and Marpillero-Colomino 2013; Gilbert 2008). Bogotá is dealing with long-standing socioeconomic and geographic inequities. Equalizing takes sustained effort over time. Without continued vision and leadership, spatial logics created by inequity will persist. And without civic participation, no lasting change is possible. In the meantime, while Petro was masterminding the dramatic redesign of a new city center and the wholesale movement of, perhaps, tens 146

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of thousands of people, the city continued to unravel. Based solely on what has come to pass, we are left to wonder if the lessons of the pedagogical city were ever really learned. Yet Bogotá always has the potential to surprise. In a race including eleven candidates, Enrique Peñalosa was reelected in November 2015 to serve as mayor from 2016 to 2019. Since 2000, Peñalosa has run unsuccessfully for mayor twice. Supporters speculate that his unpopularity with entrenched interests that he took on directly during his administration, including car owners, developers, and transportation interests, has been a barrier to reelection. His reelection quite possibly signals a return to a concrete and global vision and opportunities for leadership that the city has lacked in the intervening years. Notably, Mockus supported Peñalosa’s 2015 run for office (El Espectador 2015). Peñalosa’s campaign slogan, “Recuperemos Bogotá” (Let’s get Bogotá back), served as a rebuke to the city’s decline after he and Mockus left office, also fronting his vision and development plan for the city. According to the Bogotá Post (the city’s English-language newspaper) in its post-election analysis, he is viewed as a member of the “Mockusistas,” people who embrace the political philosophy symbolized by Antanas Mockus focusing on collective empowerment, sharing of public resources, and sanctity of life; the Bogotá Post (2015a) predicts that this win symbolizes widespread support for the Mockusistas’ focus on cultura ciudadana (citizen culture). As mayor-elect, Peñalosa inherits a city that, according to his own campaign literature, suffers from lack of security and mobility options as well as a deterioration of citizen culture, among other issues. Recently judged by the Economist as the third worst city in Latin America for quality of life, following Guatemala City and Caracas, Bogotá is falling behind on security and economic gains while the rest of Colombia improves (Guardian 2015). Peñalosa wants to recover Bogotá “from a lack of dreams and ambitions.” On his campaign website, Peñalosa (2015) describes a vision for “Bogotá 2020” that includes a focus on security, mobility, health, education, and citizen culture: Security—Peñalosa aims to “recover citizens’ confidence in justice” by improving safety for all, especially making sure that women feel secure in the city. He proposes to strengthen the existing police force and to make it more capable of responding to crime, and also to make it easier for people to report crime. He wants to build ten “mega” community arts and recreation centers throughout the city that connect youth with sports, arts, and other activities; this is a proposal also related to his ambitions on education. To support these goals, he plans to create a “Ministry of Security and Co-existence” for the city. Mobility—This is an area where Peñalosa has unfinished business. He wants to improve the TransMilenio, recuperating it from the “congestion and deterioration” the system now experiences. He proposes correcting mistakes he says have been made by the city’s public transit agency and getting more buses into neighborhoods. He also notes in his campaign vision that only 64.3 miles (103.5 kilometers) of TransMilenio main lines have been constructed, of the original 241 miles (388 kilometers) proposed, a 27 percent completion of the system. Consequently, he is proposing to construct three EPILOGUE

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additional TransMilenio lines—Boyacá, La 68, and the Séptima—as well as to construct Phase 1 of a new metro system, which was a commitment made by all of the candidates (Steel 2015). Peñalosa also promotes universal access as a crucial element as he proposes to continue equalizing-network projects favoring pedestrians and cyclists, describing the scale of the cicloruta system as one that will “reach all corners” of the city. His goal is that by 2020, 15 percent of daily trips in the city will be made by bicycle, compared with fewer than 3 percent currently. Supporting this, he proposes to further develop all methods of nonmotorized networks in the city, including sidewalks, pedestrian alamedas, and ciclorutas. He also draws a strong connection between jobs and mobility, saying that under his leadership the city will fix up streets—noting potholes in particular—as well as build key road projects, creating jobs in the process. Health—Peñalosa wants to address deficiencies in the management, distribution of care, and transparency of health services in the city. He proposes building twenty urgent-care centers (one in each of the city’s districts) and establishing a digital health platform that integrates providers, services, and clients, all with the express purpose of directly addressing unmet needs, especially within homeless, disabled, and other vulnerable populations, and reducing emergency room visits. Education—Peñalosa promises to create 35,000 new openings for students in university and technical education. As described above, he reiterates in his educational platform the need to build ten mega arts and recreation community centers to support education, as well as to help prevent youth delinquency and further escalation into violence and crime. He embraces a “culture of innovation,” wanting to bring technology into teaching, research, and job preparation for Bogotá’s youth and young adults. He proposes scholarships for estrato 1 and 2 students, prioritization for students with disabilities, and bilingual study-abroad opportunities for students committing to master’s in teaching programs. He also wants to strengthen the teacher-training system. Citizen culture—Peñalosa writes that the city needs to recover the “rules of coexistence” leading citizens toward respect for all people, especially the elderly, and to increase participation in civic life and individual accountability. Peñalosa acknowledges, on the city side, the need to improve how city institutions interface with citizens to provide citizen confidence in city governance, work to decrease violence, and help people feel and be safer. He says there is a shared responsibility between citizens and the city, declaring, “Bogotá is everybody’s business.” Additionally, Peñalosa has pledged to make Bogotá the country’s primary tourist destination by building cultural and eco-tourism projects, including regional parks, a hiking trail in the mountains above the city, and a comprehensive rehabilitation and design project along the Bogotá River, improving the health of the river and creating a pedestrian promenade along its length. Peñalosa appears to be taking a more environmentally focused turn in the projects he will support in this upcoming administration versus his last. He recognizes and champions a multicultural and disabled-friendly 148

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city, his most overt support of diversity yet. Evident in Peñalosa’s proposed projects are the public space types that he and Mockus created. The ten mega community centers tie directly to the hybrid-hub type, while the proposed Bogotá River project is similar in many ways to the focus on the Avenida Jiménez as a linear environmental axis and equalizing network. New parks proposed for the poorer southwest sector of the city fit the civic-space type’s goals of bringing pedagogical space to communities lacking parks. While currently a member of the Green Party, Peñalosa appears to be maintaining at least a quasi-independent status as candidate and mayor-elect. In election coverage his party is listed as Equipo de Bogotá (Team Bogotá) (Steel 2015). However, Ceaser (2015) reports that all the 2015 Bogotá mayoral candidates received backing from construction companies with a stake in future business with the city, and Peñalosa received the most construction-company funding of all the candidates. Before retaking office, Peñalosa has already stepped in to speak on the city’s behalf, naming his equipo (team) and reiterating support for the metro project after “Twitter-trigger happy” Mayor Petro stirred up debate as to whether Peñalosa was actually in favor of it (Bogotá Post 2015b). There is another “Day without . . . ” project trending on Facebook on the professional page of Colombian journalist Daniel Samper Ospina; this time it is directed at Petro and scheduled for his first day out of office. Mayor-elect Peñalosa and city leaders have many challenges to confront to move Bogotá forward in a transparent, democratic manner, with an engaged citizenry. The city, like others, needs to reengage the process of struggling with both defining meaning and providing the material conditions for the right to the city. It also must open itself up to and incorporate all citizens’ voices about what those rights, and their attendant responsibilities, entail. Now, more than ever, Bogotá needs leadership at all levels. Peñalosa’s proposed community centers will not be effective in the long term without the support of people such as mentors and teachers; personal relationships and participation are key to making the types of changes he suggests. The significance of the “civic vanguard” described in chapter 5, with its ability to catalyze positive transformations in cities and support good local leadership, is an example of both. In addition to strong will and vision in the mayoral office, the city needs civic leadership at all levels to thrive. With sustained participation and demand for quality of life, Bogotanos can destabilize the longstanding logics of the city.

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Notes

IN TRO DU CT IO N 1.

2.

The survey utilized a quota sampling strategy to obtain responses from people of a variety of ages across various subpopulations, including visitors and vendors, men and women, and people on weekday versus weekend visits to public spaces. The types of space ranged across a spectrum of public to private, and included survey sites in all three broad areas of the city: north, central, and south. For a more detailed explanation, see https://www.rachelberney.com. Bogotá’s socioeconomic conditions can be understood by studying its stratified taxation (estrato) system. Each household in Colombia is assigned a number from 1 to 6 according to its economic status. Estratos 1 and 2 are classified as low income, 3 and 4 are classified as middle income, and 5 and 6 are classified as upper income. This system is used, for example, to determine ability to pay for utilities. The utility payment structure is set up so that estratos 3 and 4 pay their own way, so to speak, while estratos 5 and 6 pay more to help subsidize the reduced amount that estratos 1 and 2 pay. While the estrato system applies to households rather than people, it also serves as a proxy for understanding individual socioeconomic standing.

CH A PTE R 1 1.

Colombia is widely recognized as having five bio-geographical regions: the Caribbean Coast, the Pacific Coast, the Andean Mountain Range, the Grassland Plains, and the Amazon Rainforest. The four regions described here are different; they are defined by urban development and population concentrations and are closely associated with regional social and cultural practices, as well as politics. The area east of the four metropolitan regions is predominantly rural.

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2.

3. 4.

5.

Following Colombia’s initial declaration of independence in 1810 and Simón Bolívar’s decisive liberation of the country from Spanish rule in 1819, Colombia’s two main political parties formed in 1848 (the Partido Conservador Colombiano [Colombian Conservative Party]) and 1849 (the Partido Liberal Colombiano [Colombian Liberal Party]), based on differing religious affiliation and political leaning. The Conservatives supported the Catholic Church and a centralized state, while the Liberals favored a secular state and federalism (Livingstone 2004, 37). More information on Gaitán Cortés’s influence on the city can be found in Dávila (2000). Conservative Andrés Pastrana Arango (1988–1989) served as the first elected mayor of Bogotá. He had previously served on the city council and later became president. At the time of his election, Pastrana was perhaps best known for having been kidnapped just prior to the election, allegedly by the Medellín drug cartel. During his time in office he organized projects from privatizing garbage collection to a major anti-drug concert. His administration was criticized for the mismanagement and poor quality of two public works projects: the Avenida Caracas bus corridor and an overpass on Calle 92 (Gilbert and Dávila 2002, 53). Pastrana was followed by Juan Martín Caicedo Ferrer (1990–1991), a Liberal. Caicedo went to jail during his time in office for bribing city council members (52). Regarding the lack of planning practice in the mid- to late twentieth century in Bogotá, perceptions of government accountability and progress gradually fell to zero. Efforts in the 1960s in the city planning office were insufficient to counter increasingly dystopian conditions. This is not to say that no planning took place in the city, but only that people’s perceptions were not in accordance with the actual amount of planning that occurred. While some projects and plans, e.g., Lauchlin Currie’s work for Colombia’s Departamento Nacional de Planeación (National Planning Office), were pursued in Bogotá, there was likely more success in “making” plans than in “doing” planning, and this split reinforced the differences between “formal” and “informal” planning at the time. It most certainly was a time of interrupted urbanism in the city, though perhaps not in the country at large, as projects such as Cali’s preparation for and hosting of the 1971 Pan American Games occurred.

CH A PTE R 2 1.

2.

3.

4.

During the 1980s many Latin American countries underwent “structural adjustment” imposed by multilateral lending agencies such as the International Monetary Fund as a condition for the negotiation of international loans and renegotiation of external debt. Among other measures, required adjustments included a significant reduction of state investment and massive privatization on the part of the borrowing countries. This humanitarian issue continued to worsen. Eight years later, Colombia topped the list for the number of internally displaced people. According to Norway’s Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre (IDMC), in 2013 Colombia had the most internally displaced residents for the fourth year in a row; the IDMC estimated that 4.9 to 5.5 million Colombians were displaced within their own country that year (BBC News 2013). The Comisión Económica para América Latina y el Caribe (CEPAL; United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean) reports that in 1990, 121.7 million people were poor and a further 45 million people were homeless in Latin America’s cities, a rise from 1980, when 62.9 million were poor and 22.5 million were homeless (2001, 14). The city’s bankruptcy occurred in tandem with the Latin American debt crisis of the 1980s and the structural adjustment programs advocated by the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, among others. This crisis triggered what became known as the “lost decade” for Latin American countries as, for many reasons, their incomes could not keep pace with their foreign debt and many defaulted and/or sought to renegotiate terms. While affected, Colombia, interestingly, fared much better than many other countries because of some distinctive characteristics, including a more naturally diversified economy and a relatively strong economy vis-à-vis other Latin American countries.

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5.

6.

7. 8.

9.

10.

11.

12.

13.

14.

15.

16.

Bogotá historically had a difficult relationship with the National Congress (Gilbert and Dávila 2002, 41–42). Its lack of support for the city was exacerbated by elites in Congress from different regions of the country who wanted to direct the country’s funds to their regions rather than to the Capital District (41). Because of the lack of identification with Bogotá, Congress penalized the city by refusing to acknowledge censuses that documented Bogotá’s high growth rate, a rate much higher than any other Colombian city. As a result, Bogotá was denied population-determined funding that it deserved (46). When I say “agency,” I refer to comments made by Mockus and Peñalosa in my interviews with them in which they each individually expressed feeling a sense of autonomy and ability in the face of a personal calling to respond to the crises facing the city. This was the result of a fusion of seven municipalities in 1954, when Colombia’s Capital District was established. Bogotá’s mayoralty is supported as well by a system of local mayors. The city is divided into twenty districts (localidades), each of which contains several neighborhoods. Each district has an administrative board known as a Junta de Acción Local (JAL; Local Action Committee), elected by popular vote. The mayor designates a local mayor for each district based on recommendations by that district’s JAL, and these mayors help administer their districts as representatives of city hall. For more information on how local government is structured, see Pardo Aragón (2003). While Castro is considered to have been an effective administrator, I discovered through the 2006 public space survey that his work was not well known to the city’s general population at that time. Later administrations that built on his foundation, i.e., those of Mockus and Peñalosa, became far more visible. Another factor that may have led to his diminished prominence today is that, according to Gilbert and Dávila (2002), Bogotá’s first three elected mayors’ administrations (Pastrana’s, Caicedo’s, and Castro’s) bore “little sign of continuity” (53) and therefore had less cumulative impact than Mockus’s and Peñalosa’s administrations that followed. This trend reversed again following Mockus’s second administration. Mayors Luis Eduardo Garzón (2004–2007) and Samuel Moreno Rojas (2008–2011) ran and were elected as members of the Partido Polo Democrático Alternativo (Alternative Democratic Pole Party), which positioned itself as the main opposition party to the Álvaro Uribe administration. In this book I have regularized the reporting of the duration of mayoral administrations. There is some variation in accounts of the years served because, for example, one mayor’s term might end on January 1, while the successor’s term might also begin on January 1. Mockus’s and Peñalosa’s success was further supported by the city’s general plan and improved legal frameworks that helped the city pursue innovative approaches to revenue generation and redistribution, despite the municipal legacy of corruption and underfunding. Jaime Lerner was directly aided in pursuing this vision by Brazil’s then dictatorial government, which appointed him in 1969 director of the Institute of Urban Research and Planning of Curitiba and in 1971 mayor of Curitiba (Irazábal 2005, 94–97). Saldías was the secretary of the treasury during Mockus’s first administration (1995–1997). She served in Mockus’s second administration as an advisor on regional and competitiveness issues, and as director of planning (2001–2003), a position in which she continued to serve in Garzón’s administration (2004–2005). She did not serve as Peñalosa’s director of planning. Peñalosa, unlike Mockus, “cleaned house” as his administration began in 1998. For more information on her work and the work of the DAPD, see Saldías Barreneche (2006). Historian and former city council member Juan Carlos Flórez criticized Mockus during his first administration, accusing him of taking this to an extreme by governing via “pedagogical authoritarianism” (Mockus 2004, 3). While the visions expressed by Mockus and Peñalosa were consistent, it is worth noting that it is not unusual for interim mayors to serve in office during an elected mayor’s term. During Mockus’s first

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administration, for example, Paul Bromberg Silverstein served as mayor during 1996, as Mockus prepared for a run for president.

CH A PTE R 3 1. 2.

Parque Simón Bolívar was created from an earlier park that was established in 1966 for the 39th International Eucharistic Congress held in Bogotá in 1968. This was also the era of Reaganomics in the United States, Thatcherism in the United Kingdom, and structural adjustment in Latin America. Few countries were spending money on their public spaces.

CH A PTE R 4 1.

2.

3. 4.

5.

6.

The spatial logic of a city is the physical arrangement of components of the built environment in relationship to the political, social, cultural, and ecological forces at play. It develops out of a combination of informal and formal interventions, and across diverse contexts. Car drivers would later push back against Peñalosa’s efforts in creative ways. In 2005, there were approximately one million cars in Bogotá and seven million people. By 2010, car ownership had grown to 1.5 million, and many wealthy citizens were buying a second car to bypass the Pico y Placa regulatory system created by Peñalosa, which was put in place to lessen congestion; it functions by limiting the times and days a person can drive, based on license plate number. Notably Fernando Montenegro, vice rector of the National University of Colombia in Bogotá. The two other parts of the project appear to have been shelved following the end of the public space mayors’ administrations in 2003. Mockus acknowledged that the election of his successor, Luis Garzón, and the next mayor, Samuel Moreno, both from the oppositional party to then president Uribe, signaled a shift in voter desire toward a different set of social issues than he and Peñalosa represented (Caballero 2004, 8). City workers I interviewed believe in the park and want it to be perceived a certain way. A security guard expressed that he likes that the park is “for the enjoyment of all people” and is “a safe place,” but expressed that he would remove the homeless because “they do bad things here; they steal.” A recreation activity leader best likes that the space is “wide open, clean, well maintained, and agreeable.” She said, further, “It is green, it is nature in the city, a symbol of security.” When asked what she would change about the space, she said she would like “more commercial activities in the area and more publicity” because the park is “very safe, but no one knows.” Fieldwork revealed a lot of activity along the paseo. On any given night at the southern end, people trickle home from work, arriving to the neighborhood from the nearby TransMilenio station and main streets where the colectivos drop people off. A few bicitaxis line up; as they arrive at the terminus, the drivers loop in big circles to get turned around for the trip back to the northern end. There is a single female driver and four male drivers one night when I go there to visit with them. They carefully queue like taxis. Another woman sells plates of fruit arranged in still lifes from a cart that she walked there in the morning—small amounts to last a household three or four days, or maybe a week if the fruit is stretched. A woman works over a small charcoal fire making arepas that smell delicious even from a distance. She tends the small, thick corn pancakes until they are well grilled on each side and then offers them with a little mayonnaise and salt. Here along the paseo, the arepas are delicious, plain, and cheap. In other parts of the city, such as near the universities at the eastern end of Avenida Jiménez, the students buy arepas with egg or cheese inside and wash them down with a Coca-Cola or Colombiana (the national soda, a fruity, sweet, golden-colored drink). Along the paseo, if you want a drink to go with an arepa, it has to be purchased separately in a café. If you want it to go, it is likely to be poured into a plastic bag, which you are handed along with a straw; the container stays behind for recycling.

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7. 8.

9. 10.

11.

12. 13. 14.

15.

The public space survey question about respondents’ favorite open spaces yielded this result for the top three: 1. Parque Simón Bolívar, 2. Parque Nacional, and 3. Parque El Salitre. Earlier efforts to organize bicycle activities and events preceded Ramírez’s efforts. See Sergio Montero’s “Worlding Bogotá’s Ciclovía: From Urban Experiment to International ‘Best Practice’” in Latin American Perspectives (forthcoming). Bogotá hosted the first International Seminar on Human Mobility in February 2003, highlighting city best practices including car-free days, the Ciclovía, ciclorutas, and the TransMilenio (ITDP 2003). Vendors from estratos 3 and 4 participate more and sell items that are more fragile and do not hold over well, such as cookies. Eighty-eight percent of vendors surveyed selling along a Ciclovía route said that they either change location on Sundays for the Ciclovía or work only on select weekend days to capture extra business. I asked all respondents to rank the level of importance of seeing people they know, and the responses indicate that seeing people they know is “fairly important” or “very important” (3 or 4, on a four-level scale) to a majority of people. Furthermore, people who reported that they regularly encounter people they know ranked the importance of seeing those people at the highest level (4). In contrast, people who said they do not encounter people they know ranked the importance of seeing people they know at “not important” (1) most often. Centros comerciales are considered to be quasi-public space in Bogotá. In my public space survey, I incorporated them into the survey methodology. Of Bogotá’s population, 1 percent are from estrato 6, while 4 percent are from estrato 5. The overall project area was 58,125 square feet (16,200 square meters) and cost $782,400 USD ($1.63 billion COP) (Martin and Ceballos 2004, 322). The total number of vendors relocated was 1,500; 700 voluntarily moved to locations of their own choosing, and the city moved the remaining 800 to two sites elsewhere in the city (322). Also, you can never miss the cell phone vendors. If you need to make a call and do not have your own cell phone, look for one of the vendors who has up to four or five different phones, each with a different prefix: just dial a number and get charged by the minute.

CH A PTE R 5 1.

2.

Fieldwork revealed that it is often hot and crowded on the TransMilenio buses, with many people packed in together, standing and holding onto the overhead straps, swaying with the bus motion. Women hold their bags close to their bodies. People who have seats are grateful for them. People cluster near the doors to help expedite their exits from the bus, while sometimes the center of each bus section is almost clear. At very busy times riders must start making their way toward the door a couple of stations early to ensure they can disembark, which requires familiarity with the stops. On crowded buses, most people cannot see the station names, which are lightly etched on the station doors, because people’s bodies block their sight, and drivers rarely announce upcoming stations. Once arriving at the door, riders have to compete with those trying to force their way onto the bus, anxious to enter. There are complications in terms of use as the people who ride from one end of the system to the other get the best deal in comparison with people who take shorter trips. These “end-to-enders” are far more likely to be able to board and find a comfortable seat versus those who board the bus closer to the centro. In the public space survey, people who often boarded closer to the centro repeatedly complained about the end-to-enders taking up all the space in the buses. The mean response for level of satisfaction with TransMilenio was 2.0, while for public transport overall, it was 2.4 (on a scale of 1 to 4, with 4 being the highest). The responses about the TransMilenio showed that 67 percent of riders overall and 60 percent of those who ride five or more times a week feel unsatisfied (1) to somewhat satisfied (2) with the service and the system, versus satisfied (3) or very satisfied (4). People complained primarily about two issues. First, it can be difficult to board a bus

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at all during peak times, especially near the city center, because of the end-to-enders who already fill the bus. Second, when it rains, it is difficult and somewhat dangerous to traverse the uncovered areas of the stations, where rain falling on the metal floors makes conditions slippery. 3. For a broader overview of forces shaping urban form and development, see, for example, Castells (1977), Cuthbert (2006), Gottdiener (1985), and Loukaitou-Sideris (2012). 4. From that initial conversion of 170,070 square feet, or 3.9 acres (15,800 square meters), by 2005, the network of car-free streets and squares in the city stood at 1,073,915 square feet, or 24.7 acres (99,770 square meters) (Gehl et al. 2006, 21). 5. For a detailed examination of how the Ciclovía phenomenon has spread, see Montero, “Worlding Bogotá’s Ciclovía: From Urban Experiment to International ‘Best Practice’” (forthcoming). 6. In the United States, linear parks and boulevards have replaced freeways in some cities. For example, the mid-1970s saw a movement to remove inner-city freeways. Portland brought down its Harbor Drive parkway along the west side of the Willamette River in 1974 and opened Waterfront Park in 1978; this was the first freeway removal in the United States. (Waterfront Park was renamed Tom McCall Waterfront Park in 1984 in honor of the former governor who orchestrated the closure of Harbor Drive.) At the same time Portland was bringing down Harbor Drive, a plan to replace the waterfront freeway along San Francisco’s Embarcadero was proposed. But it was not until after the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake damaged the freeway that the multimodal Embarcadero Boulevard that accommodates pedestrians, cyclists, cars, and light rail replaced it. Similarly, a section of the Central Freeway as well as an off-ramp in the center of San Francisco, also damaged by Loma Prieta, were replaced in 2002 with Octavia Boulevard, which accommodates local and through traffic, pedestrians, and cyclists, and provides a community green in the Hayes Valley neighborhood. Other projects in this vein include London Docklands, Boston’s Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy Greenway, Battery Park City and the High Line in New York, and Seattle’s Waterfront Project, among others. 7. For more information on the changes in Curitiba, as well as an informative comparative analysis with Portland, Oregon, see Irazábal (2005). 8. Evans (2002) defines “livability” as the ability of people to secure livelihoods that do not conflict with environmental sustainability. 9. Unfortunately, most, if not all, of the stream-reclamation projects in Bogotá in the first decade of the 2000s occurred in wealthier neighborhoods. For a comprehensive look at one of those ecological projects, see Castro de Ossa (2003). Plans to recuperate stream corridors in the southern part of the city have yet to come to fruition. 10. A comprehensive review of the right-to-the-city literature lies outside the scope of this chapter. For an in-depth examination and excavation of Lefebvre’s work on the subject, see Purcell (2002). 11. Survey respondents commented, “The city is a right for all citizens,” “The city is a space for everyone,” and “We all have the right to the city, but each should use it as one ought to and not do any damage.”

E PILOGUE 1.

2.

Phase 3 of the TransMilenio originally encompassed the building of troncales along Carrera Séptima, Calle 26, and Carrera 10. Calle 26 and Carrera 10 were completed in 2012, with the exception that, in the case of Calle 26, the section between Portal Eldorado and El Dorado airport, proposed in the original designs, was not built, nor the intermodal central station. The line along the Séptima also was not built due to protests mentioned in the text. The administrations since Mockus and Peñalosa have had a difficult relationship with TransMilenio. The mayors did not want to support the project of administrations they ran in opposition to, yet each had to create their own relationship with it. For more information on the relationship between mayors, technocrats, and residents in Bogotá’s city planning projects, see Berney (2010).

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Index

Page numbers for figures are followed by f; page numbers for tables are followed by t. alamedas: early forms of, 45, 46f–47f, 50f; as equalizing networks, 64, 70–71, 74; and Peñalosa, 148; and Plaza San Victorino, 113; popularity of, 51; as public spaces, 44, 87. See also specific avenidas alimentadores (feeder buses), 89f, 140 Amin, Ash, 127 Arendt, Hannah, 8–9 Athens, 126 Autopista Norte, 14, 123f, 131 Avenida Caracas, 71, 85, 86, 152n4 (chap. 1) Avenida El Porvenir, 70, 73–74, 73f, 74f Avenida Jiménez, 70, 71–72, 72f, 125, 149, 154n6 Balibrea, Mari Paz, 117 Barcelona, 20, 125, 126 Barco Isakson, Carolina, 39 Barco Vargas, Virgilio, 1, 2, 16, 92 Barrio de la Catedral, 49f

Barrio de San Victorino, 49f Barrio Oriental de Las Nieves, 49f Bartholomew, Harland, 14 Beijing Olympic Green, 126 Beltrán Gómez, Diana Margarita, 100 Bermudez Samper, Daniel, 96 Berrizbeitia, Anita, 127 best practices, 118, 119f, 123, 124, 125, 138, 140, 156n5 Betancur, Belisario, 28 Biblioteca El Tintal, 64, 91, 96–97, 96f, 97f Biblioteca El Tunal, 64, 91, 94, 95f, 134 Biblioteca Virgilio Barco, 64, 91–94, 92f. See also Parque Simón Bolívar bicitaxis (bicycle taxis), 87, 90, 134, 154n6. See also taxis Biennale of Architecture, 39 big city mayors, 139 bike commuting, 81–82, 140 bike paths. See cicloruta (bicycle path) system Bogotá: in 1538, 42f; in 1810, 50f; in 1890, 53f; in 1894, 52f; in 1910, 54f; in 1918, 50f; in 1923,

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51f; in 1930, 55f; in 1932, 56f; in 1933, 57f; in 1938, 16f; 1957 city plan of, 17f; from 1986 to 2006, 1–2; and 1986 urban development plan, 61; and Avenida El Porvenir, 73; and Avenida Jiménez, 71; bankruptcy of, 26; and Bogotano identity, 34–36; and Bogotazo, 13f; and car ownership, 154n2 (chap. 4); and Castro, 28; centro histórico of, 69f; centro of, 67, 70; and cicloruta system, 79, 80f, 81–82, 81f; and Ciclovía, 99–100, 101f; and citizen encounter, 135–136, 135f; and commodified landscape, 135–136; and Congress, 153n5; and content versus image, 128–131, 133–134; and decentralization, 20, 23–24; and desplazados, 137; and difficult landscapes, 74–75, 82–87, 90; and district mayor system, 153n8; dystopian conditions in, 8–9; in early 1800s, 48f; early parroquias in, 49f; and estratos, 111–112; and Gaitán, 11–12; and global best practices, 138–141, 155n9; growth of, 15f, 19, 25; and independent mayors, 29–30; and informal settlements, 27f; as island in conflict, 35f; and La Violencia, 12–13; and libraries, 91, 93–94, 96–97; and mayoral visions, 142–144, 146; and mimes, 37f; and Mockus, 36–37; modernization of, 38–41; and National Congress, 153n5; and pedagogical urbanism, 21–22, 63–65, 118; and pedestrian-only zones, 125; and Peñalosa’s plans, 147–149; periphery of, 68f; plazas of, 4f; and poverty levels, 25t; and public-private partnerships, 129–130; and public space mayors, 31–33, 66f; and public spaces, 3f; and public space survey, 6; and public space traditions, 43–45, 51–52, 55, 58–60; public space typology of, 46f–47f; redevelopment of, 5f; rioting in, xvf; and socioeconomic inequities, 97–99, 103–104, 106–108; and stream reclamation, 156n9; and TransMilenio BRT system, 120–121, 122f, 123; tranvía system in, 51f; and urban design, 124, 126–127; and urban planning, 14, 16, 18, 61–63, 152n5; and vendors, 112–115, 117 Bogotá: Building a Sustainable City (Albers and Fettig 2007), 138 Bogotano identity. See Bogotantud Bogotanos: and alamedas, 71; and communal identity, 38; and estratos, 111–112, 113; and everyday life, 127; and feelings of safety, 35; and identity, 36, 39, 140; and immigration, 34; and libraries, 91; and Mockus, 32; and Plaza

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San Victorino, 117; and public space mayors, 21, 22, 64–65, 99, 146; and public spaces, 127, 128f; and public space survey, 99, 103; and right to the city, 149; and social class, 111–112; and socioeconomic inequities, 19, 25, 43–44; and tax collection, 28; and vendors, 114 Bogotantud, 22, 36, 38, 39, 140 Bogotá Project, 39 Bogotá River, 87, 143, 146, 148, 149 Bogotá’s 1910 Exposition, 52, 54f Bogotazo, 12, 13f, 16 Borja, Jordi, 26 Boyer, Christine, 98 Brasília, 144, 146 Braun, Herbert, 11, 19, 35, 59–60 Bromberg Silverstein, Paul, 153–154n16 BRT (bus rapid transit). See TransMilenio system Brunner, Karl, 14, 16, 17f Burle Marx, Roberto, 144 Caicedo Ferrer, Juan Martín, 152n4 (chap. 1) Caldeira, Teresa P. R., 118 Caracas, 147 car-free days, 121, 125, 155n9 car-free zones, 125, 156n4 car ownership, 9, 60, 75, 154n2 (chap. 4) Carrera 15, 75, 76f cartuchitos, 85 Cartucho neighborhood: and Parque Tercer Milenio, 5f, 83, 83f, 84f, 85–86, 136; and Peñalosa, 113; redevelopment of, 2–3 Castells, Manuel, 26, 124, 156n3 Castro Castro, Jaime: and city government, 26, 28–29, 153n9; legacy of, 22; and modernization, 20, 38; and obstacles overcome, 139 Centro Administrativo Nacional (CAN), 144, 144f, 145f Chapinero district, 51, 51f Charles I, 45 cicloruta (bicycle path) system: and Biblioteca El Tunal, 95f; and Bogotá’s spatial logic, 66f; and city center, 70; construction of, 78f; difficulties with, 75; as equalizing network, 64, 90; and equitable distribution of public space, 98; and estratos, 80f; as global best practice, 119f, 155n9; and Parque El Virrey, 131; and Peñalosa, 33, 148; as public space, 30, 44, 63, 79; and public space mayors, 80f, 81–82. See also recreation; safety

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Ciclovía, 101f, 102f; as equalizing network, 64, 99, 118; and estratos, 101f; as global best practice, 119f, 125, 138, 155n9, 156n5; popularity of, 79, 103; precursors to, 155n8; as public space, 44; and public space mayors, 66f; as recreation, 100; and spatial logic, 66; and vendors, 155n10. See also recreation citizen behavior: bad, 34, 106; and belonging, 38, 140; and city image, 62; and engagement with city, xi, 110, 127; good, 1, 99; and learning, 36, 138 citizen conflict, 8, 9, 20, 107 citizen culture (cultura ciudadana): and Mockus, 21–22, 29, 30, 32–33, 36–37, 75; and Peñalosa, 147, 148; and public space mayors, 39–40; and public spaces, 91 citizen formation, 64, 73, 98 citizen groups, 47, 125, 133 citizen hope, 21, 30 citizen pride, 30 citizens: as consumers, 40, 61, 103; and periphery, 68, 143, 146; and right to the city, 31, 33, 44, 65, 134, 137, 156n11; and tableaux, 134–136 citizen security, xi, 147 citizenship, 99, 100, 108, 137 City Archive (Archivo de Bogotá), 64, 70 city as project, xii, 135 city branding, 126–127, 129 city center, 46f–47f; and ciclorutas, 79, 81; and La Violencia, 12; and Parque Tercer Milenio, 83, 85, 136; and periphery, 67; as public space, 64; renovation plans for, 70; and socioeconomic inequities, 146–147; and TransMilenio BRT system, 155–156n2 city council, 26, 28, 143, 152n4, 153n15 city government, xii, 20, 37–38, 40, 62–63, 121, 130 city planning: and development, 18; director of, 28; and disciplining of space, 98; office of, 152; problems with, 60; process of, 19, 108; and public urbanism, 62. See also urban planning city workers, 103, 110–111, 110f, 121, 154n5 Ciudad Bolívar: and Bogotá’s spatial logic, 66f; and ciclorutas, 80f; and Ciclovía, 101f; and informal housing, 108, 109f, xvif; and informal settlements, 27f; and park space, 108t; and TransMilenio BRT system, 122f civic branding, 126–127, 129 civic spaces: and behavioral reform, 134; and Bogotá’s spatial logic, 67; and citizen culture,

99, 140; and city center, 70; and public space mayors, 64, 90; and socioeconomic inequities, 107–108 civil war, x, 8, 11, 12, 13, 34 clientelist politics, 18, 24, 30, 61 climate change, 143 coca cultivation, 7 colectivos, 3f, 87, 120, 121, 146, 154n6 collective experience, 26, 33, 117, 140, 141, 147 collective resources, 22, 40, 59, 62, 98, 103, 140 collective responsibility, 137 Colombia: bio-geographical regions of, 151n1 (chap. 1); and Bogotá taxes, 26; and decentralization, 22–24; and desplazados, 152n2 (chap. 2); and drug trafficking, 7; and emigration, 34, 40; and estratos, 151n2 (introduction); four metro regions of, 10f, 11f; and income stratification, 9, 11; and La Violencia, 12–13; and “lost decade,” 152n4 (chap. 2); and municipal politics, 41; and park space, 45, 52; politics of, 152n2 (chap.1); and poverty levels, 25t; and public space, 61–62; and socioeconomic inequities, 25; in twenty-first century, 147; and urbanization, 2; and violence, 8 Colombian government: and Bogotá, 34; and decentralization, 20, 24; and mayoral elections, 29–30; and political parties, 152n2 (chap. 1); and violence, 8, 19; weakness of, 9 colonialism: and Bogotá, x, 1, 2, 14, 43, 86, 108, 113; and Latin America, 9. See also Laws of the Indies commodified experiences, 136–137 community access to resources, 64, 97 community centers, 33, 86, 147, 148, 149 community infrastructure, 90, 134 community kitchens, 142 community life, 58, 62, 96 community services, 126 Congress for Artistic and Cultural Development for Latin America and the Caribbean, 103 Conservative Party, 11–13, 24, 152n2 (chap. 1) Constitution of 1991, 20, 29–30, 32, 61 content (versus image), 90, 126, 128, 133–134 Copenhagen, 125 Corporación La Candelaria (Candelaria Authority), 70 corruption, 24, 26, 143, 153n12 Costa, Lúcio, 144 crime: in 2005, 82; and Peñalosa, 147, 148; and

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public space mayors, 30; and public spaces, 33; reductions in, 2 Cuenca, Ecuador, 138 cues for caring, 98, 103, 108, 134 cultura ciudadana (citizen culture): and Mockus, 21–22, 29, 30, 32–33, 36–37, 75; and Peñalosa, 147, 148; and public spaces, 91 Curitiba, Brazil, 30, 118, 120, 125, 153n13, 156n7 Currie, Lauchlin, 152n5 Cuthbert, Alexander R., 127, 156n3 cyclists: and Avenida El Porvenir, 73; and Ciclovía, 99–100; and conflicts of use, 75; and need for facilities, 82; and Peñalosa, 148; in United States, 156n6 Darío Rodríguez, Germán, 129–130 Dávila, Julio D., 23–24, 26, 28, 152nn3–4 (chap. 1), 153n5, 153n9 decentralization: in 1980s and 1990s, x, 22, 23; and Castro, 28; and Colombian cities, 11f; and independent mayors, 24; and municipalization, 30; and neoliberalism, 19–20 density, 19, 35f, 44–45 Departamento Administrativo de la Defensoría del Espacio Público (Administrative Department of the Defense of Public Space), 62–63, 100, 129–130 Departamento Nacional de Planeación (National Planning Office), 152n5 desplazados (displaced persons), 34, 107, 137, 152n2 (chap. 2). See also internally displaced persons (IDPs) Diagonal Mar development (Barcelona), 126 Díaz, Oscar Edmundo, 75, 118 dichotomies of development, 128–129 Dicken, Peter, 124 displacements, 85, 90. See also internally displaced persons (IDPs) drainage, 63 drug traffickers, 7, 8, 35 dystopian conditions: in Bogotá, 8–9; and Cartucho, 83; and public space mayors, 63, 65; and socioeconomic inequities, 13–14, 60; and structural issues, xii, 22; and urban planning, 20, 21, 38, 40, 60, 152n5 dystopian thinking, 21, 143 ecological parks, 46f–47f economic development strategy, 126

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education, 24, 39, 44–45, 147–148 Eje Ambiental (Environmental Axis), 71 El día sin TransMilenio (The day without TransMilenio), 121 El Dorado airport, 14, 156n1 elected mayors: adjustment to, 30; versus appointed mayors, 20, 23–24; challenges facing, 26, 59–60; and international visibility, 39; visibility of, 153n9 Empresa Virgilio Barco, 144–145 equalizing networks: and citizen culture, 99; and city center, 70; and mobility, 140; and Peñalosa, 149; and periphery, 67; and public space mayors, 64, 90; and quality of life, 134 estratos (social classes): and Bogotá’s population, 44, 155n13; and ciclorutas, 80f; and Ciclovía, 100, 101f; and public spaces, 104, 111–112; and public space survey, 6, 38, 112t; and settlement patterns, 9; and socioeconomic inequities, 25; system of, 151n2 (introduction); and TransMilenio BRT system, 122f; and vendors, 155n10. See also socioeconomic inequities Evans, Peter, 129 everyday city, 117, 134, 139, 141, 143 everyday practices, 74, 82, 115, 127, 128f Facebook, 121, 149 Fajardo Valderrama, Sergio, 139 Favela-Bairro Program (Rio de Janeiro), 125–126, 129 Flórez, Juan Carlos, 153n15 Friedmann, John, 135 Fundación Compartir (Sharing Foundation), 129, 130 Gaitán, Jorge Eliécer, 12f; assassination of, 12, 13, 14, 22; and Bogotano identity, 36; popularity of, 11 Gaitán Cortés, Jorge, 16, 152n3 (chap. 1) Garzón, Luis Eduardo “Lucho,” 82, 142, 153n10, 153n14, 154n4 gasoline tax, 75 globalization, 39, 124, 128, 134–135 Global South, ix, xi, 139, 141 Golden Lion Award, 39 Gottdiener, Mark, 156n3 Graham, Steve, 125 Guadalupe mountains, 72 Guatemala City, 147

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Guerrero, Manuel Antonio, 94 guerrillas, 8, 13, 35, 143 Habermas, Jürgen, 31 Harvey, David, 124, 136, 137 Hayden, Dolores, 59 Holston, James, 59, 60, 146 hybrid hubs: and city center, 70; and community centers, 149; and libraries, 91, 97; and periphery, 67; and public space mayors, 64; and quality of life, 134 identity: and Bogotá, 38, 39, 40, 100; Latin American, 36; and place, 87, 117, 134; and public space mayors, 21; regional, 9, 34; social, 34, 59, 111, 112, 118, 140 IDRD. See Instituto Distrital Recreación y Deporte (District Institute for Recreation and Sports) independent mayors, xii, 29, 41, 142 indigentes (homeless people), 107, 152n3 (chap. 2) individual freedom, 134 informal settlements: in Bogotá (1950), 18f; in Bogotá (1990), 27f; and Bogotá’s growth, 16, 19; in Ciudad Bolívar, 109, xvif; and mayoral elections, 24–25; and park space, 108; and poverty, 26; and public space mayors, 87; and public spaces, 77f Institute for Transportation and Development Policy, 118 Instituto de Desarrollo Urbano (IDU; Urban Development Institute), 33, 79 Instituto Distrital de Cultura y Turismo (District Culture and Tourism Institute), 103 Instituto Distrital Recreación y Deporte (District Institute for Recreation and Sports), 58, 63, 79, 82, 99, 100, 104 Inter-American Development Bank, 139 internally displaced persons (IDPs), 25, 34, 107, 152n2 (chap. 2). See also desplazados; displacements International Monetary Fund, 152n1 (chap. 2), 152n4 (chap. 2) Juntas de Acción Local (JAL; Local Action Committees), 153n8 Koolhaas, Rem, 143 Kopec, Luis, 71

La Candelaria: and libraries, 91; and park space, 108, 108t; and Plaza San Victorino, 112; redevelopment of, 2, 66f, 67, 70; and TransMilenio BRT system, 71 landscapes: commodified, 135–136; environmental functions of, 63; and equitable distribution of public space, 97–98; and inequality, 19; and Latin American traditions, 45; and meaning, 91; of power, 140–141; versus public space, 134; and public space mayors, 7, 20, 67; and public space survey, 99, 131, 133; and public urban environment, 61; rewriting of, 74–75, 82, 90; and socialization, 127 Larrain, Jorge, 36, 38 Las Aguas, 71 Latin America: and automobile use, 60; and business in public spaces, 133; and colonial centros, 113; and colonialism’s dystopian legacy, 9; and debt crisis of 1980s, 152n4 (chap. 2); and decentralization, 22, 23, 26; and identity construction, 36; and impact of Bogotá’s transformation, 138; and modernization, 38; and municipalization, 30; and neoliberalism, 19–20; and plaza mayor, 1; and poverty, 25, 152n3 (chap. 2); problems in, 127; and public spaces, 31, 43, 44, 45, 61, 65; and reform parks, 55; and sidewalks, 59; and structural adjustment, 152n1, 154n2 (chap. 3); urbanization in, 139–140; urbanization of, 139–140 Latin American cities, xii Latour, Bruno, 135 La Violencia, 12–13, 16 Laws of the Indies, 1, 43, 45. See also colonialism; New Laws of the Indies learning: and behavior, 33, 64, 110; from Bogotá, 118, 128–129, 139–141; by citizens, 21, 30, 36–37, 94; cues for, 99; and legible landscapes, 140 Le Corbusier: and Bogotá city plan, 14, 16, 17f, 18, 143; and Petro’s city center plan, 146. See also Plan Piloto Lefebvre, Henri, 156n10 legibility, x, 74–75, 85, 136, 140 Lerner, Jaime, 30, 118, 125, 153n13 liberalization, 23 Liberal Party, 11, 12–13, 29, 152n2 (chap. 1) libraries (bibliotecas), 33, 64, 66f, 119f. See also specific libraries libraries in the park, 90–91, 97

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livability, 63, 129, 156n8 livelihood, 129, 134, 156n8 Livingstone, Grace, 11, 13, 14, 19, 152n2 (chap. 1) London, 156n6 lo público, 31, 33 Los Angeles, 126 lost decade, 152n4 (chap. 2) Loukaitou-Sideris, Anastasia, 124, 141 Low, Setha, 126, 127, 133 machistas (macho men), 36 Mariposa (Butterfly), 2, 113 Marvin, Simon, 125 Massey, Doreen, 87, 117, 134 master-plan process, 141 mayoral elections, 22. See also presidents mayoral terms, 29–30 mayoralty, 24, 26, 41, 44, 90, 124, 153n8 Medellín, Colombia, 139 memorial parks, 46f–47f, 52 Mesa de Planificación Regional (Regional Planning Board), 31, 39, 136. See also Regional Planning Board metropolitan-scale parks, 46f–47f, 58, 63 military, 8 Millennium Goals, 39 mimes, 36, 37f Misíon Bogotá, 106 Mitchell, Don, 91, 127, 134, 136 Mockus Šivickas, Antanas: and agency, 153n6; and alamedas, 44, 70–71; and Biblioteca El Tintal, 96; and Bogotá’s plaza mayor, 2; and Bogotá’s transformation, 22; and Castro, 20; and ciclorutas, 79; on citizen behavior, 110; and civic spirit, 13; and cultura ciudadana, 75; development plans of, 32–33; and dystopian/utopian thinking, 21; and Garzón, 82; and informal settlements, 108; and modernization, 38; moral authority of, 139; and party politics, 29–30, 142; and Peñalosa, 153–154n16; and Plaza San Victorino vendors, 113; and poor Bogotanos, 25; and POT, 62; and public manners, 36–38; and public urbanism, 137; and Saldías, 153n14; and social justice, 141; and support of Peñalosa, 147; and tax collection, 28; and TransMilenio BRT system, 156n1; visibility of, 153n9; vision of, 146 modernism, 59, 143, 144 modernity, 14, 18, 29 modernization, 12, 20, 21, 28, 38–41, 64, 138

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Monserrate, 72, 72f Montenegro, Fernando, 138, 154n3 Moreno Rojas, Samuel, 142, 153n10, 154n4 motorcyclists, 74 Movimiento Progresistas (Progressive Movement), 143 municipalization, 30 narco-terrorism, 7 narratives, 90–91 National Archive, 70 National Front, 16, 24 National University of Colombia, Bogotá, 22, 85, 138, 144, 154n3. See also Universidad Nacional de Colombia, Bogotá Negret, Édgar, 2, 113, 114 neighborhood associations, 47f, 104, 129, 130, 133 neighborhood parks, 46f–47f, 58, 106, 131. See also specific parks neighborhoods: and Bogotá’s development, 43–45; and equalizing networks, 74–75, 79; and estratos, 113; and global best practices, 119f; and hybrid hubs, 90–91, 96; and informal settlement, 87; and mayoralty system, 153n8; and other cities, 125–126; and parroquias, 49f; and planning, 55; and private investment, 104; and public spaces, 133–134; and redevelopment, 82–83, 85, 136; and stream reclamation, 156n9; and TransMilenio BRT system, 121, 143, 147; and tranvía line, 51. See also specific neighborhoods neoliberalism, 19–20, 60, 129 New Laws of the Indies, 45. See also Laws of the Indies New York, 118, 125, 126, 156n6 Niemeyer, Oscar, 144 Night for Women, 36–37 norms: and city form, 123, 127; and plaza form, 52; and public spaces, 43, 44, 45, 133, 137; social, 6, 36, 37, 103, 131, 138 Office for Metropolitan Architecture, 143, 144f, 145f Oficina Plan Centro (Center Plan Office), 70 oil industry, 14 Olympic Games, 126 orderly city, 63, 85, 134, 136–137. See also public order Ordoñez, Alejandro, 143

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other: encounter with, 34, 37, 45, 64, 97–98, 107, 110; tolerance of, 40; unknown, 30, 32 país nacional (country of the poor) and país político (country of the elite), 11, 13, 36 Pan American Games, 152n5 paramilitary organizations, 8, 35, 35f parking, 9, 60, 75, 81f, 126, 133 parking taxes, 75 parklet movement, 126 parks: and alamedas, 45, 74; and city growth, 35, 56f–57f, 58–59; as civic spaces, 64; as collective resource, 98; and cues for caring, 99, 108–109; and downtown, 6, 61; and economic development, 63, 136; and equalizing networks, 134; as global best practice, 119f; and historic development, 43, 46f–47f, 52; and homeless people, 25; and libraries, 33, 91, 97; and Peñalosa, 148–149; plazas as, 53f; popularity of, 93, 155n7; and private interests, 129–130, 135, 137; as public space, 55; and recent trends, 125–126, 156n6; as safe spaces, 37; and space per person, 107–108, 108t; as visible competency, 30–31. See also public space; recreation spaces; specific parks park space per person, 108t park systems, 46f–47f Parque del 13 de Marzo, 52, 54f Parque de la 93: as civic space, 64; and inequality, 105f; and private investment, 104, 106–107, 130f; problems with, 108; and public-private partnerships, 130; signage in, 106f; and vendors, 111. See also Zona Rosa Parque de la Independencia, 52, 54f Parque Del Centario, 52, 52f, 54f Parque El Salitre, 155n7 Parque El Tintal, 105f; and Biblioteca El Tintal, 96f, 97f; and broken windows theory, 106; as civic space, 64; as hybrid hub, 96–97; and lack of private investment, 104; signage in, 106f Parque El Tunal, 64, 94, 95f, 134 Parque El Virrey, 64, 111, 131, 132f, 133f. See also Zona Rosa Parque Gaitán, 55f Parque Nacional, 155n7 Parque Simón Bolívar, 58, 58f, 93, 93f, 143, 144, 154n1 (chap. 3), 155n7. See also Biblioteca Virgilio Barco Parque Tercer Milenio, 5f, 6f, 84f; and Cartucho, 5f; and city center, 70, 83f; as civic space, 64;

and commodified landscape, 136; as difficult landscape, 82–83; and plaza mayor, 6f; and Plaza San Victorino, 112; and policing, 110f, 111; problems with, 85–87, 90; as public landscape, 75; and vendors, 111f parroquias, 49f Partido Conservador Colombiano (Colombian Conservative Party), 152n2 (chap. 1) Partido Liberal Colombiano (Colombian Liberal Party), 152n2 (chap. 1) Paseo de Patio Bonito, 75, 87, 88f, 89f, 90, 134, 154n6 Pastrana Arango, Andrés, 152n4 (chap. 1) Patio Bonito, 68f, 87 Paz, Octavio, 38 pedagogical authoritarianism, 153n15 pedagogical city, 106, 126, 147 pedagogical urbanism, 22, 64, 90–91, 117, 118. See also urbanism pedestrians: and access points, 140; and alamedas, 41, 70–71, 72f, 73; and best practices, 125; and car-free zones, 36, 75, 125; and ciclorutas, 75, 79, 81, 81f; in multimodal design, 156n6; and networks, 64; and Parque Tercer Milenio, 86; and Peñalosa, 91, 98, 148; and privilege, 75, 87, 90; and public space, 2, 9, 33; and taxis, 37; and TransMilenio BRT system, 123, 123f. See also sidewalks Peñalosa, Guillermo, 58 Peñalosa Londoño, Enrique: and agency, 153n6; and Biblioteca El Tintal, 96; and Bogotá’s best practices, 138; on Bogotá’s centro, 2; and Bogotá’s transformation, 22; and car use, 75, 154n2 (chap. 4); and Castro, 20; and ciclorutas, 79; and Ciclovía, 100; and city center, 70; development plans of, 32; and dystopian/ utopian thinking, 21; and equitable distribution of public space, 22, 33, 98; and equity concept, 112; and libraries, 91; and Mockus, 153–154n16; and modernization, 38; moral authority of, 139; and Parque Tercer Milenio, 83, 85–86; and party politics, 29–30, 142; and pedagogical urbanism, 73; and plans for 2016–2019 term, 147–149; and Plaza San Victorino, 117; and Plaza San Victorino vendors, 113–114; and poor Bogotanos, 25; and POT, 62–63; and public urbanism, 137; and Saldías, 153n14; and social justice, 141; and TransMilenio BRT system, 120, 156n1; visibility of, 153n9; vision of, 146

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periphery, 18–19, 26, 67, 68f, 70, 91, 143, 146 Petro Urrego, Gustavo, 121, 142, 143–144, 146, 149 pickpockets, 121 Pico y Placa, 154n2 (chap. 4) pirate subdivisions, 18–19, 32, 43–44 place consciousness, 135, 138 Plan de Ordenamiento Territorial de Bogotá (Territorial Legislative Plan), 31, 62–63, 143 Plan Maestro de Cicloruta (PMC; Bike Path Master Plan), 79 Plan Piloto, 14, 16, 17f. See also Le Corbusier Plan Regional de Competitividad Bogotá, 38–39 Plaza de Bolívar, 1–2, 4f, 6, 53f, 69f. See also plaza mayor plaza mayor: of Bogotá, 1–2, 4f, 6f, 48f–49f, 53f; and New Laws of the Indies, 45; and Parque Tercer Milenio, 82–83, 83f, 86; and Plaza San Victorino, 112 plazas, 46f–47f; as civic spaces, 63, 134; as collective resource, 98; as cultural sites, 117; as global best practice, 119f; as parks, 52, 53f, 55; as public space, 43, 44, 45, 61; as tableaux, 135; and visible competency, 31. See also specific plazas Plaza San Victorino, 3f, 4f; and Avenida Jiménez, 72, 72f; as civic space, 64, 70; and globalization, 134–135; and Parque Tercer Milenio, 82, 83f; redevelopment of, 2; and vendors, 37, 112–115, 114f, 115f, 116f, 117 Plaza Veinte de Julio, 110f, 111 policing: and Bogotá’s redevelopment, 108; and city workers, 110–111; and cues for caring, 103, 134; and dystopian conditions, 20; and Mockus, 36; and Peñalosa, 147; and public spaces, 110f; and vendors, 117 political economy, 30, 124–125, 127 Polo Democrativo Alternativo (PDA; Alternative Democratic Pole party), 142, 143 population growth, ix, 8, 16, 18–19 Portland, Oregon, 125, 156n6 postmodernism, 141 POT. See Plan de Ordenamiento Territorial de Bogotá (Territorial Legislative Plan) Potteiger, Matthew, 90–91 poverty, 8, 24–26, 25t, 33, 63, 83, 100 premodernism, 75 Presidential Palace, 1, 2, 6f, 83 presidents, 19, 23–24. See also mayoral elections; specific presidents

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private development, 141 private interests, 19, 61, 128, 129, 131, 137–138 private investment, 131, 136 privatization, 127 public investment, 108 public landscapes: and meaning, 90–91, 135; and public space mayors, xi, 20, 146; rewriting of, 67, 74–79; as social instruments, 97, 127, 141 public order, 134. See also orderly city; tableaux public-private partnerships, 104, 121, 131, 140 public space: and Bogotá’s mayors, 7; citizen defense of, 6; and development, 126–127; equitable distribution of, 98; and protests, 44, 87, 125; and tourism, 117; typology of, 46f–47f; visibility of, 31. See also parks public space mayors: and 1991 Constitution, 61; and Bogotano identity, 34; and Bogotá’s public landscape, 74; and Ciclovía, 99–100; and civic life, 118; and civic spaces, 134; and commodified landscape, 135–136; and equitable distribution of public space, 137; and everyday city, 141; and modernization, 39–41; moral authority of, 139; and new pedagogical typology, 63–64; and Parque Tercer Milenio, 82; and Plaza San Victorino, 117; reflexivity of, 143; and socioeconomic inequities, 103–104; and unfinished projects, 154n4; vision of, 146 public space project, the, 61, 67, 104, 107, 108 public space projects: and content versus image, 133; and redevelopment, 127, 129, 142; and spatial logic, 66f, 138; trends in, 125–126; and urban designers, 124; and visible competency, 31 public spaces: and communal resources, 21; and conflicts over use, 137; and private investment, 104; and socioeconomic inequities, 105; and vendors, 114 public space survey: and Biblioteca El Tunal, 134; and Castro, 153n9; and centros comerciales, 155n12; and Ciclovía, 100, 103; and city center, 115; and civic pride, 38; and cues for caring, 99; and encountering known people, 155n11; and estratos, 112, 112t; and favorite open spaces, 155n7; and hybrid hubs, 94, 97; methodology of, 6, 151n1 (introduction); and Parque de la 93, 107; and Parque El Virrey, 131, 133; and right to the city, 137–138; and TransMilenio BRT system, 120–121, 155–156n2; and vendors, 111, 117

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public sphere, 31 public transportation, 64, 98. See also specific modes of transportation puntos de encuentro (points of encounter), 62, 120 Purinton, Jamie, 90–91 quality of life: and city leaders, 140; and decreasing livability, 147; and development, 22, 39–40, 149; and dystopian conditions, 9, 21; and Parque Tercer Milenio, 85; and Peñalosa, 33, 98; and public space mayors, 31; and quality of place, 129, 133–134 quality of place, 22, 129, 133–134 Quiero Mi Barrio (Santiago, Chile), 129 Quito, Ecuador, 138 Ramírez Ocampo, Augusto, 99–100, 155n8 recreation: access to, 22, 33, 44, 64; and activities, 110, 119f, 154n5; and city government, 63; and Compensar, 131; and social engagement, 45, 58, 63, 71, 118, 134, 141, 147–148. See also cicloruta (bicycle path) system; Ciclovía recreation spaces, 45, 46f–47f, 55, 55f, 146. See also parks reform parks, 55 Regional Planning Board, 31, 39, 136. See also Mesa de Planificación Regional Rio de Janeiro, 125, 126, 129 Río San Francisco, 48f, 71, 125 rioting, xvf, 12 Rojas Pinilla, Gustavo: and Bogotá’s urban planning, 14, 16, 18; and La Violencia, 13; and National Front, 16; and outward expansion of Bogotá, 18; and Petro’s city center plan, 143, 146 sabana, 18, 51 safety: and Avenida Jiménez, 71; in Bogotá, 35, 147; and ciclorutas, 81, 81f; and Colombian cities, 24, 59; and dystopian conditions, 2, 65; and Parque Tercer Milenio, 86; and public space mayors, xi; and public spaces, 98, 127; and Zona Rosa, 75. See also cicloruta (bicycle path) system; security Saldarriaga Roa, Alberto, 43 Saldías Barreneche, Carmenza, 28, 29, 31, 38, 153n14 Salmona, Rogelio, 71, 92 Samper Ospina, Daniel, 149 San Francisco, 126, 156n6

Santa Inés neighborhood, 83 Santiago, Chile, 129 Santos, Juan Manuel, 143 Scott, James C., 74, 136 Seattle, 126, 156n6 security: and Bogotá, 147; and city center, 113; and Latin American cities, 30; and Peñalosa, 33; and public space, 79, 100, 130, 154n5; and public space mayors, xi, 32; and surveillance, 64, 110. See also safety Semana magazine, 2–3, 103 Sert, José Luis, 14, 16, 17f sidewalks: in Barrios Unidos district, 77f–78f; and ciclorutas, 79, 81, 81f; and citizens with fewer resources, 33; and developers, 91; as equalizing network, 64, 70, 75; extension of, 76f; importance of, 59–61; and parking, 2, 9; and parklet movement, 126; and Peñalosa, 148; as public space, 30, 44, 61; and social justice, 98. See also pedestrians Smith, Neil, 126, 127 Soacha, 70, 73 soccer, 55 social class. See estratos social justice, 98, 141, 143 socioeconomic inequities, 19, 103–104, 107, 125, 129, 141, 146–147, 151n2 (introduction). See also estratos Spanish Conquest, 9 spatial logic: and center-periphery model, 70; and collective resources, 140; description of, 154n1 (chap. 4); and equalizing networks, 74; and Parque Tercer Milenio, 82; and political economy, 124, 136; and public space mayors, 66f, 67; and public space types, 64; and socioeconomic inequities, 19, 26, 43, 104, 107, 146 spectacle of the everyday, 140–141 stewardship, 140 stream-reclamation projects, 156n9 Strøget area of Copenhagen, 125 structural adjustment, 24, 152n1 (chap. 2), 152n4 (chap. 2), 154n2 (chap. 3) Stuttgart, 125 surveillance, 103, 110f, 111, 131 sustainability, ix, 63, 129, 138, 140, 156n8 tableaux, 134, 135, 136. See also public order Tactus Design Studio, 94 taxes, 20, 26, 28, 40, 75

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taxis, 3f, 37. See also bicitaxis Teusaquillo district, 92, 108t tourism, 63, 117, 126, 136, 148 traffic accidents, 2, 33 TransMilenio system, 2, 33, 40, 40f, 66f, 89f, 123f; and Avenida Jiménez, 72f, 125; and bicitaxis, 90; and city center, 70–71; and colectivos, 87; conditions of, 155n1; as equalizing network, 64, 118, 140; and estratos, 122f; and gasoline tax, 75; as global best practice, 119f, 120–121, 123, 138, 155n9; and Mockus, 82; and Moreno, 142–143; and Parque Tercer Milenio, 85–86; and Peñalosa, 147–148; phase 3 of, 156n1; and quality of life, 134; satisfaction with, 155–156n2; and urban design, 124 tranvía system, 51, 51f troncales (bus lines), 121, 140, 156n1 Tunjuelito district, 94 Turin, 126 UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization), 39, 103, 138 Union of Capital Cities of Ibero-America, 103 United Nations, 7, 39, 103, 113, 139 Universal Forum of Cultures, 126 Universidad Nacional de Colombia, Bogotá, 22, 85, 138, 144, 154n3. See also National University of Colombia, Bogotá urban design: and city government, 63; and economic development strategy, 126; and Peñalosa, 138; and planning, x; and political economy, 124–125; and public space mayors, 20; and social histories, 59; and social justice, 141 urbanism: and Bogotantud, 22; and Bogotá’s transformation, x, 20, 65; and global best practices, 118; and historic center, 117; and “lost decade,” 61–62, 152n5; in Medellín, 139; and public space mayors, 127, 137. See also pedagogical urbanism urbanismo social (social urbanism), 139 urbanization, 16, 19, 139–140 urban planning: and Castro, 28; and city government, 60–61, 63; and dictatorship, 14; and dystopian conditions, 9, 20–21; and public space mayors, 41. See also city planning

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Uribe Velez, Álvaro, 153n10, 154n4 utopia, 21, 143, 144 utopian thinking, 21, 143 Vargas, Luz Stella, 58, 63 Vargas Nobrega, Suely, 94 vendors: and cell phones, 155n15; and Ciclovía, 100, 155n10; and estratos, 7; and libraries, 94; and Parque de la 93, 107; and Parque El Virrey, 133, 133f; and Parque Tercer Milenio, 111f; and Paseo de Patio Bonito, 134; persecution of, 111; and Plaza San Victorino, 112–115, 114f, 115f, 116f, 117; popularity of, 146; prohibition of, 108; and public space survey, x, 6, 151n1 (introduction); relocation of, 155n14; restrictions on, 136; and TransMilenio BRT system, 120 Venice Biennale, 39 video surveillance. See surveillance Violich, Francis, 14, 15, 18, 19, 44, 59, 60, 113 visible competency, xii, 22, 29, 41, 120, 127, 136, 143 visible ecology, 52, 72 visible projects, 30, 31, 32, 40, 85, 117; image versus content in, 134; and state power, 47–48 voluntary taxes, 28 Wanderley, Marcia, 94 Watson, Sophie, 137 Weiner, Paul Lester, 14, 16, 17f wildlife habitat, 63, 125 women: and bicitaxis, 134; and city space (feminized space), 36–37; and public space, 47f, 114, 134; and public space survey, 151n1 (introduction); and security, 147; and TransMilenio BRT system, 155n1 World Bank, 152n4 (chap. 2) World Cup, 126 Zambrano Pantoja, Fabio, 12, 14, 16, 18, 38, 45, 55, 79 Zona Rosa, 7, 75, 104, 106, 130, 131. See also Parque de la 93; Parque El Virrey Zona T, 75 Zukin, Sharon, 140

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