Talk:Case Study Montevideo 3

In review of the case study of Montevideo, it seems to have the problem as most cities in South America. The problem arises when cities are not economically strong enough to support its population and these could be link to many factors, such as global economics, political infrastructures, climate change and more...From my understanding, Montevideo is not spared from those affecting factors.

As mentioned, there exist 23% of the population are still living in poverty, that is equivalent to an estimated number of 345000 people. The question I would like to pose is the living conditions of this population. Are they living in slums environment? Are they living near to the park project as mentioned?

If the answer is yes and that they are living in slums environment, then I will find the park fairly irrelevant. A beautiful community park and clean energy in the city would no doubt create positive waves in the urban context but with such a high poverty ratio, an urban plan to improve the slum conditions might seems to be a more appropriate approach and should be on the top priority. Furthermore, it is clear that the city has limited funding and that is the reason why it chose to surrender its environment for dirty industrial uses.

It would make it even more unfeasible when the park is not located within walking distance from the troubled population. Transportation, time and effort would only deter this group from patronizing the space. Which means the initiative proposed would has no direct impact on the wound in the society. The slum environment is the sum of survival necessities, created on the most honest basic, nothing too much, nothing too less, just enough to sustain life. It is an infrastructure that should be improved and not remove.

The shifting of interests away from the trouble landscape is a movement to isolate or even eliminate it. That would likely to result in an inbalance in the society, which would in terms interrupt with the growth of the city.

In conclusion, main consideration should be focus on improving life of the poverty, even if the population are not living in slum conditions. Their neighbourhood should be studied critically and prescribe with the best remedy, to upgrade its infrastructure, such as schools, kitchen gardens, social services and social spaces right in the very heart of these communities.

Montevideo group 03 response

First we will try to answer your questions about living conditions in this population, the accessibility to the project area and its environmental condition.

The definition of poverty includes many aspects in relation to several minimum standards and it must be differentiated from indigence. Poor people do not necessarily live in slum environments or defined areas, but distributed in peripheric areas, intermediate and central areas. Slums environments are known in Montevideo as "cantegriles" and are mainly located in peripheric areas. Several governmental and nongovernmental organization are focused on the improvement of the living conditions of these people. Some of them are:

http://www.piai.gub.uy/index.php http://guiaderecursos.mides.gub.uy/mides/text.jsp?contentid=3894&site=1&channel=mides http://www.mevir.org.uy/?SECCION=noticias

The most emblematic place of the city are the waterfront promenade and a series of beaches that extend over 20 kms. This fact is not only because of the beautiful or sublime landscape view of the sea (estuary) but because of being a genuine public space, where most of the people, including the most marginal ones can (and they actually do) enjoy. The cost of public transport is not necessarily a limiting factor, considering the size of the city and the possibility of using alternative means (such as bicycles). It is relevant, contextualizing Poverty and Human Development regionally and globally. There, some additional data emerge.

See: http://hdr.undp.org/en/data/map/ http://hdr.undp.org/en/data/trends/ http://hdrstats.undp.org/en/countries/profiles/URY.html http://hdr.undp.org/xmlsearch/reportSearch?y=*&c=n%3AUruguay&t=*&lang=en&k=&orderby=year

It should be noted also, that the oil refinery and the power station that face Montevideo bay are not recent “acquirements”. They are old modern “heritages” (from the decades of 1950 and 1960) that are still kept running for necessity.

So, the point is that this is a complex problem (not only an economic, material nor a local one) that require complex answers, just as it usually occur in landscape architecture. It is not because of the lack of strategic visions, willingness of government or investment in urban planning, housing, infrastructures, educational, social welfare or labor programs, that this serious problem has not been yet solved. Undoubtedly, this city (and this country) has limited funds. Thus emerges the need to promote and increase investment levels, which in turn generate new productive, logistical, economical and environmental pressures that result also in the increasing of land costs and in population displacements. The (uruguayan) video clip "Panic attack" and the (also uruguayan) movie "The journey to the sea", express in different and contradictory ways, feelings such as fear, anger or nostalgia, facing the potential loss of identity and/or the own place, derived from pressures, changes and problems such as poverty (with the subculture it generates) or the accelerated increasing of land and natural resources demand as a result of foreign investments in extensive production.

Please visit: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-dadPWhEhVk http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HhJe_34V0JI http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1RFW_u7m2vg&feature=related

In this context, planning, regulating and the ability to negotiate and articulate multiple opposed interests, aiming the common good, are key factors in building a balanced future landscape. Obviously this is not easy and we should not be naive about this. The selected project should be evaluated as a part of a wider proccess in the context of an strategic planning, that has to be developed on several dimensions yet.

Undoubtedly poverty is a major problem which compromise the future landscape of this city and this country. But poverty has not necessarily been completely generated nor will be completely resolved locally. It is a problem that involves (affects and / or will affect) the whole region and even the whole world (in a greater or lesser extent) just as global warming and environmental pollution.