Urban Labyrinths

Urban Labyrinths: Informal Settlements, Architecture, and Social Change in Latin America is a coauthored book that examines intervention initiatives in informal settlements in Latin American cities as social, spatial, architectural, and cultural processes. From the mid-20th century to the present, Latin America and other regions in the Global South have experienced a remarkable demographic trend, with millions of people moving from rural areas to cities in search of work, access to healthcare, and education. Without other options, these migrants have created self-built settlements mostly located on the periphery of large metropolitan areas. While the initial reaction of governments was to eradicate these communities, since the 1990s, several Latin American cities began to advance new urban intervention approaches to improving quality of life. This book examines informal settlement interventions in five Latin American cities: Rio de Janeiro, Medellin, Sao Paulo, Buenos Aires, and Tijuana. It explores the Favela-Bairro Program in Rio de Janeiro during the 1990s which sought to improve living conditions and infrastructure in favelas. It investigates the projects propelled by Social Urbanism in Medellin at the beginning of the 2000s, aimed at revitalizing marginalized areas by creating a public transportation network, constructing civic buildings, and creating public spaces. Furthermore, the book examines the long-term initiatives led by SEHAB in Sao Paulo, which simultaneously addresses favela upgrading works, water pollution remediation strategies, and environmental stewardship. It also discusses current intervention initiatives being developed in informal settlements in Buenos Aires and Tijuana, exploring the urban design strategies that address the complex challenges faced by these communities. Taken together, the Latin American architects, planners, landscape architects, researchers, and thinkers involved in these projects confirm that urbanism, architecture, and landscape design can produce positive urban and social transformations for the most underprivileged.This book will be of interest to students, researchers, and professionals in planning, urbanism, architecture, urban design, landscape architecture, urban geography, public policy, and other spatial design disciplines-more specifically, those with interests in informal urbanization, urbanism, urban/architectural theory, history, heterotopia, obsolescence, resilience, adaptive reuse, participatory design, and cross-cultural production.