Structural problems of Latin American cities 450 years after Caracas’ foundation

Latin American cities face many problems that compromise them from different angles such as lack of infrastructure, government fragmentation, and environmental degradation. At the same time, each city tries to come up with its own solutions, but there are so many difficulties that in many cases it is difficult to keep attention and efforts focused on all these directions. For these reasons, this research aims to define some of the most common problems faced by cities in Latin America. Disseminating these similarities could help to face those problems, since, if local governments recognize that they face the same situations as their neighbors, they could organize themselves to study them and find solutions. To achieve these objectives, this research reviewed the diagnoses made by hundreds of Best Practice proposals collected in the libraries of UN Habitat and the Dubai International Award for Best Practices. Based on these results, this research built a proposal for the contest "Participatory Projects in Public Space Contest" organized in commemoration of the 450 years of Caracas. This proposal served as a case study where some of these cross-cutting problems in the region were explored. At the same time, the contest served as a framework to make these results public and promote discussion on some of these important issues. Finally, this research links different stages and synthesizes some important efforts that are intended to serve as a reference framework to better understand serious and everyday problems that are manifested in Latin American cities.

拉丁美洲城市面临诸多从不同维度掣肘城市发展的问题，诸如基础设施匮乏、政府治理碎片化以及环境退化。与此同时，各城市均试图探索适配自身的解决方案，但面临的困境繁多，诸多情形下难以将注意力与资源持续聚焦于上述各类问题的解决。基于上述背景，本研究旨在梳理拉丁美洲城市所面临的若干共性问题。传播此类共性问题的认知，将有助于应对相关挑战：若地方政府能够意识到自身与邻近城市面临相同处境，便可协同开展研究并探寻解决方案。为达成上述目标，本研究梳理了联合国人居署（UN Habitat）与迪拜最佳实践国际奖（Dubai International Award for Best Practices）馆藏的数百份最佳实践（Best Practice）提案中所包含的问题诊断内容。基于上述研究结果，本研究为纪念加拉加斯建城450周年而举办的"公共空间参与式项目大赛"（Participatory Projects in Public Space Contest）撰写了参赛提案。该提案被用作案例研究对象，用以剖析该区域存在的若干跨领域共性问题；与此同时，本次大赛也为公开研究成果、推动相关重要议题的讨论提供了平台。最后，本研究整合各研究环节，综合多项关键实践成果，旨在构建可供参考的分析框架，以更深入地理解拉丁美洲城市中凸显的各类严峻日常问题。