The Urban Enviornment Joy Lee, Kayla Cross, Kevonte Golden, Nick Little, and Taylor Skinner
Defining the Urban Environment Urban Environment Not separate from rural, but a result of a set of practices that creates familiar and recognizable urban landscapes Rural and Urban areas are tied by the exchange of resources, technology, ideas (env. goods and bads) Nature pristine areas separate from human interference Urban Ecology - the relationship between and preservation of nature in urban landscapes
Chapultepec Park
The Flow of Environmental Resources and Risks Ecology in the Third World begins with water, garbage and sewage - Roberts and Thanos 2003, 99 Environmental problems in Latin America often deal with the flow of vital resources through the city or the extraction of wastes from the city. Health of the populace is the main focus of Latin American environmentalism. Factors like affluence and ethnicity play a role in environmental resource access and pollution exposure
Damaging Effects of Affluence No obvious correlation between population size, growth rate or density of a city and the level of urban environmental problems. (Satterthwaite 2003) Affluence is the most reliable indicator of environmental problems throughout the global South. Production/Accumulation of wealth and lack of good development planning cause many environmentally damaging effects
Responsibility for the Urban Environment The Municipal government ensures a clean and healthy living and working environment public health provide services necessary for the social reproduction of urban citizens export pollution provide sanitary systems provide potable water solid waste collection
The City v.s. The Citizens City responsible for distancing citizens from their own waste sewerage connections electricity door to door garbage collection piped water provide necessary services for the social reproduction of urban citizens Citizens participate in the production of the city through daily activities allow the intellectual and practical burdens of environmental management to rest on the government or utility The citizens have entered a contract of sorts with the municipal government to bound them to a set of rights and obligations that have been written into many ordinances. It is a part of constitutional law in many places and subject of newer environmental legislation at state and federal levels.
Responsibility continued.. Joint Irresponsibility Environmental problems like air and water pollution cross political lines amongst municipal entities. This occurs because no individual municipality is willing to attend to such environmental services. The World Bank Responsibility To deal with these challenges, agencies such as the World Bank are called to fund these projects. The WB has instituted a number of urban environmental projects in LA that have contributed to the health cost devoted to 10% of the urban income.
Issues with the World Bank It doesn t concentrate on the political-economic, historical, and social context of particular urban environmental problems but instead on technological fixes. ex) National Urban Solid Waste Management Project(Argentina) 83% of its $54million budget went to building landfills but it did little to address the lack of recycling problem and spatial inequities of dump location It pushes for neoliberalized economies in LAC this means shifts in responsibilities of local, state, and federal governments and private sectors
Urban Environment Popular Movements Latin America experienced similar patterns of crisis and revolts as the rest of the world during the World Economic Depression and WWII. During the 1930-40`s aborted revolutionary upheavals and revolt took place in Cuba, El Salvador, Colombia, Brazil, and Bolivia. At the time popular front alliances of Communists, Socialist, and Radicals governed in Chile and populist-nationalists regimes took power in Brazil (Vargas), Argetina (Peron), and Mexico (Cardenas ).
Popular Movement. Toward the end of the 1990`s, neo-liberals pillage throughout Latin America had reached its paroxysm: Ten billions of dollars were literally siphoned off and transferred, especially Ecuador, Mexico, Venezuela, and Argentina, to overseas banks. Over 5,000 lucrative, successful state owned enterprises were privatized by the corrupt regimes at prices set far below their value and into the hands of select private US and EU corporations and local regimes cronies. The predictable economic collapse and crisis following blatant looting of the major economies in Latin America provoked a wave of popular uprising, which overthrew elected neo-liberals officials and administrations in Ecuador (3 times), Argentina (3 times successful), and Bolivia (2 times)
Continued Bolivia has the highest density of militant social movements of any country in Latin America, including high levels of mine and factory worker participation. Argentina has the strongest relationship between severe economic crisis and mass popular rebellion took place in Argentina in Dec. 19-20 2001 Perú, Paraguay, Colombia, Chile, Central America, Haiti and Mexico had low intensity social movements https://www.youtube.com/watch? v=r083hrngbkc https://www.youtube.com/watch? v=zbw35ze3bg8
What s with all the struggle for water? Poor farming practices, unregulated industrialization Mexico has a miniscule potential supply of approx 13,000 cubic feet per person. Natural desert is merging with human-induced desert over much of the Valley of Mexico. Throughout the central region, water basins and aquatic habitats are routine dumpsites for garbage, mining effluent, and industrial & agricultural waste. Human-induced salination is causing desertification in parts of Peru, Bolivia, and NW Argentina. About 25% of LA is now arid or semi-arid.
Rampant poverty is another factor. After years of structural adjustment imposed by the World Bank and International Monetary Fund, as a region, Latin America has the most inequitable income distribution in the world. Mirroring this is a pattern of tremendously unequal access to water. More than 130 million people have no safe drinking water in their homes, and only an estimated one out of every six persons enjoys adequate sanitation service. The situation worsens as policies favoring industrial agriculture drive millions of subsistence farmers into the cities overpopulated by slums every year.
Aguas del Tunari Waterworks controlled by SEMAPA (investment & management co.), a Portuguese conglomerate holding company with interest in cement, pulp and paper, and environmental service sectors. The Bolivian government put this company up for auction for privatization, but not capitalization. Only one was willing to bid and this was Aguas del Tunari, an alliance between the British firm International Waters (55%), construction firm Abengoa of Spain (25%) and four Bolivian companies (5%each) The water network that they envisioned was projected to provide drinking water to all of Cochabamba.
Aguas del Tunari Without regard to its weak bargaining position, Bolivian president Hugo Banzer signed a $2.5 billion, 40-year concession to provide water and sanitation services to the residents The company was guaranteed a min of 15% annual return on its investments. From this, the program was set to correlate with a government plan to present a $63mil rural development package to peasants.
Social Protests Over Water Within a few weeks, the company raised waters by an average of more than 50%, sparking a citywide rebellion that became known as the Cochabamba Water Revolt. By April 2000, following a declaration of martial law by the President, the army killing of a 17yr old male, and more than a hundred wounded. The citizens refused to back down and Bechtal was forced to leave Bolivia.
Bechtal vs. Bolivia Eighteen months later Bechtel and its co-investor, Abengoa of Spain, filed a $50 million legal demand against Bolivia before a closed-door trade court operated by the World Bank, the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID). For four years, afterwards Bechtel and Abengoa found their companies and corporate leaders dogged by protest, damaging press, and public demands from five continents that they drop the case.
Bechtal vs. Bolivia On January 19, 2006 Bechtel and Abengoa representatives traveled to Bolivia to sign an agreement in which they abandoned the ICSID case for a token payment of 2 bolivianos (30 cents). This was the first time that a major corporation has ever dropped a major international trade case such as this one as a direct result of global public pressure, and it set an important precedent for the politics of future trade cases like it.
Political Identities and Urban Environmental Conflicts
Guayaquil (inner port city in Ecuador). Actions against water sellers were perpetrated by women. Participation in social movements.
Pronounced (WA-HAH- KAH) Oaxaca The neighborhood committee, is composed entirely of women, who organize protests and meet with government officials.! clean environments! rights to city services! local conditions
Privatization & Citizenship Similar citizenship demands can be see in the case of struggles over water and gas privatization. There are questions of who has the right to water emerged when ownership was to be handed over foreign companies. A sense of entitlement to urban services is one step toward full political participation and urban citizenship. In the last few years, activism against the privatization of water in Latin American Countries has led to the legal assertion of a right to water. https://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=dl7e2e7q0q4
Exam Questions What do urban environmental politics aim to do? It aims to empower marginalized groups to claim citizenship and join the political struggle over shaping urban places. List 3 countries that low intensity social movements How do countries combat joint irresponsibility? What is Urban Ecology?