Architect and Urbanist focused on Spatial, Social, and Environmental Justice
Founder and co-Director of the Caribbean Spatial Justice Lab
Founder and member of GREENIUS
Routledge
ISBN 9780367510787
232 Pages and 29 Illustrations
Uncertain Regional Urbanism in Venezuela explores the changes cities face when they become metropolises, forming expanding regions which create both potential and problems within settlements. To do so, it focuses on three metropolitan areas located in Venezuela’s Center-North region: Caracas, Maracay and Valencia, designated as "Camava."
Considering three core topics, government and territorial administration, infrastructure and environment, as well as looking at the reciprocal impact, this book describes and analyses the determinant variables that characterize the phenomenon of regional urbanization in this area and in the wider Global South. It includes documentary research, semi-structured interviews and Delphi methodology, involving a total of forty experts from different disciplines to build a comprehensive outlook on the situation.
This book presents a broader understanding of the region to encourage a more sustainable and knowledge-based development plan, moving away from the exploitation of natural resources, with six future-oriented scenarios to consider. This is a much-needed study in the urban regions of Venezuela, which will be of interest to academics and researchers in Latin American studies, the Global South, architecture and planning.
Table of Contents
Chapter 1. Mapping the complexity of a poorly studied case
-
The urban region Caracas-Maracay-Valencia
-
Three attempts to deny the reality
-
A compound perspective to approach a complex case
-
Knowledge and foresight
-
The difficulties to investigate in Venezuela nowadays
-
Strategies to operate in a harsh context
Chapter 2. The formation of the main urban region of Venezuela
-
Camava definitions: what has been said
-
Strategic position, natural conditions and sea proximity
-
First concentration, centuries of an archipelago country
-
Second concentration, from one caudillo to another
-
Third concentration, more than ever
Chapter 3. Three factors to understand a harsh reality
-
Recently dead metropolitan government
-
Once decent infrastructure
-
No place for nature
-
Nothing less, nothing more, just Camava
Chapter 4. Agreement on the complex future
-
Not-so-uncertain Delphi results
-
Incoming transversal conditions
Chapter 5. Camava’s future expectation
-
Five scenarios for Camava
-
Looking through the scenarios
Chapter 6. Synthesizing strengths and weaknesses
-
A more honest future
-
Final thoughts