The City Passing by the River. The San Francisco River Canalization and Construction of Avenida Jiménez de Quesada in Bogota at the Beginning of the 20th Century

The document refers to the San Francisco river canalization and subsequent construction of the Avenida Jiménez de Quesada. Understanding that the project was ascribed to the modernizing policy of the time, the investigation identifies the different stages in the canalization process, and shows its relations with the spatial structure of the city and the local conditions that developed on the river surroundings. The financing of the project through the “property increase duty” permits an illustration of the progress of canalization and construction of the Jiménez Avenue process, providing a less technical and more social meaning to the sequence in which the project executed. Consequently, the document approaches the shaping dynamics of Bogotá´s spatial structure at the beginning of the XX century.

Interaction between Public Transportation and Urbanization in the Mexico City Metropolitan Area: an Expansive Model Reaching its Limits

In Metropolitan Area of Mexico City, most of urban displacements happen through semi formal public transportation: small and medium capacity vehicles operated by small private enterprises, through a concession scheme. This kind of public transportation has been playing a major role in the Mexican capital. On one hand, it has been one of the conditions for urbanization to be possible. On the other hand, despite its uncountable deficiencies, public transportation has allowed for a long time the whole population to be able to move within this huge metropolis. However, that important function with regards to integration has now reached its limits in the most recent suburbs of the city, where a new mode of urbanization is taking place, based on massive production of very big social housing gated settlements. Public transportation tends to constitute here a factor of exclusion and households meet with important difficulties for their daily mobility. 

Territorio y ciudad: contexto y pretexto para un enfoque integrativo de análisis

En las últimas décadas el territorio y la ciudad se han constituido en asuntos de preocupación relevante para las distintas disciplinas y por lo tanto para la academia en general; sin embargo, su análisis ha sido parcial y sesgado a los enfoques propios de las profesiones. Las disciplinas, si bien han hecho importantes aportes para su abordaje, dejan entrever la ausencia de enfoques integrales que permitan una mejor comprensión sobre estos asuntos, complejos y dinámicos.En el presente análisis el territorio se asume como el contexto en el que se desarrollan las dinámicas, los procesos urbanos y las interacciones de estos con el entorno rural, mientras que la ciudad se constituye en el pretexto para la comprensión de la vida moderna de hoy y del futuro –ya que la aglomeración es un hecho cierto en el mundo– el cual se ha intensificado en los países en desarrollo, como es el caso colombiano.Este artículo plantea cuatro aspectos claves para abordar el tema de estudio: primero, la pertinencia de la temática; segundo, explora el contexto histórico sobre la ciudad y el proceso de urbanización; tercero, se esbozan los principales elementos de un enfoque integral para el análisis del territorio y la ciudad a partir de una triada –la noción de paradigma de Kuhn, la ecología social de Capra y la Equística– como método que permite integrar los aportes disciplinarios y transversales a dicho análisis; finalmente, se presenta una agenda preliminar de temas de investigación que contribuye a dinamizar el debate.-----The territory and the city in the last decades have been constituted in matters of outstanding concern for the different disciplines and therefore for the academy in general, however, their analysis has been partially and slanted to the focuses characteristic of the professions. These, the disciplines, although they have made important contributions for their boarding, they allow to see the absence of integral focuses that you/they allow a better understanding on these matters, complex and dynamic.Presently analysis, the territory is assumed as the context in which the dynamics and the urban processes and the interactions of these are developed with the rural environment, while the city is constituted in the pretext for the understanding of today’s modern life and of the future, since the mass is a certain fact in the world, which has been intensified in the developing countries, like it is the Colombian case.For the development of this thematic one, the article outlines four key aspects to approach the study topic: In the first place, the relevancy of the thematic one; the second it explores the historical context on the city and the urbanization process; in the third the main elements of an integral focus are sketched for the analysis of the territory and the city, starting from a triad: The notion of paradigm of Kuhn, the social ecology of Capra and the Equistica, as method that allows to integrate the disciplinary contributions and the traverse ones to this analysis and in fourth place, a preliminary calendar of investigation topics is presented that contributes to energize the debate.

Informality in the City: a Theoretical Analysis

This thesis theoretically studies the relationship between the informal sector (both in the labor and the housing market) and the city structure.

Urban voices : a collection of writing on city life.

Colección de textos que explora la emoción, las tensiones y las injusticias de la vida urbana. Una variedad de pasajes, extractos de novelas, artículos periodísticos, poemas y cuentos, conforman cada una de las cinco secciones temáticas. La colección incluye escritos, entre otros, de William Blake, Bill Bryson, Charles Dickens, Robert Harris, Beverley Naidoo, Jon McGregor, Jeanette Winterson. Hay notas sobre los autores.

Sin City : cuando el cine se rinde a los pies del cómic.

El artículo forma parte de una sección de la revista dedicada a propuestas didácticas.- Resumen tomado parcialmente de la publicación

Play and creativity at the center of curriculum and assessment : a New York City School??s Journey to re-think curricular Pedagogy

Resumen tomado de la publicaci??n

The re-urbanization of the city center of Manaus , Brazil - Facing the challenges of informal settlements

Illegal occupation of urban land in Brazil is a widespread phenomenon. Slum dwellers are excluded from the attributes of urban citizenship although they provide the labor force required by low productivity urban services needed by cities. Illegal settlements generate multiple problems for the rest of the city . Its solution is of key relevance to the city in general but also provide an opportunity for the social and economic advancement of slum dwellers. The programs required to attain these results are complex and difficult to implement underscoring the challenges countries will face to attain the Millennium Development Goals of reducing the population living in slums.

Museum of the City of São Paulo: A new paradigm of City Museums in the Era of Megalopolises

The City is a tomography of the present, indicating to the future, strata of past times. Nowadays city growth averages one million people every week; while back in 1950 there were eighty six cities with more than one million inhabitants, today they are four hundred all over the world. However the most significant effect of the urban process is, doubtless, the explosion of megacities. It took one century for the urban population – around three point four billion inhabitants – to surpass the number of people in the country, but United Nations projections indicate that by 2025, urban population will reach 61% of the total. Creating a new city museum in São Paulo requires that, in a first analysis, one should consider as geographic area of study some fifteen hundred square kilometres corresponding to the patrimonial intervention area. That is the area of the Municipality, politically divided into ninety six districts where eleven million people live, while approximately twenty million people live in the metropolitan area