México has subsidized and built millions of low-income homes and thousands of subdivisions in the period of 2000–2012. These occupied and expanded urban peripheries far away from work, learn, service, commerce, and recreational amenity centers. These communities had no chance to offer a high quality of life. They were rapidly abandoned and deteriorated physically and socially. Amid the still ongoing crime and violence, inhabitants experienced a loss of trust in their neighbors, a deep sense of insecurity, and consequently reduced public life and activity to a minimum. This article describes and reflects on a project implemented in two neighborhoods of two northern México cities, with the objective of mitigating crime and violence, while recovering public spaces in these communities. The project implemented a hybridized methodology, including Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design (CPTED), attention to Youth at Risk, and the prevention of Gender Based Violence. All these were integrated transversally with a community participation approach incorporated throughout the project actions. This article reflects on the successes and failures of this pilot project, as demonstrated by differentiated results between a neighborhood located in Chihuahua City and another in the municipality of Guadalupe, within Monterrey’s Metro Area. The lessons learned, include the relevance of local political timing and interests, the importance of accurate and manageable geographic definitions for the areas of implementation, the role of NGOs, the importance of local educational institutions—in particular schools of architecture and the need for community oriented strategic consultants, to appropriately advise local governments in the implementation of projects of this nature. The article demonstrates the effort to make it accessible, and to anticipate the issues and opportunities as many Mexican, and other Latin American countries and cities engage in the spatial and social recovery of public spaces, neighborhoods, communities, and cities after years of high crime and violence.
Green infrastructure (GI) has been proposed as a decentralized solution to complex urban water management issues. However, public policy remains a critical challenge for the wide adoption of GI, which is exacerbated in transboundary settings. We draw from public policy theory to analyze GI policies at the US–Mexico border. We examine the case of Ambos Nogales—two sister cities grappling with complex water management challenges. We examined existing policies and evaluated their impact on the implementation of GI at multiple levels (local, state, national, and binational). We also conducted interviews and a focus group with stakeholders. Our analysis unveils a set of barriers to the adoption of GI and a suite of opportunities for the enactment of GI policies. We outline five pathways for greening border cities, including (i) creating market-based GI incentives, (ii) adopting the net-zero urban water approach, (iii) engaging with existing institutions for greening efforts, (iv) planning for a GI network at the watershed scale, and (v) supporting local champions. By addressing shortcomings of policy and regulatory frameworks hindering local capacity, border cities will be more likely to adopt and widely implement GI solutions for more sustainable urban water management.
No abstract
The second section addresses the urban climate challenge. In particular, this section tries to answer the main question why and how cities can have a role in reduction of greenhouse gases emissions, analyzing cities current efforts, examples and policies involving energy, buildings, waste, transportation and deforestation.The third section focuses on a broad set of topics ranging from biodiversity to remunicipalization passing through social justice and inclusion. Finally, scattered throughout the book, there are several city views that highlight ideas and policies that are already being implemented and, at the end of the story, are replicable or even updated in other several similar contexts.The book is a nice book, well written and pleasantly readable, that shows several practices of how to replicate or to enforce sustainability in cities. Nonetheless, it has two main shortcomings that however do not affect my positive opinion of the book. First, I would have liked to see more juice on future sustainable practices able to tangibly improve sustainability in cities in the next future. Even though this is far from the goal of the book, since it focuses on current practices, more attention on where we are going would be useful. Second, the last section of the book is quite confusing, it gives the feeling that it wants to touch the wide variety of the concept of sustainability in a too concise, brief space, and then the result is not the best. I would have appreciated a more in-depth discussion on social and economic issues related to sustainability in cities.On the other hand, the book provides many insights into what sustainability is and how to achieve it both in developed and developing countries. Moreover, it paints a clear picture of the practices adopted worldwide, suggesting intriguing solutions to solve sustainability issues in cities and giving more emphasis to a positive response to the provocative question posed as the title of the book.Ultimately, I would argue that the price of the book is adequate and, given the readability of the text, ''Can a City Be SUSTAINABLE? State of the World (2016)'' will appeal to different readers such as policy makers, urban planners, engineers, architects and even students in related fields. Finally, I would like to conclude citing authors' words: ''This is a book about hope. A story about possibilities' ' (p. xvii). This text is definitely a must for anyone interested in understanding how sustainable cities actually are today and the key role they play in the international scenario. Furthermore, this book deserves attention also in the sense that it shows what today the starting point of urban sustainability is and to inspire future further steps towards a wider global sustainability able to lead to our common future.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.
hi@scite.ai
10624 S. Eastern Ave., Ste. A-614
Henderson, NV 89052, USA
Copyright © 2024 scite LLC. All rights reserved.
Made with 💙 for researchers
Part of the Research Solutions Family.