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City: analysis of urban trends, culture, theory, policy, action

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Mobility innovation at the urban margins

Peter Brand & Julio D. Dvila Published online: 12 Dec 2011.

To cite this article: Peter Brand & Julio D. Dvila (2011): Mobility innovation at the urban margins, City: analysis of urban trends, culture, theory, policy, action, 15:6, 647-661 To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13604813.2011.609007

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CITY, VOL. 15, NO. 6, DECEMBER 2011

Mobility innovation at the urban margins

ns Metrocables Medell vila Peter Brand and Julio D. Da
With the consolidation of democratic governments in the 1980s and 1990s, wholesale evictions of entire neighbourhoods ceased to be a solution to urban problems in Latin America. This paper discusses an example of a new generation of municipal programmes aimed at physically upgrading informal settlements while integrating them both physically and socially into the fabric of the city. In Medell n, a city with a recent history of violence and social inequality, the audacious use of well-established ski-slope aerial cable-car technology in dense and hilly low-income informal settlements was followed by major neighbourhood upgrading comprising new social housing, schools and other social infrastructure, as well as support to micro-enterprises. Although lack of mobility contributes to social inequality and poverty, the paper argues that the introduction of quick-fix highly visible transport technology on its own is unlikely to help reduce poverty. Although urban upgrading programmes and the symbolic value of cable-car systems have instilled among the local population a feeling of inclusion and integration into the modern city, they can also be understood as mechanisms for the normalisation of informal sectors of the city.

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Key words: mobility, public transport, Medell n, settlement upgrading, poverty, aerial cable-cars
Theyre knocking our life and times away! said an elderly Mancunian. We stood together gazing over a wilderness on which still another vast slum had been razed, and he spoke in grief. A kind of culture unlikely to rise again had gone in the rubble, and he knew it. But most of the young who left such spaces had no such regrets: the old ways their fathers had accepted had long grown insupportable; better by far the cliff dwellings of modern Manchester. (Robert Roberts, 1971, pp. 910)

1.

Introduction1 nlike dwellers of Englands classic slum, as Engels called it, todays residents in Medell ns informal

hillside barrios are likely to see some of their children and grandchildren grow up in the same area of the city where they first settled a generation ago. With the consolidation of democratic governments in the 1980s and 1990s, the razing of entire neighbourhoods ceased to be a wholesale solution to urban problems in Latin America. The summary large-scale evictions in central locations aided by heavy police presence of the 1960s and 1970s have largely been replaced by a new generation of municipal programmes seeking to physically upgrade existing settlements and to integrate them both physically and socially into the fabric of the city (Rojas, 2010; Cavalcanti, 2009).2

ISSN 1360-4813 print/ISSN 1470-3629 online/11/06064715 # 2011 Taylor & Francis http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13604813.2011.609007

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CITY VOL. 15, NO. 6 benefits that the cable-cars would bring to the poor and marginalised urban areas where they have been implemented. The assumption has been that improved access and mobility options available to the poor would, per se, lead to improved opportunities and better living conditions. While there is ample evidence to demonstrate that, in general terms, the lack of mobility is an integral part of the condition of disadvantage and deprivation (Social Exclusion Unit, 2002; Kenyon et al., 2006; Urry, 2007; Ohnmacht et al., 2009), it is far from clear that the opposite is true: that marginally improved mobility options for the poor lead directly and inexorably to social improvement. Recent sociological theorising (Kaufmann, 2000; Kaufmann et al., 2004) has emphasised the importance of context. Although mobility is a generalised characteristic and requirement of contemporary society, how mobility options operate and are inserted into economic and social routines, and the positive outcomes it produces, depend on the specific conditions of any given community or social group. The audacious decision to build cable-car systems in the poorest and most violent sectors of Medell n was heavily influenced by these sorts of social considerations, initially intuitively and later through more systematic planning. The analysis of the impact of the aerial cable-car systems in Medell n offers an excellent opportunity to test some underlying assumptions about the significance of mobility for the poor and to evaluate the planning policy and urban responses to specific neighbourhood realities that have accompanied them. 2. Mobility and urban exclusion

This paper examines an example of this new generation of municipal interventions, in a city that Alan Gilbert first visited as a young PhD student in the late 1960s, and whose fortunes he has followed for four decadesMedell n, Colombia. It is also a city that triggers images of modern-day gangster culture mainly through the actions of its most notorious sonthe drug baron Pablo Escobar. As part of a major makeover (Hylton, 2007; Fukuyama and Colby, 2011; Mendieta, 2011), this troubled city now embodies an impressive combination of imagination and boldness in dealing with some of its long-abandoned informal settlements (Medell n and IDB, 2008; Rojas, 2010). The high murder rates that marked daily life in the 1980s and 1990s, especially in the poorest neighbourhoods, have dropped dramaticallythough violence has not disappeared altogether from its streets as will be seen later. In 2004, the city implemented the worlds first modern urban aerial cable-car public transport system. The impact of the resourceful application of ski-slope technology to high-gradient low-income urban areas has been considerable. As a relatively cheap, quick and highly visible response to urban transport problems, it has attracted widespread attention from city authorities throughout Latin America, as well as Europe and Asia. A similar system has already been built in Caracas and others are being developed in Rio de Janeiro and various cities in Colombia. Cities as far apart as London and Bandung (Indonesia) are planning similar lines (though not necessarily to reach informal settlements). In Medell ns case, whilst the first line has been highly successful and runs at full capacity, the impact of a second cable-car line inaugurated in 2008 suggests that, to be economically and socially significant, cable-car systems (known locally as Metrocables) require specific minimum conditions in terms of urban morphology and population density, as well as careful articulation to the existing mass public transit network. Furthermore, considerable expectations revolved around the social

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The research on which this paper draws was motivated by an interest in how mobility affects opportunity, and how, in the case of Medell n, a local government intervention in infrastructure such as the Metrocable system might contribute to poverty reduction by improving income generation and the living conditions of the population of the surrounding area.

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The importance of mobility in contemporary society has been widely recognised, to such an extent that it has been proposed as a new paradigm for social organisation (Urry, 2007), under which mobility has changed from being a luxury to become a generalised necessity and heavy burden; being in movement, real or virtual, has become a demanding and stressful requirement (Bauman, 2000). The luxury nowadays, according to Bauman, consists of being able to escape the obligations of incessant movement. Being able to immobilise oneself has become the act of power of the new elite, which in turn implies an unlimited ability to choose where to be. At the other extreme are the social groups anchored to a particular place through the absolute lack of mobility resources and choice (Zibechi, 2008). As Bauman observes, increased mobility does not homogenise society, rather it stratifies and polarises, liberating some individuals to act at a distance, free from any spatial ties, whilst imprisoning others in a particular locality. Much sociological work on mobility has concentrated on the hypermobility of wealthy Western societies and the importance of mobility to economic opportunity and individual freedom (Ohnmacht et al., 2009; Freudendal-Pedersen, 2009; Social Exclusion Unit, 2002). In less-developed societies, the poor have a narrow absolute limit to the number of journeys possible by virtue of low and often erratic monetary incomes, which in turn limits their chances of becoming less poor. In his study of the implications of transport costs for people living in the poor periphery of Santiago de Chile, Ureta (2008) finds that this peripheral location limits peoples ability to travel by foot, at the same time as the high cost of public transport relative to household income restricts peoples movement to the strictly essential (work and education). Limited mobility constrains participation in urban life in general, and opportunities to expand work horizons, social and leisure activities, political and civic engagement. Lack of mobility turns geographical marginalisation into deeper social exclusion.

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Lack of mobility becomes an additional form of social inequality. On top of the traditional (vertical) stratification of society according to wealth, income, education and status, mobility develops a horizontal dimension that further fragments and accentuates existing social divisions around dimensions like age, gender, ethnicity and lifestyle (Ohnmacht et al., 2009). The young, old, infirm and uneducated become more vulnerable under hypermobility. Moreover, mobility is closely related to leadingedge technology and its appropriation, new forms of surveillance, with important cultural implications in terms of creating flows of meaning and cultures of movement in an everyday sense (Jensen, 2009; see also MacDonald and Grieco, 2007). Of course, neither transport infrastructures nor social landscapes are flat and uniform. The need to recognise the social and cultural differentiation of contexts led Kaufmann et al. (2004) to consolidate the notion of motility, or the real or potential capacity to be mobile and its significance in different socio-spatial contexts. Mobility, they argue, constitutes a new kind of capital, the appropriation of which requires:
.

Access: or the range of possible mobilities according to place, time and other contextual restraints, constrained by options (the systems of transport and communication available) and conditions of that access (costs, logistics and other restrictions). Competences: or the skills and abilities that relate directly or indirectly to access and appropriation, whether physical, cognitive or organisational. Appropriation: or how agents (individuals, groups, networks, institutions) interpret and act upon those options; it incorporates needs, plans and aspirations as well as motives, strategies and values.

In applying the Kaufmann et al. schema to the Medell n case, we considered the access factor to be less important than might have been expected. The cable-car system was built in low-income areas with a deficient

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CITY VOL. 15, NO. 6 imaginative leap in this city of 3 million inhabitants, Colombias second largest. With no recent urban precedent and some unmapped technical territory to negotiate, the proposal initially encountered considerable local cynicism. However, the materialisation of the first cable-car system arose from a constellation of circumstances that not only explain the genesis of the project but also offer important signposts for the adoption of similar systems in other cities. The first cable-car system, Line K (see Figures 1 and 2), was built in the poor and inaccessible north-eastern sector of the city. This sector is characterised by a difficult, steeply sloping terrain broken by deep smaller valleys carved by the numerous streams running down the hillside to the Medell n River. Developed through informal settlements and land invasions dating from the 1950s and 1960s, by the end of the 20th century it was the most densely urbanised sector of the city, with over 400 dwellings per hectare.3 As a consequence, road infrastructure was minimal and access difficult, although the area was relatively well served by conventional buses, and the occasional taxi. The second cable-car line, Line J, was to traverse a similar but more diverse physical and social landscape in the western sector of the city. The accessibility problem was made even more evident when the citys over-ground Metro mass transport system was introduced in 1995. As the main Metro line (the only one in that sector of the city) runs parallel to the main river, a cable-car was an ingenious idea to bring passengers down from the hillsides to the Metro system itself. The Metro authorities insist that this was always a socially motivated projecta way of extending the benefits of the Metro to the poorest and more inaccessible areas of the citybut it also provided a way of increasing passenger numbers for a then underutilised Metro capacity. In the late 1990s, various studies and technical consultations were undertaken by the Metro, so that by 2000 it had become a technically and financially feasible

road infrastructure but relatively well served by conventional buses. However, the cablecar system involves no additional cost for Metro users, and the tariff is only marginally higher than that of a bus (and much cheaper than a two-bus journey). The logistics of cable system use is more sophisticated and demanding than buses, and considerable effort was made to train users prior to and at the beginning of operations. This can be seen as developing user competences, in terms of the knowledge and skills needed to gain access to the system and use it appropriately. However, such competences are divergent from and often at odds with the more informal skills needed for everyday routines in the informal environments of lowincome areas, and this was to be something we as researchers needed to be sensitive to. This leads us to the question of appropriation. The Metrocable provides an infrastructural articulation to formal urban life, especially formal sector employment. For social groups outside formal networks or whose everyday routines are circumscribed to the locality, the level of appropriation might be expected to be much lower, or even antagonistic. Kaufmann et al.s warning as to the different meanings and consequences of mobility options, in particular, cultural and socio-spatial contexts, proved to be a valuable one. In short, the context of informality, conflict and violence into which the cable systems were retro-fitted, became a key consideration. If poverty conditioned access, informality and conflict could be expected to affect the logics of use and appropriation. Infrastructure was also a means for the formal sector and state agencies of gaining access to previously nogo areas in the grip of local armed gangsa well-known strategy throughout urban history (but little considered in contemporary transport research).

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3.

Medell ns Metrocables in context

The addition of aerial cable-cars to the public transport infrastructure was undoubtedly an

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ns Metro system (north is on the left of the image) Figure 1 Medell (Source: www.metrodemedellin.gov.co (accessed 1 July 2011))

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project. Only the political moment of opportunity was needed and 2000 happened to be an electoral year. The Metro de Medell n company presented the cable-car project to the mayoral candidates, most of whom rejected it. However, the eventual election winner, Luis Pe rez (2001 2003), was as keen an enthusiast of cable-cars as the

newly appointed head of the Metro de Medell n companywho describes this shared interest as being like an alignment of the planets.4 Less than three years after Mayor Pe rez committed the municipal government by providing 55% of the lines funding costs, the first Metrocable was in operation.5

Figure 2 Metrocable Line K with Parque Espan a library in the background vila) (Photo: Julio D. Da

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CITY VOL. 15, NO. 6 3.1. Building and funding the Metrocables

The speed of construction of Line K was in sharp contrast to the building of the citys two over-ground Metro lines in the 1980s and early 1990s. Construction started in 1985 despite technical advice warning of insufficient demand for a mass-transit rail system (Government of Colombia, 1993), but was halted in 1989 when the specially constituted publicly owned Metro company ran out of funds.6 A flawed set of original financial estimates, re-design of the original project and increased import tariffs were among the reasons for a hike in costs from an initial estimate of US$623 million to US$2052 million by 1987 (Government of Colombia, 1993). The central government, as guarantor of the company, was forced to underwrite the additional loans and start re-paying the debt before the system started operating. Construction resumed in 1992 and the first line was eventually inaugurated in 1995. As a result of the financial rescue operation, the central government continued to exert at least nominal control over the company until recently, when the city and provincial governments assumed payment for the companys debts. The Metros financial fiasco was uncharacteristic in a history of fairly efficient and pragmatic local government institutions that cater well to the needs of local business interests. For example, the design of the Metro lines seeks to transport workers swiftly from low-income residential areas in municipalities to the north of the city to southern municipalities where factories are located. The publicly owned Metro company is run along commercial lines, single-mindedly pursuing the aim of increasing ridership to help reduce its large debt.7 This stance has arguably contributed to delays in the implementation of a bus rapid transit system (BRT), since it is seen by some as competing with Medell ns Metro lines.8 However, despite Bogota s well-known trailblazing experience (Gilbert, 2008), Medell n is far from being the only Colombian city to encounter problems in implementing central government policy of creating BRTs as the main urban mass-transit solution.

There are currently three aerial cable-car lines in operation, two of which are urban public transport systems (Line K inaugurated in 2004 and Line J in 2008), along with a third Line L introduced in 2010 which connects with Line K as a tourist route to an ecological park on the edge of the city (see Table 1 and Figures 1 and 2). Cable-car systems are relatively cheap and quick to construct, since they require little land acquisition and the technology is well tested and relatively simple. The cost of the first Metrocable was close to US$24 million, and the second US$47 million (at current exchange rates). The cost per kilometre in urban areas compares favourably with BRT and rail systems. The caveat is that, due to technical limitations, aerial cable-cars are not mass-transit systems and cannot transport significantly more than 3000 passengers per hour. The cable-car system is a public sector project, financed jointly by the municipality and the Metro de Medell n. Modest construction costs make public sector capital borrowing quite feasible, but in the case of Medell n, all three lines have been financed through normal capital investment budgets. The financial contribution of the Metro de Medell n company is based on the calculation of future returns accruing from increased passenger numbers using the Metro over a 10- to 15year period, and the difference is justified by the city authority as a social investment. An important source of municipal finance for these and similar projects is the publicly owned Empresas Pu blicas de Medell n (EPM), the citys large and efficient utilities company (with assets worth c.US$10 billion in 2011) providing electricity generation and distribution, water and sewerage, and telecommunications services. Statutorily, 30% of the companys profits go to the municipal authority, a sum equivalent to around US$250 million in 2010. The Metro de Medell n claims to be one of the few metros to make an operating profit (debt obligations aside). Metrocable Lines K and J are part of

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Table 1 Metrocable lines: basic information Line K Launch date Construction time Length Commercial speed No. of pylons No. of stations No. of cabins (capacity 10) Distance between cabins Installed capacity Estimated total cost (US$ 2003) Cost per kilometre August 2004 14 months 2072 m 5 m/s 20 4 (incl. Metro station) 93

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Line J March 2008 15 months 2782 m 5 m/s 31 4 (incl. Metro station) 119 60 m 3000 passengers/hour US$47 million (at average 2007 exchange rate) US$16.9 million

Line L February 2010 10 months 4469 m 6 m/s 25 2 27 340 m 1200 passengers/hour US$21 million (at average 2009 exchange rate) US$4.7 million Municipality: 38% Metro: 34% Regional Govt: 17%; Min. Transport: 9%; Other: 2%

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60 m 3000 passengers/hour US$24 million (at average 2003 exchange rate) US$11.6 million

Sources of nance n. Source: Metro de Medell

Municipality: 55% Metro: 45%

Municipality: 73% Metro: 27%

the Metro system so their use involves no additional cost for Metro users.9 3.2. Cable-cars and urban crisis management

The favourable alignment of the planets also had much to do with the overall urban situation. During the 1980s, Medell n emerged as the epicentre of Colombias burgeoning illegal drugs trade and during the 1990s became the worlds most violent city (peaking at 381 murders/100,000 population in 1992), and many areas of the city were effectively ungovernable and out of bounds even for the army. Meanwhile the sudden liberalisation of the national economy had forced a brutal restructuring of the citys traditional manufacturing economy, pushing levels of poverty and unemployment to alarmingly high levels (Brand, 2005; Hylton, 2007). It was in this context that the first cable-car system was conceived and implemented, and which the following municipal administration targeted as the focus of urban policy. The independent mayor Sergio Fajardo (2004 2007) set out to re-pay the citys historical debt with those forgotten areas, beginning with the area around the newly completed

first cable-car, the poorest and most violent of all (Da vila, 2009). The first cable-car line became a prototype for subsequent interventions in some of the poorest sectors of the city. A coherent and energetic policy of integrating the cable-car systems into the urban fabric through Integrated Urban Projects (PUIs in their Spanish acronym) was developed, centred around transport projects but aimed at urban upgrading through a combined strategy of mobility, environment, housing and public space (see Figure 3), and the goal of creating new dynamic centres in previously economically depressed areas (Medell n-EDU, 2011).10 The use of local manual labour was to be a feature of all public work contracts, while the introduction of a participatory budgeting element provided a space for organised local communities to collectively decide on the use of no less than 5% of the municipal budget allocated to these areas for investment.11 How successful all this has been, and how sustainable it will be, is far from clear. Dealing with the illegal drugs organisations has been only half a miracle (Fukuyama and Colby, 2011), urban violence has increased in recent years, new gangs control the barrios

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CITY VOL. 15, NO. 6 official data, but also affected by short-term economic cycles, fluctuation in the level of internal violence, flows of people displaced by violence, other urban, economic and social programmes, and so on. Furthermore, the cable-car systems have been implemented in close conjunction with urban improvement projects (PUIs), which makes disentangling the effects of mobility from general improvement even more difficult. This also applies to more intangible impacts, such as their combined effects on local pride, community selfesteem, the sense of urban integration and social inclusion. In dealing with these challenges, and in addition to documentary information, our research adopted a similar approach to that suggested by Flamm and Kaufmann (2006) using (travel) surveys, focus groups and a variety of interview types to gain a better understanding of the local impacts of the Metrocables. A number of preliminary findings follow. 4.1. Mobility and travel behaviour

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Figure 3 Neighbourhood upgrading and new social housing along the Juan Bobo stream vila) (Photo: Julio D. Da

(neighbourhoods) and intra-urban forced migration has grown alarmingly (El Tiempo, 2011). It is quite clear from the above that any assessment of the impact of increased mobility on the living conditions of the local population is a complex and multifaceted issue.

4. The Medell n Metrocables: mobility impacts and urban improvement potential Precise measurement of the social and economic consequences of the Metrocables is difficult for two main reasons. Firstly, as discussed earlier, impacts are not direct and mechanical, but derive from a socio-spatial context that is itself constantly changing. Secondly, limited data availability in informal sectors of the city makes the measurement of trends problematic, not to mention the issue of attributing causality. Thus, for example, estimation of the impact of the cable-cars on the local economy, family incomes or house or rent prices is not only hampered by the lack of

The most obvious impact of the cable-cars was improved mobility in terms of shorter journey times and greater comfort. In optimum conditions, for example, a ride on Line K cuts a 2.1 km journey from the river valley to the highest station400 metres above the valleyfrom over an hour to 15 minutes. However, this assumption needs careful qualification. Firstly, access to the cable-car/ Metro system can involve lengthy periods of walking and queuingover an hour in peak periods. Secondly, travel patterns need to be taken into account, especially multi-purpose travel (more frequent among women than adult men) to more distant destinations outside the city centre. Thirdly, the combined tariff, single ticket involving the cable-car/ Metro + bus, makes cable-car use economically attractive for long journeys with a transfer to another mode of transport (savings of 33% compared to two bus journeys); and yet, for a non-transfer journey say to the city centre, a conventional bus can be marginally cheaper and quicker once waiting/walking

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times are taken into account. Finally, unlike in buses, bulky loads are forbidden in the Metro system, thus placing it out-of-bounds to a number of professional occupations. A consequence of the above is that the main group of cable-car users comprises formal sector workers (in construction, manufacturing, services) with long north south journey to work patterns. Even for these users, advantages can be measured more in cost than time. Advantagesand therefore useare more limited for those in the informal sector of the economy (the great majority in the study area), children and young people, housewives, the elderly and infirm. Less than 10% of the journeys in the area of influence (defined as the barrios where the stations are located, with an average population of 10,000 people) use the cable-car/Metro combination. Conventional buses and walking continue to be the major transport modes, while there is little evidence to suggest an increase in the number of journeys for nonessential trips that might lead to greater participation in city life.

small businesses has increased significantly (Figure 4). Neighbourhoods like Santo Domingo Savio have become more attractive to visitors and locals alike as witnessed by the emergence of young tourist guides deftly reciting the technical details of the more striking architectural works and recounting the rivalries between local armed gangs like long-past epic battles. However, outside these tightly defined areas, neither smallscale economic activity nor house prices or rents appear to show important changes. In the second system, Line J, where the stations are less well articulated to urban morphology and street patterns, these types of benefits are still less evident. Advice bureaux for small businesses have been established in the community centres (park-libraries) close to each of the cable-car systems, backing up better mobility with technical and financial services for business set-ups (see Figure 5). However, poor connection to city-wide institutions and markets, and limited finance programmes, have restricted the scope of new small businesses to micro-

4.2.

Mobility and the local economy

Although not explicitly stated in local government communications relating to the decision to build the cable-cars, our research has sought to examine the extent to which greater accessibility might have facilitated city-wide employment opportunities for local residents, while invigorating the local economy by creating new businesses and greater opportunities for local businesses to grow, more (formal sector) employment, increased building activity, and perhaps even higher land and rental prices (and the associated risk of displacement of local residents, some 40% of whom are tenants). The evidence to date indicates only modest changes in this respect. While it is true that in the immediate vicinity of the stations and where urban upgrading has been undertaken below the overhead cables, the number of shops, bars and restaurants, workshops and

Figure 4 Santo Domingo Savio neighbourhood (Line K): the presence of commercial banks reects a growing formalisation of the local economy vila) (Photo: Julio D. Da

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CITY VOL. 15, NO. 6 complemented with investments in housing, schools, the environment and public space. The first PUI was developed around the first cable-car line and since then three others are being implemented in strategic areas of the city. The high quality of civic architecture and associated infrastructure is another feature of this version of the Barcelona model of urban regeneration (Monclu s, 2003) that became formalised and widely promoted as Medell ns unique brand of social urbanism (Echeverri and Orsini, 2010; The Architectural Review, 2011; Brand, 2010). It was hoped that this armoury of interventions would lead to a profound social transformation and a new social contract in the more deprived and violent sectors of the city, on the basis of spaces for citizenship and settings for democracy and peaceful co-existence (Medell n and IDB, 2008). This represents a radical political agenda in an otherwise fairly orthodox history of conventional urban interventions. And yet, our research suggests that questions of age and gender equality and access for the disabled, for example, have only recently made an appearance in the policy arena. And though there is no doubting the high levels of political and financial commitment by the municipality, the social impact of specific projects remains somewhat unclear (MacNamara, 2009; Blanco and Kobayashi, 2009; Can n, o 2010; Quinch a, 2011). Along Line K, there is evidence of increased community self-esteem and a sense of inclusion brought about by the cable-car system and the associated urban upgrading. The great majority of residents seem proud of what has happened in their communities and welcome visitors and tourists; once stigmatised, they now feel part of the city. However, Medell ns social urbanism has not been without criticism. The early projects were highly participatory (Carvajal, 2009), recent ones much less so; concerns have been raised about future maintenance costs; the architecture has been criticised for its lack of originality and ostentation; some argue that the city administration has been

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Figure 5 Poster advertising municipal support to microenterprises vila) (Photo: Julio D. Da

scale enterprises and neighbourhood markets with little prospect of sustained growth that might impact on city-wide poverty and inequality (Bateman et al., 2011). From 2004 onwards, there was an increase in the number of formal property transactions in the area, but this seemed to reflect a general trend across the city.12 There was no discernible trend in the quality of life index while the human development index has generally improved since 2004.13 Interestingly, neither of these indices includes a measurement of mobility. 4.3. Urban improvement, social inclusion and citizenship The premise behind Medell ns current approach to upgrading is that, if wider and sustained improvements are to be achieved, new transport infrastructure needs to be

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carried away, literally, with its own success, has overstretched its resources and is now more concerned with constructing an image than transforming reality.

4.4.

Political significance

The creation, via the cable-cars and associated urban upgrading, of a sense of inclusion is an important political benefit, both internally and externally. City administrations gain in legitimacy and governability vis-a ` -vis the urban population, whilst the aesthetic impact of cable-cars and high-quality architecture in poor urban areas enthrals the architectural profession and can be used to promote an economically competitive and socially progressive image. The attraction of cable-car systems for city mayors, including those of Rio de Janeiro and London, is easy to understand. In contrast to the modest impacts in terms of increased mobility and material wellbeing, the cable-car systems can be seen as having an enormous symbolic significance. Architectural and engineering gestures, aesthetic experience and sensation determine the political response of neighbourhood residents and external visitors alike. Adroit manipulation of the symbolic world, especially in the context of the contemporary urbanism of the spectacle, is undoubtedly important and effective. Alan Gilbert rightly cautions against the use of the term slum to describe the physical embodiment of urban poverty and inequality, and to draw up prescriptions for deep-seated structural problems (2009). The use of this emotionally and historically laden term has all manner of negative connotations, not least the fact that its use evokes the supposedly evil character of those who live there (Gilbert, 2007, p. 702). Its use as shorthand for a complex combination of poor housing, inadequate utility connections and lack of opportunity goes hand-in-hand with heavyfisted, short-term, simplistic responses from authorities, ranging from assumptions about

the social and cultural homogeneity of all residents in informal settlements, to off-thepeg solutions such as rows of identical (and usually unaffordable) housing on the edge of town aimed at those forcibly relocated from valuable central locations. Since, as Gilbert has noted, people living in slums or informal settlements are somehow seen as being different, the cable-car systems can also be understood as mechanisms for the normalisation of informal sectors of the city. Cable-cars carry with them social norms, strictly enforced rules of behaviour, everyday surveillance, heavier policing, administrative procedures and information registers (see Figure 6).14 Our survey suggests that most residents accept this as something positive or at least necessary, although it does provoke a degree of discomfort, inconformity and resistance. As a form of social control it fails to reach illegal (rather than informal) social groups and organisations, for whom a parallel strategy of repression is being implemented in those same neighbourhoods (Hylton, 2007). Finally, the Medell n experience is a timely reminder of the unique capacity and ultimate responsibility of the public sectorpublic institutions, public investment and state-run enterpriseswith regard to urban upgrading of low-income informal settlements. There is little doubt that Medell n has done much to redress decades of inexcusable oblivion, at least along Line K.

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5.

Conclusions

The success of the first Metrocable line was such that it made the implementation of such a system look easy. The second line made clear that such infrastructure requires careful and systematic integration into social and spatial networks to ensure that increased mobility results in more generalised urban upgrading. In Medell ns case, the value of public investment in complementary urban upgrading projects exceeded by a factor of six the cost of building the cable-car system

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Figure 6 BiblioMetro lending library in Acevedo Metro station vila) (Photo: Julio D. Da

itselfnot counting the cost of the social and small business promotion programmes in the area. However, doubts remain as to the wider effects of greater mobility brought about by cable-cars. They provide less than 10% of daily trips in the barrios in which the stations are located, while the new public buildings and open spaces probably cater for an even lower proportion of the local population; benefits for the local economy have been limited, and land and housing market stimulus has been restricted to the immediate environs of the cable lines. Even so, these benefits should not be undervalued, given the relatively low cost of the cable-car systems themselves. However, the greatest benefits accrue around the symbolic value of cable-car systems. These highly visible infrastructures and the aesthetic experience they afford to both residents and visitors create a feeling of inclusion and integration into the modern city, help develop local pride and promote

individual self-esteem. They result from recognising the specific needs and qualities of these informal settlements, not as undifferentiated homogenous slums but as areas where poverty is still present and the violence of the past two decades could make an unwelcome return thus threatening the citys longterm stability and long-term aim to attract foreign capital and recognition (Hylton, 2007; Medell n and IDB, 2008). They do, however, raise the question of how long this can be maintained without the necessary material base to reduce poverty and inequality, whilst furthering the deepening of local democracy and weakening of traditional patron client politics brought about by the participatory budgeting process. The spectacular nature of the aesthetics of the cable-car systems loses its appeal against a backdrop of unmitigated poverty. The case of Medell ns municipal intervention in its north-eastern comunas raises important questions about the real effect of highly visible infrastructure investments, as well as

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about the capacity of local governments to deal with the thorny issues of poverty, inequality and deepening democracy. Cablecar systems in Medell n have been successful (in transport, urban and social terms) in so far as they are part of a concerted policy of integrated improvement of low-income areas. Against all prima facie visual evidence, a quick-fix approach motivated by shortterm political impact and publicity-conscious gain are unlikely to be successful. Notes
1 This paper is based on an ongoing research project undertaken by the Development Planning Unit, University College London (UCL) in collaboration with the Universidad Nacional de Colombia n campus), the Universidad de los Andes (Medell ) and UCLs Department of Civil, (Bogota Environmental and Geomatic Engineering. For more information see www.ucl.ac.uk/dpu/ metrocables. It is the rst systematic appraisal of the n and looks to pioneering experience of Medell provide pointers for successful application in other cities of the world. The research (Grant RES-167-250562) is funded by the UK Government through the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) and the Department for International Development (DFID) joint scheme for Research on International Development (Poverty Alleviation). This paper does not necessarily reect the views of either DFID or ESRC. It is the result of a team effort by the two authors along with a number of colleagues in , Professor Iva n n: Professor Franc Medell oise Coupe a, Juan G. Cardona and Sarmiento, Angela Mej Laura Agudelo. The authors gratefully acknowledge comments from a number of commentators, including Professor Alan Gilbert and Dr Pushpa Arabindoo, from UCL; it also beneted from inputs from our London colleagues: Caren Levy, Prof. Nick Tyler and Diane Daste. 2 Although much reduced in volume, urban evictions have not disappeared altogether and in fact seem to have made a come back in recent years (COHRE, 2009), as centrally located areas with market potential are occasionally cleared in bids to build or expand infrastructure through large urban projects (Lungo and Smolka, 2005), and generally modernise the image of the city to make it more appealing both to a local cosmopolitan elite and to international visitors. In Colombia, one of the consequences of the long-standing internal conict has been the vast displacement of rural populations eeing violence and persecution by left-wing

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guerrillas and right-wing paramilitary groups, making the countrys internally displaced population one of the largest in the world. Most internally displaced people end up largely in peripheral locations of medium-sized and large cities, where many receive assistance from a number of agencies including local and central government bodies (cf. www.defensoria.org.co). n, with an urban The Municipality of Medell population of 2.2 million in 2005, comprises 16 Comunas (districts). Line K traverses Comunas 1 and 2, with a combined population of 230,000 in 2005. Line J passes through Comunas 7 and 13, with a population of 295,000. Each comuna is further divided into barrios, of which there are 13 in Comuna 1, 11 in Comuna 2, 9 in Comuna 7 and n is the largest and 19 in Comuna 13. Medell richest of the nine municipalities that comprise the n metropolitan area, with a combined urban Medell population of 3.1 million in 2005 (source: www. dane.gov.co). rez, Personal interviews with former mayor Luis Pe rquez, General Manager of and with Ramiro Ma n (September 2010). Metro de Medell The remaining 45% was funded by the Metro company. The municipality was also forced to nancially under-write the project, given the reluctance of international insurance rms to underwrite what was regarded as the possible object of terrorist attacks (personal interview with former rez). mayor Luis Pe Created in 1979 under the ofcial name Empresa Limitada, de Transporte Masivo del Valle de Aburra the Metro company is jointly owned by the n and by the province Municipality of Medell n is (Departamento) of Antioquia, of which Medell the capital, each with 50% ownership. This is helped by the fact that ve out of nine of its current board members are prominent local businessmen appointed by the central government; the other four comprise two representatives each of n and of the the mayor of the Municipality of Medell governor of Antioquia province. ns BRT is planned for the end of Launch of Medell 2011. In mid-2011, the Metros single tariff for any length of journey stands at Col$1750 (US$0.97), the frequent travellers fare at Col$1450 (US$0.80) and a combined Metro bus fare at Col$2000 (US$1.10). The basic conventional bus fare is Col$1500 (US$0.83). By comparison, the minimum daily legal wage is around US$11, including an 11.7% transport subsidy component. The return-trip on the tourist aerial cable-car to (Line L) costs an additional Col$2500. Parque Arv PUIs are dened as a model of intervention aimed at transforming positively, through social, physical and inter-institutional components, a specic urban

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space, by incorporating all elements of development in a parallel and planned manner, through infrastructure works with the highest quality standards, and with an ingredient of community participation so as to ensure their sustainability n-EDU, 2011). (Medell Though public works have a clear attraction mainly for local skilled or unskilled workers who are guaranteed to be employed if only for short periods, not all decisions have involved building infrastructure. The communities in Comunas 1 and 2 agreed to use part of these funds to nance 700 scholarships for local young people to pursue studies at university level. Given the origins of the neighbourhoods as illegal land invasions, where land titles have only recently been granted, the vast majority of property transactions is ofcially unrecorded. Ofcially registered residential property transactions in Comunas 1 and 2 increased from 713 in 2000 to n 1256 in 2004 and 2590 in 2007 (source: Medell blicos, Mayors OfceRegistro de Instrumentos Pu a de HaciendaSubsecretaria de Secretar Catastro). By 2010 a handful of small estate agents had made their appearance. Ofcial gures for these indices are aggregated at the level of comuna and cannot be further disaggregated to examine the possible impact that the cable-cars might have had within a given distance of the stations. The search for normalising the informal is also a feature of the Delhi metro, inaugurated in 2002 n Metro company (Semiaticky, 2006). The Medell has long promoted what it calls Cultura Metro, a set of norms of behaviour strictly enforced within the space of the Metro system, supplemented by a system of lending libraries. In its 2009 annual report, the company argues that the Metro is more than a mode of transport . . . it is a lifestyle, a place for social and cultural encounters (Metro de n, 2009, p. 23). Medell and the Mediation of Local Conict. London: Routledge. n, Brand, P. (2010) El urbanismo social de Medell Colombia, Revista de Arquitectura COAM, (Colegio Ocial de Arquitectos de Madrid) 359, pp. 99103. n, L. (2010) Transport and social exclusion in Can o n. Potential, opportunities and challenges, Medell unpublished MSc dissertation, Development Planning Unit, University College London. n ciudadana y buen Carvajal, Y. (2009) Participacio gobierno: el presupuesto participativo como aporte a n de la ciudad de Medell n, Foro la democratizacio 68, pp. 105114. ` casa: tempo, espac Cavalcanti, M. (2009) Do barraco a o e valor(es) em uma favela consolidada, Revista ncias Sociais 24(69), pp. 6980. Brasileira de Cie COHRE (2009) Global Survey on Forced Evictions: Violations of Human Rights, 2007 2008. Geneva: Centre of Housing Rights and Evictions. n a de la Nacio Colombia, Government of (1993) Garant ditos para el Metro de Medell n, CONPES, a cre n, Documento Departamento Nacional de Planeacio Minhacienda-DNP-2,640-UIP-UINF, Bogota (16 February). vila, J.D. (2009) Being a mayor: the view from four Da Colombian cities, Environment and Urbanization 21(1), pp. 3757. Echeverri, A. and Orsini, F. (2010) Informalidad y n, in M. Hermelin, A. urbanismo social en Medell n: Medio Echeverri and J. Giraldo (eds) Medell n: Ambiente, Urbanismo y Sociedad. Medell Universidad EAFIT. n au n desconoce desplazados El Tiempo (2011) Medell intraurbanos por conicto, 8 May, www.eltiempo.com Flamm, M. and Kaufmann, V. (2006) Operationalising the concept of motility: a qualitative study, Mobilities 1(2), pp. 167189. Freudendal-Pedersen, M. (2009) Mobility in Daily Life: Between Freedom and Unfreedom. Farnham: Ashgate. Fukuyama, F. and Colby, S. (2011) Half a miracle: ns rebirth is nothing short of astonishing. But Medell have the drug lords really been vanquished?, Foreign Policy, (MayJune). Gilbert, A. (2007) The return of the slum: does language matter?, International Journal of Urban and Regional Research 31(4), pp. 697713. Gilbert, A. (2008) Bus rapid transit: is Transmilenio a miracle cure?, Transport Reviews 28(4), pp. 439 467. Gilbert, A. (2009) Extreme thinking about slums and slum dwellers: a critique, SAIS Review XXIX(1), pp. 3548. ns makeover, New Left Review Hylton, F. (2007) Medell 44, pp. 7189. Jensen, O. (2009) Flows of meaning, cultures of movementurban mobility as meaningful everyday practice, Mobilities 4(1), pp. 139158.

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Peter Brand is Principal Lecturer at the School of Urban and Regional Planning, Universidad Nacional de Colombia (Medell n campus). Email: pbrand@unal.edu.co Julio D. Da vila is Principal Investigator of the research project on which this paper is based, and is a Senior Lecturer with the Development Planning Unit, University College London. Email: j.davila@ucl.ac.u k