The caring city

As we look at people’s relationship with a handful of Latin cities and homes, we find a complex trajectory built on inherited social and spatial divisions. The word metropolis refers to social conflicts, but from the experience of the cities it is possible to think about how to stimulate and to alleviate them.

Equanimity
in decisions

Photo: Paulina Malvaez, Mexico City

If we want more equitable cities, we need to stop making so many individualistic, segregationist and utilitarian decisions and shift to other perspectives.

In order for the sensation of coexisting to be stronger than that of surviving the city, it is vital to consider two words: collective and care.

To think about a caring city, that evolves from people’s needs, is something that has already been debated. A more egalitarian city stimulates a population more interested in experiencing and contributing to it, than just extracting from it what it needs. It is a place that nourishes diversity and allows its inhabitants, each in their own way, to feel welcomed as a part of it. For Cleo Henry, our partner from Humankind, “inclusivity is always iterative, so flexibility can be a form of care.” 

Photo: Paulina Malvaez, Mexico City

Well Living

To think about a caring city, we can take advantage of philosophies such as the Bem Viver / Well Living (from Alberto Acosta in his book “O Bem viver – uma oportunidade de imaginar novos mundos”), that seeks, in community and solidarity relations, in common spaces for socialization, in conscious production and consumption, in collaborative work, and in diversity and respect for others and for nature, a way to maintain harmony between the nature and the urban environments and the people.

Paola Martinez, Chilean expert on cities, argues that each metropolis has unique knowledge and specificities, but that they all have a common horizon: the need to “more than patch roads or patch up streets, to patch up life”.

Photo: Sofia Cossari, Buenos Aires

Photo: Sabrina Guimarães, Sao Paulo
Photo: Paulina Malvaez, Mexico City
Photo: Mário Álvarez, Santiago
Photo: Diana Bueno Bieletto, Mexico City
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Urban Narratives

If our spaces “tell stories”, as Julián Woodside, a Mexican specialist in material culture, said, we have heard the stories that are being told today, but which ones do we want our city to tell us from now on? How can we take action in urban structures to make this happen? For Eduardo Costa, a Brazilian expert on Cities, who believes in the empowerment of the occupation of public spaces, “the transformation of the city will happen starting from the squares.” Living in a city is not just about enjoying what it has to offer, but actively contributing to the narrative of the stories it tells. According to Costa, “we need to participate more, this is an individual thing, we have to change, this is the new world.”

“I live here because it’s a very well connected area, there are many places to buy food and it’s relatively cheap, and I like exploring the region because I’ve lived here for many years of my life, since I was a kid, so, it gives me some comfort and some feeling of safety in this neighborhood.”
Dweller of an apartment in PortalesMexico City, 37 y-o
“I like it here because, for example, for him (son) to go to my mother’s house it’s very easy, he can walk around here, he can walk to school and walk back home.”
Dweller of an apartment in Freguesia do ÓSão Paulo, 40 y-o
“Even before I had dogs I used to go out every day and my neighbors know me and say hi. Some are friends I have on the street to talk…”
Dweller of an apartment in San Miguel Chapultepec Mexico City, 35 y-o
“The plants give me a feeling that I’m not closed in a house in a city. If I cover a wall with vines, I can imagine on the other side of it there are woods.”
Dwellers of a house in La FloridaSantiago, 67 and 68 y-o
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Photo: Mário Álvarez, Santiago

With all these questions in mind, it is possible for us to understand that the city is not only about what’s on offer, but about the constant development of a living ecosystem, and that to be healthy it needs to be in balance and meet material and emotional needs, which are connected. And for this, as Costa explains: “the best city that exists, is the city that already exists,” we must polish what it already offers us so that it can help us tell the stories we want to live.

For us, with this study, we understand that city, neighborhood, and home should be synonymous with well living, diversity and vitality.