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Summary Lectures Identity of the City, Christien Klaufus: 2020/2021
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This is a summary of all the lectures on Identity of the City by Christien Klaufus, the year 2020/2021. Latin American Studies.
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Colleges The identity of the city LA- In which neighborhood or part of the city are citizens fighting for a specific urban
right?
- What is the right they are defending, and against who?
- How do they organize their claims and protests?
- What sources have you used?
- What have you learned from this assignment in relation to the literature?
College 1
Most rapidly urbanized region in the world
Most rapidly urbanized region in the world. High rates of people living in cities/ are
urbanized. Because of all kinds of reasons. LA cities are laboratories for the western world to
study. They are studying the cities, urban life, economy and culture and how these factors
interconnect.
Urban transition
- From colonial nodes in the transatlantic world
- To primary cities in young republics in the 19th century
- Real urban transition in the 20th century
People live in areas that are urban.
From rural to urban migration
Rural population moved to cities/urban areas.
Rapid urbanization started in the southern cone, then it went upwards region started to
change more urbanized than other regions.
From rural to urban
There is a large population of people living in urban areas. Rapid urbanization started in the
south. Argentina Brazil and Chile. It spread upwards. Central America came later. Rural to
more cities.
Urbanization in 20th century: four phases
,1900 – 1950 Transatlantic migration to cities in southern cone (from EU)
1950 – 2000 Rural-urban migration whole region (work)
1970 – 2000 Megacities and metropolitan regions; limit to growth (cities were growing too
fast)
Since 2000 Rapid urbanization intermediate cities
There is a limit to urban growth. There was also migration directed to the smaller cities. Mega
cities seem to work like magnets, they have pull factors: attracted to people (employment,
opportunities, cheap labor).
1900 – 1950
Transatlantic migration to cities in southern cone
To escape misery at home, people ended in North America. Also, in parts of Brazil and
Argentina, Uruguay. Big city, possible future. The first waves of migration came here. They
were people with some kind of possibility who took a boat and entered LA. They copied a
little bit of their life in Europe and proceeded in LA. The pioneers leave misery, but they have
something to choose. Otherwise they could not have made the trip. Also, people who had no
possibilities, but took the risk. Different groups.
The city becomes a ‘problem’
Utopic ideas
- City regarded as entry point to modernity, to become modern nation.
- Moral discourse part of political project
- Modern life, technologies, facilities, better prospects, politics, moral discourse: how to
behave and how to be modern?
Reality feeds dystopic ideas
- Overcrowding in inner cities
- Inner city slums/conventillos
How to behave? How to be modern? How to be good? How to be decent? There was a moral
discourse, connected to cities. All those migrants are coming in. They are placed in very small
houses and rooms. Clash of ideas, the cities were inhabitant. Elites started to build their new
countries. Civil society for the future. And then, migrants came in. They expected to be
,educated migrants. But many of those people, were fleeing poverty. They were poor
themselves. What was the city and what could it be? How does it function? This clash of ideas
initiated a problem. In the very first stages of urbanization they were looking at the future and
the cities grew so rapidly.
Migrant were not what the elite in LA expected. Those ideas were: rich, highly educated.
Moral discourse ideas clash reactions.
The reality was not what migrants, nor the elite expected.
Newcomers came to the inner city elite moved out new modern areas: suburbs (EU-like
architecture) city was growing from the center.
The elite was living in the city centers. They started to move out of the city. The newcomers
towards the city. The elite created their own neighborhoods.
Conventillos
- Colonial patio houses in inner city
- Large families living in small rooms
- Close to the plazas: center
- Informal income generating activities (vendors, odd jobs such as laundry washing,
prostitution)
- Family came over overfull houses problems
- Discrimination based on race and ethnicity, social class, type of work, customs and
habits related to poverty
- Overpopulation, poverty all over, no decent facilities and no hygiene
Start of overcrowding of the inner cities.
They started to see migrants as people who were not behaving well, who were not decent
enough. They were making a chaotic mess. They didn’t have jobs, they were sick. Lots of
epidemics and pandemics. Poverty all over, no decent facilities, buildings falling apart, many
animals.
Elite oriented towards Europe
Dominant ideas about culture, civilization, progress, development and modernity.
Often referencing to Antique European (Roman and Greek) histories
Dominant (scientific) ideas about successful civilizations. Darwinism and race theories.
, City as laboratory for testing these ideas.
How to make a sophisticated urban lifestyle?
The civil society was very racist. Ideas about the perfect human being, were based on biology.
On the perfect genes.
1929: civilization was France and England.
Solutions imported from France: urbanismo
It did not exist before. You had some engineers etc. but now there was specific urbanism.
Solving the problems in the city. How to create new space and new people. Creating citizens.
People who are suitable for the urban life that they had in mind. A park close to the center to
get fresh air. To get rid of the diseases and to get rid of the people who were living very
crowded in the slums.
Metaphor 1: city as an organism
French architects and urbanists as advisors of Latin American sanitary and urban institutions.
Donat-Alfred Agache visits Rio in 1927 for lecture on the ‘sick city’ and to develop master
plan. He was invited to tell them what to do, when a city was sick. Rio started to become very
populated at the time.
Le Corbusier visits LA in 1929 and 1936 for various lectures.
The view from the airplane inspired their ideas.
Removing ‘sick parts’
Urban doctors: urban designers
Hygiene and public health
Good taste in aesthetics
Control over social order
Control over urban growth
Steer national identification
Demolition Morro Do Castello (1922 – 1929) and Morro De San Antonio
They literally removed the sick parts sometimes. Which where hills. The favelas were
removed. Because those are the sick parts of the city. The people who live there are not
civilized enough. They keep the fresh air out.
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