The power of networking: building resilient neighborhoods

This past weekend, the Sustainable Favela Network (SFN) – a project led by Brazilian NGO Catalytic Communities (CatComm) – hosted its first international exchange online event. During the event grassroots leaders and activists shared their work and efforts to develop community-based initiatives that strengthen environmental sustainability and social resilience in informal settlements and underinvested communities worldwide. Most tackled some of the biggest challenges that our society faces, such as reducing poverty, providing accessible education, promoting gender equality and climate actions.

Figure 1. Graffiti mural by Carlos Acme in the Favela Museum at Cantagalo/Pavão-Pavãozinho community. Image source: https://rioonwatch.org/?p=45983#prettyPhoto, retrieved on August 28th, 2021.

In a world where many communities have often been treated as illegitimate by their governments and excluded from discussions and debates about the plans for the future of their cities, this knowledge-sharing experience highlighted some of the innovative strategies that have been helping residents of informal settlements not only to imagine, plan and build their own future but also to claim a meaningful role in creating a city that embraces them and recognizes their rights.

Listed here are some of these astonishing projects. If you are as passionate as I am about participatory design processes, I am sure they will be a great source of inspiration. Check them out!

1.       The favela Museum – Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

2.       The Human City Project / Chicoco Radio - Port Harcourt, Nigeria.

3.       The Point CDC  - Bronx, New York, USA.

Doughnut in the City: From GDP to the Doughnut

My undergraduate major was in Agricultural Economics. For years agriculture-related themes have taken up a larger proportion of my attention (and interest) than economic-related issues. The term Doughnut Economics, I have to admit, grabbed my attention because of the word doughnut. How can economics, a hard-core, rigid field, be shaped, represented, and interpreted as doughnut, a cheerful and colourful treat?

English economist Kate Raworth shows us how. The concept of Doughnut Economics was first published in 2012 with the aim of offering a vision of what it means for humanity to thrive in the 21st century. The Doughnut calls for meeting the needs of all people within the means of the living planet. The Doughnut’s inner ring depicts the social foundation which sets out the basics of life on which no one should be left falling short. The outer ring represents ecological ceiling of which humanity should put no further pressure beyond the planetary boundaries.

Figure 1. The Doughnut of social and planetary boundaries. The social foundation is defined by twelve basics of life and the ecological ceiling consists of nine planetary boundaries. Image source: The DEAL https://doughnuteconomics.org/tools-and-stories/11 retrieved on August 22nd, 2021.

The social foundation ensures that no one is left falling short on life’s essentials while the ecological ceiling ensures that humanity does not overshoot planetary boundaries. The doughnut comes in between these two boundaries—the doughnut-shaped space lies between the boundaries represent an ecologically safe and socially just space in which humanity can thrive. Raworth emphasises on the urgent need to shift the mindset from endless growth (i.e. the GDP) to thriving in balance—the Doughnut.

The Doughnut concept has been applied to cities to reimagine and remake the urban space.  Earlier this month the City of Barcelona in Spain announced its plan in embracing the tools and concepts of Doughnut Economics to guide actions to address the combat on climate emergency.  

Raworth sets out the seven ways to think like a 21st century economist and posits that when the goal is to achieve human prosperity in a flourishing web of life the economy should be best thought of and drawn like a doughnut.

Figure 2. Seven ways to think like a 21st century economist. Image source: The DEAL https://doughnuteconomics.org/about-doughnut-economics retrieved on August 22nd, 2021.

Local Project Challenge: featuring local development solutions and ideas for action to accelerate the SDGs

The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are a set of 17 interlinked goals - including 169 targets - that aim to put sustainable urbanization at the center of the global agenda by 2030. The SDGs were adopted by the United Nations in 2015 when 193 countries ratified a global plan for action to make cities safer, more inclusive, resilient, and sustainable. Since then, countries have committed to prioritizing efforts to meet the needs of the most vulnerable groups in our society and several projects worldwide have focused on oriented actions towards a more sustainable, equitable, and accessible future.

In light of this, the Local Project Challenge - a collaborative platform led by the Center for Sustainable Urban Development (CSDU) at Columbia University in partnership with the Graduate Program in Architecture of the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (PROARQ / FAU-UFRJ) - was created to increase public awareness of SDGs, bringing together projects from all over the world which are committed to tackling some of the most urgent social, economic and environmental issues that we have been facing. This initiative challenged the participants to consider and localize the SGDs in their projects, sharing their stories and achievements through texts, photos, drawings, and videos. As a result, 111 projects from 39 countries representing the works of professionals, universities, NGOs, and local communities were displayed on the web gallery www.localprojectchallenge.org.

LPC website. Some of the displayed projects on the online gallery. Source: www.localprojectchallenge.org. Accessed on July 12th, 2021.

By engaging all stakeholders, and allowing everyone to be part of this knowledge-sharing experience, the LPC gallery can be considered a valuable network-building resource to demonstrate how cities can harness transformational change and ensure a better life for all those facing the challenges of an urbanizing world.