Disruption, yet community reconstitution: subverting the privatization of Latin American plazas

Abstract

Latin American scholars have recently discussed the privatization of urban public space.

The fantasy of access: Neoliberal ordering of a public beach

“…On Connecticut beaches the mechanics of ordering through privatization parallel processes noted by past researchers (Crossa, 2012;Godfrey & Arguinzoni, 2012;Low, 2003;Mitchell, 1995;Springer, 2009). The neoliberal trend is to produce privatized public spaces, either through increasingly restrictive public policies or through the construction of new, privately owned spaces.…”

“…This transformation has taken various forms such as urban streets where advertising and consumer "branding" dominate the public experience (Crossa, 2012;Zukin, 1995) or suburbs where planning in the image of the post-war model created new "public" spaces that are functionally inaccessible to all but the privileged classes. For example, Low has shown how the emergence of gated communities exemplifies the pattern of greater control and exclusion in urban space (2003).…”

“…However, such a conversion to an ultimately exclusive space is less common than a piecewise denigration of allowable behaviors in these spaces. For example, studies have shown how on public streets, parks, and plazas in Mexico (Crossa, 2012;Rosenthal, 2000), Brazil (Godfrey & Arguinzoni, 2012), Cambodia (Springer, 2009), and Australia (Iveson, 2007) officials have used private-public partnerships (or some variation thereof) to limit unauthorized vendors, remove undesirable occupants, and in general to squelch political dissent. In the end, the owners of public spaces are less important than the spaces' capacities to be regulated and controlled.…”

Informal Traders and the Battlegrounds of Revanchism in Cusco, Peru

“…Fundamental to this battleground is a process whereby the cultures and practices of undesirables are devalued and dismissed in order to make way for those of dominant groups — which are often perceived to be more modern. There are countless examples in the literature (Smith, ; Brown, ; Swanson, ; Hunt, ; Aalbers, ; Crossa, ). Swanson (: 712) described how indigenous informal street traders in Ecuador were removed because they did not fit into the global city ideal and portrayed a ‘lack of modernity and backwardness’ to tourists.…”

“…Similarly, Smith (: 32–3) claims:

The language of revitalization, recycling, upgrading and renaissance suggests that affected neighbourhoods were somehow devitalized or culturally moribund prior to gentrification. While this is sometimes the case, it is often also true that very working‐class communities are culturally devitalized through gentrification as the new middle class scorns the streets in favour of the dining room and bedroom.

Spatial displacement resulting from revanchism/gentrification can also disrupt important social networks, a point evidenced by Betancur's () work on community fabric in Chicago, Herbert and Beckett's () study of homeless and other undesirable street users in Seattle, and Crossa's () work on Latin American plazas. According to Herbert and Beckett () such disruption to social networks can significantly impact upon individual wellbeing.…”