Space Wars in Bogotá: the Recovery of Public Space and Its Impact on Street Vendors

Space Wars in Bogotá: The Recovery of Public Space and its Impact on Street Vendors By Michael G. Donovan BA in Economics University of Notre Dame Notre Dame, Indiana U.S.A. Submitted to the Department of Urban Studies and Planning in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master in City Planning at the MASSACHUSETTS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY February 2002 © 2002 Michael G. Donovan. All rights reserved. Signature of Author _____________________________________________________________ Michael G. Donovan Department of Urban Studies and Planning January 4, 2002 Certified by ___________________________________________________________________ Diane E. Davis Department of Urban Studies and Planning Thesis Supervisor Accepted by __________________________________________________________________ Professor Dennis Frenchman Chair, MCP Committee Department of Urban Studies and Planning Space Wars in Bogotá: The Recovery of Public Space and its Impact on Street Vendors By Michael G. Donovan Submitted to the Department of Urban Studies and Planning on January 4, 2002 in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master in City Planning ABSTRACT This paper addresses the factors underlying the shift of public space management in Bogotá’s historic center from one of neglect by presidentially appointed mayors to an aggressive public space recuperation campaign led by Bogotá’s elected mayors from 1988 to the present. Faced with the high barriers to public space recovery—the potential loss of needed political support from vendors, the excessively high cost of recuperation projects, and the power of vendor unions to obstruct their removal—this thesis holds that three factors enabled the elected Bogotá mayors to recuperate public space. These are: (1) the democratization of the Bogotá Mayor’s Office, (2) political and fiscal decentralization, and (3) the political-economic marginalization of traditionally obstructive Bogotá vendor unions. Field work was carried out in metropolitan Bogotá to determine the impact of the public space recuperation on vendors who were relocated by the Mayor’s Office of Bogotá. When compared to data from the street, results of the randomized surveys illustrates improvements in working conditions, but lower income and fewer clientele for relocated street vendors. The study similarly documents how more benefits accrued to relocated vendors in markets that specialize in the sale of one product instead of more generalized markets. The conclusion points to the importance of public space recovery for the reinstatement of public order and for downtown economic revitalization. These benefits are described parallel to the disadvantages of the intensification of vendor-government conflict and the large-scale abandonment of costly markets by relocated street vendors. Thesis Supervisor: Diane E. Davis Title: Associate Professor of Political Sociology 2 Acknowledgements I would like to express my gratitude for the many kinds of assistance, both institutional and personal, that made it possible to complete this book. The principal period of field work in 1999-2000 was supported by a Fulbright Fellowship. I am grateful to my colleagues in Bogotá: Vera Pérez Rokhas, Andrés Torres, César Hernan Castro Cruz, Jésus Galindo, Robert Kenevan, Mauricio Barreto, Eduardo Correa, Alberto Rivera Gutiérrez, Leonardo Villar, Jairo Nuñez, Rodolfo Masías Nuñez, Lieutenant Colonel José Rodrigo Palacio Cano, Jorge Valencia, David Gould, Christina Schultz, Andrés Torres, Enrique Maruri, Miguel Fadul, Ciro Martinez, Jairo Romero, and the many statistics students at the Universidad de Santo Tomás for their helpful guidance, comments and assistance. Chris Strawn and Andrea Parra both provided needed relief from this project along with thoughtful suggestions. I particularly would like to thank Consuelo Valdivieso and Agustín Lombana at the Colombian Fulbright Commission for making much of this research possible. Far from Bogotá at the University of Notre Dame, I appreciated the guidance of Carlo, Monica, Denis Goulet, and Kwan Kim. I owe my original interest in this topic to my former professor Martin Murphy who during a study abroad semester introduced me to orange vendors in Puerto Rico, chimichuris in the Dominican Republic, and illegal bakers in Havana. At M.I.T. I am grateful for the insight of my thesis advisor, Diane Davis and my thesis reader, Paul Osterman. I would also like to acknowledge the assistance of Bishwapriya Sanyal, Heather Gregg at PHRJ, and the counsel of fellow planning students Arturo Ardila Gómez and Germán Lleras, who represent the best of the next generation of Colombian planners. I would finally like to thank my parents, Todd, and Erika for their encouragement while I lived in Bogotá and when I returned. Though they read lurid articles about Colombia in the Tacoma News Tribune and the New York Times, they believed in what I was doing and only offered an unconditional support for me and this research. For this, I lovingly thank all of you. Michael Donovan Cambridge, Massachusetts January 2002 Contact Information: Michael Geiger Donovan Third Floor 501 North Tenth Street Tacoma, Washington 98403-2906 U.S.A. Phone: 253.272.5830 e-mail: [email protected] (primary) [email protected] (back up) 3 Table of Contents I. PROFILE OF PUBLIC SPACE RECOVERY IN BOGOTÁ 6 II. THE HISTORICAL CONTEXT OF PUBLIC SPACE CONFLICTS IN BOGOTÁ 13 2.1. Power and Conflict in the Plazas in Colombia 14 2.1.1 Classic Spatial Heritage Era 15 2.1.2 The Colonial Era 17 2.1.3 Post-Independence Era 2.1.4 Modern Era 18 2.2. Local Government Response to Street Vending in the Pre-1988 24 Era of Clientelism 2.2.1 From Relocation Failure to An Emphasis on Street Vendor Licensing 24 2.2.2 The Use of “Palanca” and “Patrones” To Acquire Licenses 28 2.2.3 “Vote Buying” From Street Vendors 30 2.2.4 The Shift to the Relocation of Street Vendors 32 III. DEMOCRATIZATION AND PUBLIC SPACE IN BOGOTÁ 35 3.1 An Introduction to the Process of Democratization in Bogotá 35 3.2. The Installation of Elections 38 3.3. The Adoption of Participatory Measures 40 3.4. Democratization’s Impact on Public Space Recovery in Bogotá 41 3.4.1. Citizen Pressure 41 3.4.2. Intensification of Party Competition in Bogotá 43 3.3.3 Politicization of Public Space 45 3.4 Outcome 47 IV. DECENTRALIZATION AND ITS IMPACT ON THE MAYOR’S ABILITY TO RECOVER 49 PUBLIC SPACE 4.1 Overview of Decentralization in Bogotá 50 4.2 Institutionalization of the Bogotá Mayor’s Office Jurisdiction Over 52 Public Space 4.2.1 Historical Antecedents 53 4.2.2 The Modern Creation of Public Space Agencies in Bogotá 54 4.3. Public Space as a Human Right: Pro-Public Space Constitutional 56 and Legal Accords as Impetus For Street Vendor Relocation 4.3.1 The Establishment of Public Space Law 56 4.3.2 The Enforcement of Public Space Law 57 4.4. Reformation of the Tax System 59 4.4.1 Pre-decentralization Tax Limitations 59 4.4.2 Costs of Street Vendor Relocation Projects 61 4.4.3 Post-Decentralization Taxation Ability 63 4 V. THE POLITICAL-ECONOMIC MARGINALIZATION OF STREET VENDOR UNIONS 65 5.1 Structural Barriers to the Unionization of Street Vendors in Bogotá 65 5.1.1 The Inclusion of Street Vendors Contradicts Key Union Causes 69 5.2 What Explains a Decrease in Street Vendor Union Power? 71 5.2.1 The Rate of Unionization Among Informal Vendors 71 5.2.1 Growth and Fragmentation of Street Vendor Unions 73 5.2.2 “Depoliticization” of Street Vendors and Street Vendor Unions 74 5.2.3 Corrosion of Government-Street Vendor Relations 79 5.2.4 Increased Conflict Among Pro-Relocation and Anti-Relocation 81 Street Vendors 5.2.5 Failure to Legally Protect Street Vending 85 5.2.6 Declining Economic Power of Street Vendors 87 VI. THE OUTCOME OF BOGOTÁ’S SPACE WARS 94 6.1 Effects on Relocated Vendors in Centros Comerciales 94 6.1.1 Methodology 96 6.1.2 Changes in Working Conditions 92 6.1.3 Changes in Income Levels 100 6.1.4 More Gains for Vendors in Specialized Markets 102 6.1.4.1 Lower Clientele for Non-Specialized Market Merchants 102 6.1.4.2 Lower Level of Profit for Non-Specialized Merchants 103 6.1.5 Desertion: The Disclaimer to Gains in Gains in Working Conditions 105 and Income 6.1.6 Centrifugal Displacement of Street Vending to Public Space Outside 107 Historic Center 6.2 Macro-Effects on Bogotá 108 6.2.1 Restoration of Public Order 108 6.2.2 Downtown Economic Revitalization 111 6.2.3 The Intensification of “Space Wars” and Social Conflict in Downtown 112 Bogotá 6.3 Conclusion 118 Appendix A Policy Alternatives to Street Vendor Relocation 125 Appendix B Map of Bogotá’s Localities 128 Appendix C Laws Governing the Bogotá Mayor’s Office’s Policy With Respect 129 to Mobile and Stationary Street Vendors Occupying Public Space Appendix D Testimony of a Bogotá Street Vendor 131 Appendix E Square Meters of Public Space Recuperated from Street Vendors: 132 February – December 2000 Appendix F Questionnaire for Diagnostic of Street Vendors’ Income and Working 133 Conditions Appendix G Questionnaire for Street Vendor Relocation 137 Appendix H Anti-cyclical Informal Sector Economic Model 139 Bibliography 141 5 Space Wars in Bogotá: The Recovery of Public Space and its Impact on Street Vendors “We’re in a desperate situation and we don’t know what we’re going to do next. They pushed us off the streets and here, in the market, we don’t have a future.” Luis Gabriel Lozano Merchant in the La Caseta Feria Popular de la Carrera 38 project for relocated vendors “Thanks to relocation programs offered to vendors, they have been given the opportunity to become retailers and the public space of the city can ‘breathe’ again.

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