Citizens, Complexity and the City Lessons from citizen participation in urban (transport) planning in Santiago Chile, 1997-2012 By Lake Sagaris A thesis submitted in conformity with the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Department of Geography and Planning University of Toronto © Lake Sagaris, 1 June 2013 Citizens, Complexity and the City Lessons from citizen participation in urban (transport) planning in Santiago Chile, 1997-2012 Lake Sagaris Doctor of Philosophy Department of Geography and Planning,University of Toronto, 2013 Abstract Twentieth century, citizen “revolts” against highway projects have influenced thinking about public transport (Toronto, Vancouver, New York), governance (Portland), and cycling (The Netherlands) to this day. Less is known about how these emerge in developing countries, and what they can tell us about citizens’ role in innovation to achieve more socially just, good and livable cities. Using a complexity-based approach, this dissertation explores lessons from an anti-highway movement in Santiago, Chile (1997), which challenged authoritarian planning paradigms inherited from the Pinochet regime (1973-1990). In 2000, these leaders of diverse communities founded a citizen institution, Living City (Ciudad Viva), which today is a prize-winning, citizen-led planning institution. Participation is recognized as important to community development, health and urban planning. Nonetheless, a rich literature notes many limitations. Is improving participation just a matter of “getting the process right”? Or does it require re-formulating frameworks to redistribute power, fostering self-generating civil society organizations, and treating democratization as ongoing rather than a “steady state”? Re-formulating frameworks has far-reaching implications. It requires acting consistently with the premise that the local is central to change in human living systems, and the need to create the civic “infrastructure” conducive to citizen learning and the emergence of multiscalar citizen organizations, able to mobilize ecology of actors for innovation. To effectively address the challenges of climate change, loss of biodiversity, the social determinants of health, the “obesity epidemic” and other issues, the answers lie in city neighbourhoods and human settlements. If we aspire to good, just and livable cities, uncertain futures require planning for change. This research suggests that we can identify dynamics likely to leverage significant change and activate capacities throughout a system. This requires moving to an inclusive planning paradigm that fully integrates citizen planners. ii Acknowledgments This dissertation would not have been possible without the active, ongoing support of the leaders and communities featured in this account. They nourished this research with their knowledge, and encouraged me with excellent meals and even better conversation. I really had two committees, one steeped in the knowledge provided by the university of life; the other, the demanding new world of academics and social science. I would also like to express special thanks to Loreto Rojas, who conducted many of the interviews, as discussed under methodology. I am deeply grateful to the Social Science and Research Council of Canada for financial support, without which this work would not have been possible. For their inspiration and insights, I thank friends and colleagues in Toronto (Richard Stren), India (Anvita Arora, Geetam Tiwari), the Netherlands (Tom Godefrooij, Jeroen Buis), Bogotá (Carlos Felipe Pardo, Bernardo Toro), Mexico (Monica Tapia), Brazil (Amalia Fischer), US/Brazil (Daniel Domagala), Santiago (Ximena Abogabir, Gonzalo de la Maza) among many others, who helped me to work through my ideas in different contexts. Similarly, the UBC PhD Jamboree (June 2011) run by John Friedmann and Leonie Sandercock, was a refreshing and stimulating forum. The Synergos network of senior civil society fellows, the Ashoka network of social entrepreneurs, and the Avina network of civil society leaders also afforded diverse arenas -- with public, private and citizen actors -- which helped to test much of my thinking. Similarly, the Across Latitudes and Cultures Centre for Bus Rapid Transport Excellence and EMBARQ gave me privileged access to transport engineers and planners to exchange ideas from this research with them, as they worked on thorny problems in their field I am deeply grateful to my supervisor, Andre Sorensen, for his critical support, and to my committee, Amrita Daniere, Katharine Rankin, Ron Buliung, for their questions and critiques at key steps in the process. Abigail Friendly, Luisa Sotomayor, and Gabriela Sauter, receive special thanks, for creating a space for support and discussion about Latin America. I am also grateful to Loreto Rojas, who assisted me by conducting many of the interviews, and commenting on her perceptions as a result. I would like to express my love and thanks to Gabriela Byron, my house-mate and constant support in Toronto; Joan Simalchik and Robin Breon, for their friendship, Robin’s bottomless creativity and Joan’s brilliant work on gender, memory and human rights; my Santiago family, Patricio Lanfranco, Cecilia Jadue, María Inés Solimano and María Elena Ducci, for looking after me and my life during my many absences. My parents and the refuge and distraction they provided in Honey Harbour is also present here, between the lines, as are the Lesley Street spit and Tinquilco. This is for my sons, Jaime, Camilo and Daniel; my grandson, Mateo; and all the granddaughters and adopted daughters, along the way and still (I hope!) to come. iii The main human activity is “not merely to produce and consume, but also to give meaning to the world, to make sense of the world around us. And the giving of meaning to the world around us, as an area of human action that involves both discourse and embodied praxis, is the province of a deep legitimated collective representation of that world, the social imaginary.” Castoriadis (cited in Wright 1997) iv Table of Contents List of Tables viii List of Figures ix List of Appendices xi Introduction 1 Urban Movements and Mobilities: The View from the End of the World 1 Chapter 1 Rethinking Cities, Planning and Power 20 1.1 Defining the “Good”, the “Just” and the “Livable” city 21 1.1.1 The Good City 22 1.1.2 The Just City 24 1.1.3 The Livable City and its “ecologies” of actors 25 1.1.4 Network power 27 1.2 Closing the power gap: democratization, participation, citizenship 29 1.2.1 Democratization as foreground 30 1.2.2 Latin America and Avritzer’s Participatory Publics 32 1.2.3 Participation as active citizenship 36 1.3 Fostering participatory publics 39 1.3.1 The individual: From activism to active citizenship 39 1.3.2 The organization: Nonmovements, movements and citizen institutions 43 1.3.3 The environment: Integrating concepts, considering processes and structures 44 1.4 Thinking across scale: the urban, the meso, transport, and innovation 47 1.4.1 The Urban 47 1.4.2 The Meso 48 1.4.3 Streets and transport 49 1.4.4 Innovation 52 1.5 From building infrastructure to fostering living systems 54 Chapter 2 Methods: Shaping the gaze, crafting the tools 56 Introduction 57 2.1 Complexity: from the physical to social sciences, cities and planning 61 2.1.1 Complexity and the social sciences 62 2.1.2 Key concepts applied in this study 66 2.1.3 Complexity in planning 72 2.1.4 Shaping the gaze: living versus machine systems 74 2.2 Methods: Participatory Action Research, Interviews and Processing 83 2.2.1 Participatory Action Research 83 2.2.2 Data collection: Ethnography, sources and sampling 84 2.2.2.1 Ethnography, dialogue and ethics 84 2.2.2.2 Sampling and semi-structured interviews 88 2.3 Data processing and presentation 94 2.3.1 Data processing categories 94 2.3.2 Data presentation: documentary narrative, rules/BOIDS 96 Chapter 3 98 Citizen learning through an anti-highway revolt: The Coordinadora No a la Costanera Norte (1997-2000) 98 Introduction 99 3.1 Context: Exclusion as a way of life 101 3.1.1 Historical roots 103 v 3.1.2 Santiago: Segregation, fractured governance, and service-oriented civil society 110 3.2 Rebellion 115 3.2.1 The project: the Costanera Norte highway concession 115 3.2.2 The communities: Diverse actors in three municipal jurisdictions 119 3.3 The Campaign 128 3.3.1 The highway project is launched 130 3.3.2 The Coordinadora takes centre stage 139 Chapter 4 Results and Discussion of the Coordinadora (1997-2000), Winning by Losing: Citizen Learning and Democratic Emergence 143 Introduction 144 4.1 Winning by losing: The Coordinadora’s unexpected achievements 146 4.1.1 Legal battles: early lessons 146 4.1.2 Catalyzing an ecology of actors amidst democratic claims 147 4.2 Forging the core: Diversity, voice and vocería 154 4.2.1 Diversity through dialogue and deliberation 154 4.2.2 Voice and Vocería 157 4.2.3 When small becomes large 160 4.3 Learning active citizenship 163 4.3.1 What kind of learning? 173 4.2.4 What kind of citizenship? 177 4.3 Wither or whither: Emergence 181 Chapter 5 From Citizen Movement to Citizen Institution: Living City 2000-2012 184 Introduction 185 5.1 Foundations, 2000-2004 187 5.1.1 Defining La Chimba 190 5.1.2 Recycle to Live Better, 2001-2002 191 5.1.3 Get moving for your city: a citizens’ proposal for transport with equity, 2003-2004 196 5.1.4 Bellavista as Living Laboratory 199 5.2 Crisis and recovery, 2004-2008 203 5.2.1 Institution and community building, with support from Avina, 2004-2006 206 5.2.2 Bicivilízate: