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Citizen-led Urbanism: Another way to create cities

August 22, 2023 por Carolina Piedrafita - Roberto Madera-Arends - Enrique Peláez - Editor: Daniel Peciña-Lopez Leave a Comment

Este artículo está también disponible en / This post is also available in: Spanish


In recent years, a new approach to urban planning has been gaining ground around the world: citizen-led urbanism. This concept is based on the idea that cities should be designed and developed taking into account the needs and aspirations of their inhabitants. Rather than being a process led exclusively by experts and planners, citizen-led urbanism empowers the community to actively participate in decision-making, implementation and maintenance of public space interventions.

In Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC), citizen-led urbanism is here to stay. From small local initiatives to large urban transformation projects, citizens are taking the reins of development in the region’s cities. The Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), in its commitment to urban innovation, through its Cities Lab, has published a book that compiles 76 cases of citizen-led urbanism in 38 cities in the region. We hope that this article will serve as an inspiration to many municipalities in the region, and that it will encourage the development of this type of initiatives to achieve a closer and more citizen-centered urbanism.

What does citizen-led urbanism bring to our cities?

Throughout history, there have been numerous cases where architects or urban planners have designed cities from their desks, without coming into contact with their inhabitants. This traditional “top-down” view of urban planning disconnected from communities ignores the fact that cities are complex systems in constant transformation in response to natural, political, economic, and social factors. It is for this reason that our cities have created spaces that do not meet the needs of their inhabitants and can even foster inequity by reinforcing the line between the formal city and the informal city.

Source: Urbanismo Ciudadano en América Latina | Left: “Walk safely to school” initiative, Lima. | Right: Comuna 13, Medellín.

When urban planning does not respond to the needs of citizens, it can generate rejection and even degradation of urban space. However, there is another possible path, which is the appropriation of the citizens to transform it by their own action. Regardless of whether it is a wealthy neighborhood or an informal settlement (also known as villas, favelas, slums, shantytowns, shacks, etc.), citizens have shown that, if they act in a coordinated manner, they have the transforming power to rethink urban space and adapt it to their needs.

This potential for citizen action, in its infinite diversity of approaches, has many names: activist urbanism, collaborative urbanism, DIY (Do It Yourself) urbanism, participatory urbanism, resistance urbanism, guerrilla urbanism, tactical urbanism, urban innovation, social urbanism, feminist urbanism, and so on. However, the term by which it is best known is citizen-led urbanism, a movement that proposes to think and make cities from, for and with people. It is based on active citizenship at all levels of decision-making and is at the center of the design, planning and urban development of cities. It understands that it is the citizenry that approves the work of the people who design and plan cities, since they are the ones who will inhabit them.

Superbook of civic actions for transforming cities

To bring this type of urbanism closer to the region’s cities, the IDB’s Cities Laboratory published a “superbook” that summarizes the main ideas, approaches, actions and proposals of citizen-led urbanism and compiles 76 success stories in 38 cities in Latin America and the Caribbean.

Through the analysis of the cases, the publication seeks to teach from experience in order to contribute to the development of a new, more efficient, inclusive and sustainable urban model in LAC. The cases are divided into six thematic axes: cultural city, inclusive city, informal city, mobile city, resilient city and green city. In each thematic axis we present, together with the reflections of invited authors, three case studies detailing the local context, the methodologies applied, the actors involved, and the lessons learned. In addition, the reader will find a project catalog containing ten experiences in fact sheet format.

Fuente: Urbanismo Ciudadano en América Latina | Anti-Harassment Brigade, Costa Rica.

This monograph also reviews the experiences of the world’s first urban innovation laboratories. It offers a reflection on their role as promoters of innovation and experimentation from governmental structures and together with citizens. Innovation labs are a fundamental tool to carry out transformations in our cities, in line with the concepts of citizen urbanism.

We are convinced that the experiences gathered in this publication can be adopted by municipal work teams to integrate urban innovation and experimentation in their methods of planning and executing works and plans for social and environmental development. We invite you to download the book, and to share in the comments section how you think citizen-led urbanism can improve the quality of life in your city.

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Download the publication here

Related content:

Reviving neighborhoods through Tactical Urbanism strategies

Filed Under: Cities LAB Tagged With: citizen-led urbanism, Tactical Urbanism, urban development, Urban Innovation

Carolina Piedrafita

Carolina Piedrafita is a Senior Specialist in Urban Development and Housing at the Inter-American Development Bank. She has over 20 years of experience leading and executing social and urban development projects in Latin America, specifically in the areas of social housing, local economic development, comprehensive neighborhood improvement and revitalization of degraded urban areas. She was Senior Advisor to the Executive Director of Argentina on the IDB Board of Directors from 2016-2019. She currently leads the Cities Laboratory of the Urban Development and Housing Division. She has a Masters in Public Administration with a specialty in urban development from Columbia University in New York, and a degree in Political Science from Universidad de San Andrés, Argentina.

Roberto Madera-Arends

Roberto Madera-Arends is a member of the Cities Lab team within the Housing and Urban Development Division of the IDB, where he collaborates on urban innovation projects aimed at integrating resilience to climate change, circular economy, and biodiversity into everyday urban planning and development practices. He has experience in environmental monitoring, citizen participation, and research; he worked for the Metropolitan District of Quito, incorporating climate change and sustainable mobility policies into urban development regulations. Roberto holds a degree in Environmental Engineering from the SEK International University of Ecuador and a Master's in Urban Environmental Management from Wageningen University in the Netherlands.

Enrique Peláez

Enrique Pelaez is a full-time Consultant at CSD/HUD, where he provides operational and technical support to the IDB Cities Lab. He specializes in urban governance and management, municipal infrastructure, and neighborhood upgrading programs. Enrique holds a Master’s Degree in Urban and Regional Planning with a concentration in International Development from Georgetown University, and a Bachelor’s Degree in Public Policy from Universidad Torcuato Di Tella in Buenos Aires, Argentina. He has previously worked at the Buenos Aires Government, the Georgetown Global Cities Initiative, and as a consultant at the IDB (INE/TSP). the World Bank, and AECOM/WMATA

Editor: Daniel Peciña-Lopez

Daniel Peciña-Lopez is a specialist in international affairs, external relations and communication. He has more than 10 years of professional experience in diplomatic delegations, and international organizations in cities such as Washington DC, New York, Chicago, Madrid, Mexico City and Hong Kong, among others. Daniel is Master of International Affairs from Columbia University, Master of Science from the University of Oxford Brookes and Licenciado from Universidad Complutense de Madrid. In 2010 Daniel received the First National Award for Excellence in Academic Performance, from the Ministry of Education (Government of Spain) for being the university level student with the highest average GPA score in the country.

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Este es el blog de la División de Vivienda y Desarrollo Urbano (HUD) del Banco Interamericano de Desarrollo. Súmate a la conversación sobre cómo mejorar la sostenibilidad y calidad de vida en ciudades de América Latina y el Caribe.

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