Eco City Projects in Developing Countries

Generalities about La Boquilla and Manzanillo

The Urban Design Plans

Studio urban design projects are important as catalysts for development of slum communities and poor villages in countries of the Third World. Two urban design projects developed by second year architectural students at the University Tadeo Lozano in Cartagena, Colombia, serve as examples of how student studio projects can help fill the vacuum left by government's lack of resources, or unwillingness, to provide slum communities with specific plans to address their problems of infrastructure, capital improvements, environmental protection, basic services, and the aesthetic quality of their urban environment. At the end of the two-semester process, there was evidence that small scale urban design studio projects can indeed become tools for building consensus among residents and leaders of slum communities, attract government's attention to those communities, and be catalysts for future development.

Mindful of the neglect of slum communities by planning agencies in Colombia and aware of the possibilities of providing quasi-professional urban plans through university-based studios, I set out to approach two slum communities, La Boquilla and Manzanillo, in Cartagena, Colombia, in my capacity as adjunct faculty in the School of Architecture, Urban Design Program, at the Universidad Tadeo Lozano (FIGs 1, 2, 3 and 4).

Although in Cartagena there are many other communities that deserve the same attention, the case of these two was urgent because they are at risk of disappearance under the bulldozers of upscale beach resort and residential development rapidly approaching their area (FIG 5 and 6).

The lofty goal of this effort was to donate a plan to the leaders and residents of both communities in the belief that the project could be a catalyst to set in motion economic, environmental, social, and cultural processes of revitalization geared to nothing less than saving those communities from extinction. The objective was to produce a basic urban design plan for each community and give the scale-models and drawings to their leaders to be used as master plans so that the community could negotiate with the City's government a more promissory future.

Their main problem, as villagers and leaders explained to my group of students, was that, with no development plans of their own, the fate of their communities was subjected to the larger plans of Cartagena's metropolitan area which did not contain provisions to address their problems, let alone to offer them a promissory future. The City's General Plan (locally called Territorial Ordering Plan), they argued, did not contained specific elements tailored to address their problems. Furthermore, they were seriously concerned that the General Plan contained elements and policy that would actually lay the legal ground for eradicating their communities to leave room for upcoming beach resorts and upscale high-rise apartment buildings. They claimed that when they met with local city planning authorities to air their concerns, they responded that if the community could provide the planning agency with alternative development options the City would consider revising the part of the General Plan affecting their area. The City planners argued that they had not enough resources to revise the General Plan and to produce area-plans for their communities. But given that neither these communities have resources or the technical knowledge to produce any kind of alternative plans, they felt their destiny was sealed, and fateful. With such gloomy horizon as a backdrop, the University's offer to prepare an alternative plan for their communities was most welcomed.

Generalities about La Boquilla and Manzanillo

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La Boquilla is a very poor fishing village of 15,000 people of African descend. The older residents track their origins back to the 18th century when runaway slaves from Spanish colonial Cartagena formed refugee camps (called “palenques”) in the swampy lands and mangrove lagoons far away from the Spanish settlement. The economic base of both communities used to be traditional fishing and small scale agriculture. This economy was operational for over two centuries but, due to development pressures coming from nearby Cartagena, today it is dwindling its nature is changing. Their rich fishing and handicraft traditions are being replaced quickly by the catering to local and foreign visitors that visit the beautiful community's beaches.

Another reason for this switching to a different trade as a new mean of sustenance is the gradual deterioration of the formerly rich wetland ecosystem surrounding the community. The ever-growing urban perimeter of Cartagena is encroaching upon the mangrove lagoon degrading contaminating the body of water and annihilating the fishery in the system. Today, the lagoon and mangrove forest that the community had exploited so successfully and sustainably for generations have entered a steady process of decay. In addition, the construction of a major interstate highway and the land filling of wetlands to lay firm grounds for the construction of international resorts and high-end apartment buildings blocked water ways between the lagoon and the Caribbean Sea further degrading the ecosystem. As a result, the community's fishery has been drastically reduced.

As for public services, La Boquilla and Manzanillo have limited electricity, no potable water, and no sewage infrastructure. Electric supply is shut off up to twelve hours a day, sometimes four days a week, which causes spoiling of food and the warming of cold drinks the community sells to tourists as another form of livelihood. And, given that the natural conditions in both communities are those typical of tropical coastal regions with average daily temperatures of 30º centigrade and relative humidity of 80-90% residents complain that during power blackouts nightime is sometimes unbearable with no electricity to power fans and with mosquitoes swarming the village.

Paradoxically, the prime location of both communities has made their future uncertain. La Boquilla is only five minutes from Cartagena International Airport and has three kilometres of white sandy beaches facing the Caribbean Sea. Opposite to the sea, there is the beautiful Cienaga de la Virgen lagoon and mangrove swamps. A very important interstate highway (between Cartagena and Barranquilla) also runs in the vicinity of the community. These location advantages, however, have made La Boquilla prime land for upscale development. The ongoing construction of resorts and high-end apartment buildings threatens the future existence of the community. To make matters worse, those types of developments are well within the General Plan's projections for the area classified as “lands for urban expansion.”

To counteract this situation is difficult. Given the poor economic conditions of La Boquilla, developers have it easy to buy residents out with financial offerings well-below market values. Furthermore, given that many of La Boquilla residents actually squat on lands marked as flood-prone (for being too close to the mangrove lagoon), some of the residents are all too eager to sell their properties for whatever money they are offered, before governments officials initiate processes of eviction. In the case of the residents with land titles, the opportunity to sell land that was a formerly a squatter settlement is taken as a life-time opportunity to improve their lives by selling and moving out to another urban location. The combination of fast moving resort and residential development on the fringes of the community and the environmental degradation of the mangrove lagoon have induced a gradual process of social, cultural, and economic deterioration in community forecasting a future rather hopeless and bleak (FIG 7).

Manzanillo (population 1,200) is just five kilometres apart form La Boquilla but it faces similar problems. The area is equally classified in Cartagena's General Plan as Land for Urban Expansion. Residents' livelihood out of traditional fishing and handicraft production is also shifting to catering the insipient tourism attracted to their beaches. The fishing industry has also deteriorated due to the degraded mangrove fishery and the inability to fish in deeper waters for the lack of appropriate vessels. Basic infrastructure is also deficient in Manzanillo. The community has electricity but no sewage or potable water. Its seaside is vulnerable to sea storms that occasionally wash off the road on the seaside edge of the community (FIG 8).

Just like in La Boquilla, the residents of Manzanillo feel helpless to secure the future of their village. Leaders and residents are afraid the approaching high-end developments will eventually force them out and thus lose their community. In meetings with the university students, the residents expressed the same fears that surfaced in the meetings with the residents of La Boquilla: they feel powerless to convince Cartagena's central government of their right to stay there. They are also eager to convince the central government that Manzanillo could become a tourist asset only if they were given the resources to restructure their cottage fishing industry, their handicraft production, their cultural traditions, and improve the physical appearance of their village. They feel their town and way of life are also part of Colombia's cultural heritage with potential for becoming tourist attractions for national and foreign visitors.

The community meetings with both villages underscored their drive to bypass central authorities to find solutions to their problems on their own. The issues identified by the community leaders and residents in those meetings yielded a long list of unmet wants and desires long neglected by planning authorities and local politicians (Fig 9). What was most remarkable about those meetings, however, was the residents' display of creativity to articulate solutions to their problems, indeed not too different from what urban planning professionals would prescribe in a similar situation.

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In both communities, the list of issues and their potential solutions ranged from the very policy-oriented such as declaring their communities sites of Afro-Colombian Cultural Heritage that preserve traditional handicraft and fishing techniques, to the very physical such as the building of jetties to preserve the beach area or the dredging of a natural channel that connects the lagoon to the sea to allow the free flow of water between both systems. In the final product, the plans for both communities included the standard elements of a comprehensive urban design plan (Land Use, Housing, Circulation, Infrastructure, Services, etc.) but focused on specific elements that addressed their particular problems (FIG 10).

The environmental element for both La Boquilla and Manzanillo, for example, included the recuperation of the mangrove swamp and lagoon by dredging the clogged watercourse connecting lagoon and sea. The blocking of the waterway also causes flooding in parts of the community during the rainy season. By opening the watercourse permanently and allow storm waters to move freely out to the sea they would maintain stable water levels inside the lagoon all year round and stop the recurrent flooding (FIG 11). In the dry season, the free movement of sea water back into the lagoon would maintain a deeper level of water and allow fishermen to dig out pools for fish-farming inside the mangrove swamp; the farmed fish would be sold to neighbouring communities. This solution was actually proposed by the residents of both communities who showed evidence of their thorough knowledge of the hydraulics of wetlands ecosystems and the benefits for their economy.

The environmental strategy was also part of the economic strategy. They were aware that with the reopening of the water flow between both natural systems the lagoon fishery would recuperate and the fishing industry revive. Along with this strategy, residents suggested the construction of a long needed fishing cooperative with a shipyard to build fishing boats more adequate to venture on deeper sea waters. Presently, they can only fish in the proximity of the beach due to the vulnerability of their canoes to sail farther out. By the same token, harvesting fish from the lagoon is presently done in a very rudimentary fashion resulting in poor quality and quantity of the fish harvested and in further environmental degradation of the mangrove lagoon ecosystem (FIG 12).

The housing element of the plan included a relocation project for a large group of community residents currently living in shacks on the border of the lagoon. Those residents would gradually move to new stilt-housing on the same location so that social networks would not be disrupted and planning officials would not have an issue with seasonal flooding of the area (FIG 14).

The cultural component of the plan took the form of a cultural complex with spaces to teach their youngster and visitors traditional music and dancing. This suggestion came out of their concern for the dwindling interest in the part of their youth to practice those cultural expressions. They claimed that the lack of support and facilities for those activities was swaying teenagers and kids towards imported forms of rap music. They worried that if the trend continued, their traditional culture would eventually be forgotten.

Regional development was a strategy also considered by both communities and captured in the projects. They propose to establish a network of seaside villages along the coast of Cartagena. The proposal was to start by connecting La Boquilla with Manzanillo thorough the natural network of water channels crisscrossing the mangrove swamp. The lagoon banks would also be landscaped and designated as a scenic route connecting to hiking trails in the nearby woods. The path would end in a coloured-paved boardwalk along the beach in the community of Manzanillo. They thought the aquatic ways, the hiking trails, and the beach boardwalk could be pitch to the Cartagena's City Council as a tourist amenity for the entire region.

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