doi 10.4067/S0718-83582009000100001
“Humanity has the capacity of making sustainable development to ensure the current needs satisfaction without compromising future generation’s capabilities to satisfy their needs. The sustainable development concept implies limits, not absolute limits, though limits impose by current technological and social organization reality in relation to environment resources and by biosphere capacity to absorb human activities effect. Technology and social organization can be managed and improved opening to a new era of economical growth”1.
Revista INVI decided to focus in the “sustainable development” concept in this issue introduced by the UN World Commission on Environment and Development, also known as Brundland Commission proposed in 1987. The overall aim of this issue is to rethink and revise the problems and proposals linked to urban sustainability beyond the semantic discussion and how this relates to the scope of interest and knowledge of this publication, residential habitat.
Economic development achievements as a mean to get comfort as individual as well as society, it is the path we took as a species. This choice is clearly portrait in how human settlements have developed that characterize us and it is where most of the population lives nowadays, the city. It shows people’s social and cultural values, opportunities linked to live conditions improvement. It is mankind expression of its progress, to the point that is recognize as human species master piece, nevertheless, its giddy growth and how the urbanization process has developed within the territory generated negative consequences: Defined and segregated in an uneven economic, social and environmental spatial distribution; growing urban management complexity as well as the increasing contamination and environmental resources wasting among others.
The adopted model to achieve development by human society has caused conditions that make it impossible to keep the model as it is functioning. This behavior pattern seriously affects the planet, our habitat, and us as well as all its inhabitants becoming every day more an urgent need to modify this pattern as it is evident the grave problems that is generating because of this framework which is putting survival at risk. It is not about an ecological point of view or stand because under the current state of affairs, any position is just trying to find a solution to the problem. Anyway, it relates to understand that we live in a community, a huge community that shares the same vital space and that the way we have chosen to advance as civilization it is in crisis.
Society-nature relationship has been a major concern for sometime and it has been socialized since the early 60’s. At this very moment, there is a massive, increasing awareness progress related to environment problems created by human activities to the point that sustainable growth has become the dominant paradigm. The process of man’s influence in its territory is each day taken more as the starting point from the perspective to find a profound urban structure modification.
Cities express most of the problems associated to what sustainability dimension (environment, socio-economic and spatial) involves. Probably by studying it from the conflicts perspective, solutions can be found to reach the necessary balance in order to be able to continue our evolution as society preserving quality life as well as life itself. The search for a well-spread common well-being feeling coincides with the concept “residential habitat” as way to conceive reality.
The concept is defined by the Housing Institute as “the result of a permanent conformation of places process referred to the territory in different scales that distinguishes on one hand appropriation, given by a daily bond created by unique experiences that empower identity and belonging relationships, from where the inhabitant intervenes and configures”2. This process implies complexity and dynamism defined by various aspects intervention that makes necessary a methological structure to tackle its analysis. For this process three fundamental transversal residential habitat dimensions were proposed: Socio-cultural, environmental-territory and political-economic one.
These dimensions coincide in its core with the sustainability dimensions mentioned before, maybe because both derived from and intent to study a complex reality that tries to improve life conditions in our society. Tackling the urban sustainability issue from the residential habitat perspective implies an outlook from the cities’ constructions processes, understood in relationship to its inhabitants and as it was already mentioned, in search of its well-being linked to the cities’ development in itself.
From this outlook, the articles included in this Revista INVI issue represent hosting and illustrating such angle. The first article written by Luis Álvarez, Lisandro Silva y Marcela Soto named “Spatial Dimension of University Students’ Daily Commuting: Greater Valparaiso Case Study”. This case study tries to analyze the daily university students’ commuting mobility patterns and the modification such patterns have suffered due to urban dynamic changes. These changes mentioned characterized by functional unbalances and an important accessibility growth tendency leading to an uneven urban development. The analysis allows detecting new mobility trends linked to residential location centripetal model within the metropolitan urban context.
The next article written by Agustín Hernández named “Quality of Life and Urban Environment. Local Sustainability Indicators and Quality of Urban Life”. As the author clearly expresses in its title sustainability is placed within urban quality life framework and poses the adoption of the first one as paradigm that requires an indicator system, sustainability programs and objects assessments to determine it. Through out the article the author describes different types of indicators ending in a reflexion of cities as satisfier, starting from an urban indicators’ articulator system.
The third article named “Urban Housing and Sustainability” written by Teresinha Maria Gonçalves from the environmental psychological perspective presents through two case studies in the city of Criciúma-SC, Brazil. A discussion around the appropriate housing as urban sustainability factor as long as the inhabitant incorporates it contextualize to its surroundings. This discussion was based on two researches results done by the authors in the years 2002 and 2007, both linked to the study of space appropriation. The basic assumption is that space appropriation through house seizure gives the property belonging and identity feelings associated to the place itself that translates in its defense, preservation and care.
Finally, the article “My Neighbor Stinks: A sociological Approach to LULU Phenomenon” written by Nícolas Soto y Rodrigo Hormazábal has a sociological perspective. The authors investigate the symbolic space construction from a collective dynamic case study resulting from the opposition to undesirable urban equipment installation. The main hypothesis is that the NIMBY (Not In My Backyard) phenomenon- materialization of the LULU phenomenon (Locally Undesirable Land Uses) - it is not only product of environment risk perception, but from the symbolic value of the associated space to such phenomenon.
This issue also includes once again its section “Opinion”, which is a reflexion by Pedro Serrano named “Valparaiso Sustainable Heritage”. It deals with sustainable concept linked to what really makes a city sustainable, an outlook to the port-city of Valparaiso and its heritage; either tangible or intangible, and the concern about keeping that heritage in an evolutionary way and its physical support through out time.
In order to properly close this thematic issue, the Housing Institute professor Gustavo Carrasco writes a review of the book “Ecocity Project. Manual for Design of Ecocities in Europe”. This publication it is the result of Ecocity Project within the 5th policies program, environment and sustainable development issues behavior by the European Commission.
INVI Magazine wants to contribute to proposals study and development in relation to urban sustainable habitat with this publication. You are all welcome to be part of this reflexion.
Sandra Caquimbo Salazar
Coeditor
Notes
1 Brundtland et al., 1987.
2 INVI, 2005.