IN-PERSON Barcelona Livable Cities. Section A

Abstract

Cities are palimpsests of experiences and memories. No real city can ever be grasped in its present or past totality by any single person or institution. Narratives of urban development differ depending on a diversity of interests from different actors, among them real estate developers, academic institutions, urban planners, trade unions, civil society organizations, and local governments. These views scaffold citizens’ expectations, support belonging to cities and legitimise power systems by making certain ideals ordinary and extensively accepted. The term ‘infrastructural imagination’ serves in this work as a lens to critically assess urban spaces in postcolonial cities from the Global South. The paper focuses on the hypothesis that redrawing cities demands the identification of urban imaginaries that articulate new urban visions, accommodate changing urban values and challenge problematic urban transformations. Thus, this work intends to explore the influence of utopian–dystopian narratives that are projected in urban infrastructures that tackle water governance (Mexico City), food production (Singapore) and gated residential enclaves (Rio de Janeiro), which are three environmental challenges closely related to unsustainable practices in cities. How can we embed utopian and dystopian imaginaries in policy-making processes, either in or outside the formal urban planning system? How can we connect these narratives to urban design procedures for sustainable futures? These are the key questions of the paper.