Translator: Leonardo Silva Reviewer: Mile Živković
Hello!
My name is Jennie, and tonight, I'd like to talk to you
about a place that might seem entirely irrelevant to us here in New York,
in the hopes of convincing you that the lessons we can learn there,
although unexpected, are of universal importance.
So, let's talk about Fortaleza.
Fortaleza is the capital city of the state of Ceará,
in the Northeastern region of Brazil,
and it's a city historically noted for its arid climate,
its underdeveloped status, and its high incidence of crime,
but more recently, this place has been looked to
as a desirable tourist destination, mainly due to its attractive beaches.
In March of last year,
I traveled to Fortaleza not only to enjoy these beaches,
but also to explore my interest in the intersection
of social and environmental issues,
and specifically how urban violence fits into this intersection.
In order to do so, I looked at a community called Pirambu,
which is a favela, or a slum community, on the far west shoreline of the city.
This is a community of 400,000 people,
making it one of the largest favelas in Brazil,
and it's a place that my homestay family,
living in the developed, eastern, gridded part of the city warned not to go to,
citing that it was a place riddled with violence, and crime, and poverty.
But when I arrived in Pirambu,
to meet the people there and see what was really going on,
the reality I found was far more complex than the one painted for me.
I'd like to share with you three general shared experiences
that I witnessed in Pirambu.
So, the first of these fits the picture
that my homestay family had painted for me,
and the picture we might have in mind when we think of a slum.
This is a place where the services and structures
we associate with urbanization are conspicuously absent.
So, things like paved roads or adequate plumbing and sweage, or electricity,
and this list continues, are nowhere to be found.
Meanwhile, about 62% of the people living in Pirambu
are officially considered squatters,
meaning they have no legal access to the land they occupy,
nor do they possess the associated citizenship rights.
In Portuguese, another way of referring to a place like this
is as an "area of risk," directly translated,
and once you enter Pirambu, it does become clear
that risks to people's physical, social and economical well-being
are omnipresent.
However, the second shared reality that I found when meeting the people of Pirambu
was that, in the face of these risks,
people have developed extremely extensive and strong social and economic networks.
This is a place where people are familiar with one another,
where they know where to access affordable produce
from their vendor down the street,
who might also be their handyman or their church group leader.
This is a place where, when environmental, or economic, or social stressors arise,
people are able to mobilize and unite
whatever resources they might have access to,
in order to form strong networks like Bible studies or surfing clubs,
or as this picture behind me:
some of my friends who belong to a synthesis of the two.
And these become the networks that people turn to,
in order to cope with and adapt to whatever might arise,
given their position as a marginal society, as a favela.
Now, this constant activity and adaptivity is reflected and inscribed
in the very physical structures and the spatial logic of a favela,
which is a very dense, very diverse and self-built environment,
one that has the dynamism that allows it to adapt to whatever stresses arise
and suit the needs of the community.
The thrid shared reality I found in this community
was that people's lives were largely centered around the coast,
and you can see why.
It was a great place, not only as a source of recreation for kids and surfers,
and for me during my time there,
but also a source of livelihood for fishermen,
and this place, regardless of how the Pirambuenses interacted with it,
played a central role in people's lives.
What concerned me most about Pirambu was not necessarily that it's a favela,
but the fact that this central asset is at risk.
Let me preface this by introducing an ecological concept
that refers to a resilient system as one that's able to absorve disturbances
while maintaining the quality of its structures, processes and feedbacks.
So, we've already seen that Pirambu's social community
possesses a very unique resilience.
What's at risk right now is due to a short history, that deserves its own TED talk,
of development and planning decisions
that have led to Fortaleza's coastline being 98% artificial or engineered.
What this means, very briefly,
is that the natural dynamism of the coastal ecology,
its resilience and its ability to absorb disturbances,
has been compromised,
and the result is severe coastal erosion.
This means the loss of beaches and the loss of lands,
and this land being lost is lost in Pirambu.
So, the government has historically overlooked this
because Pirambu is a favela and the people there "don't really qualify as citizens,"
and only recently has it done something to address it
by initiating a project called "Vila do Mar."
This project is already about 75% under way,
and once complete, it will offer a sea wall
that's aimed to stop further erosion from happening,
a boulevard that will be along this sea wall,
that provides open space for Pirambu,
and also conviniently prime real estate and a tourist zone for the city.
And lastly, the government has promised that, accompanying this mission,
there will be an incredibly strong upgrading and urbanization effort
to "improve the lives of 300,000 people."
But we have to ask what people
because, in order to deliver these promises,
the government is removing 10,000 Pirambu dwellers from their homes,
in their resilient communities,
and putting them into housing projects, pictured behind me.
And while these housing projects do offer so many of the urbanization services
that were lacking in Pirambu,
they neglect to include and incorporate the social and spatial elements
that provided the fabric for a resilient community,
even in face of the strongest and most intense risks you could imagine.
So, this place is planned according to a logic that emphasizes the grid,
that emphasizes a static city that doesn't adapt,
and therefore, doesn't incorporate the dynamism, and the flexibility,
and the diversity that people of Pirambu are used to relying on
in order to cope with their stressors.
What this leads to is the fact that people living in these "upgraded" spaces
claimed an increased sense of vulnerability,
of unfamiliarity not only with new place itself,
but with the very logic that defines it.
People, in another way of putting it,
felt less of a sense of community.
The resilience of their communities was eroding.
So, why do we care about this here in New York?
Well, if we consider the global context for a moment
and understand that 40 to 60% of the global population
lives within 100 kilometers, more or less, of the coastline,
and 123 million people, in US alone, live in areas
that are expected to be exposed to some level of coastal erosion
or associated threats in the coming decades -
We can see here: red is the areas of highest water erosion vulnerability.
Then, along the Northeastern seaboard, close to it,
we have an area of very high vulnerability,
just like the patch where Fortaleza is, in Brazil.
And our own memories of what it means when coastal resilience is compromised
and communities are affected are very fresh.
If we consider the fact that Sandy reached 16.6% of New York City's landmass
and 78,000 buildings, then we can understand the gravity of this reality.
Meanwhile, coastal cities like New York and Fortaleza
are the world's most populous, and these populations are growing,
and the populations growing fastest are the slum populations.
By 2030, it's expected that one in four people on the planet
will be a slum dweller,
but what if we could look at slums not only as a source of challenges and misery,
in light of this socioenvironmental reality,
but also as a source of inspiration
for how we might understand and build more resilient communities?
What if coastal erosion did not need to carry community erosion with it?
In planning our cities for the project of sustainable development
in a climage-changed planet,
we need to start with the very foundation of the community,
with the very sociospatial frabric that they rely on.
And in order to do so,
we need to look to the most unexpected places.
Thank you.
(Applause)