Abstract
Anyone informed about recent developments in urban transport in the Global South is surely familiar with the ‘Medellín miracle’. I shall not repeat here a tale told many times (see The Economist, 2014) but, in short, the ‘miracle’ refers to the remarkable transformations that followed a set of localised urban interventions in low-income neighbourhoods in Medellín. These were centred on the provision of aerial cable-car lines (Metrocable) connected to the metro system, and complemented by the provision of public spaces for education or leisure. Rather than a plain success story, the Medellín model has been promoted to a ‘miracle’ because of the difficult initial conditions faced by areas: a long history of exclusion and deprivation, poor housing and living conditions, acute crime rates connected to a persistent and thick network of organised crime, and widespread illegality and informality. Whilst these problems largely persist, the change generated by the interventions is palpable, albeit difficult to quantify. It is not surprising that many other cities in the Global South facing similar stories of lack of opportunities and visibility linked to poor transport access seek to replicate the Medellín model. The book edited by Julio Dávila is a timely addition to the literature, as it serves as an excellent starting point for those trying to understand what the Medellín model is all about, and the minimum conditions under which such replication is possible.
The book consists of 22 short chapters divided into five sections. The first section offers some theoretical insights into the relationship between urban mobility and socio-economic conditions. Rather than an integrated theoretical framework, the section is a collection of different – and somewhat disconnected – perspectives on the topic. In this section, the theoretical mechanisms through which increased access to transportation can reduce poverty are not clearly dissected, but only suggested. In this sense, there are no explicit testable predictions, but a collection of relevant aspects that subsequent chapters pick up to different extents. The section defines the pluralistic spirit of the book, where recognising the diversity of the population in terms of gender, age, lifestyles and occupations is presented as fundamental to understanding the breadth and depth of the positive and negative impacts of the interventions. In the section there are some references to the quality of city management and the alignment of state–community objectives. These aspects become increasingly important as the case of Medellín is contrasted with other cases later on in the book.
The second section is the core of the book. It consists of eight chapters reviewing different lessons from Medellín. The chapters are largely descriptive, with only one using econometric methods. The first three set the scene for evaluating the impacts of the interventions by providing contextual information. In these chapters it becomes clear that the planning model of ‘social urbanism’ required first and foremost a change in philosophy. A new political discourse of inclusion through visible and costly interventions implemented with close involvement of the local community found resistance and scepticism at the start, but paved its way to success by force of continuous support of three administrations. This commitment was deeply rooted in a strong political will to reverse the negative image of Medellín, which by virtue of its nature, became a common objective to all classes of society. Such a sustained effort had the Metro Company and the Medellín Public Utilities Company as its administrative and financial pillars, without which, the book suggests, the interventions would not have succeeded. The affected neighbourhoods are the other side of the coin. The contrast between the areas of influence of two different Metrocable lines built sequentially in Medellín highlights the importance of geographical location and neighbourhood composition, history and safety. The contextual analysis stresses the fact that the city centre is the place through which commuters from Metrocable lines converge, but fails to account for its particularities – for instance, the fact that it is currently the most violent district in the city.
The second section continues with the impact analysis as such, first focusing on the effect on travel choices and then on the local economy. Whereas the impacts on travel decisions are analysed through econometric models, the effects on the local economy are descriptive. Owing to data limitations, there are no available estimates of causal impacts of the interventions on incomes, employment status, poverty or property prices, or the geographical range of these impacts. Importantly, the different impacts of the Metrocable as such and the complementary projects cannot be discerned. These estimates are indeed hard to obtain without proper baseline estimates, but are vital for understanding what can actually be expected from these types of interventions.
A particularly interesting topic emerging from the descriptive analysis is the change in occupations generated by changes in access to transport. Instead of making use of better transport access to commute more often to the centre, informal workers opted for neighbourhood-based occupations around the Metrocable stations. In this sense, the behavioural responses of informal workers to changes in transport access are so far not well understood, but are central to pinning down how improved access can lead to reductions in poverty through higher quality jobs. Furthermore, the effect of increases in property prices and changes in land use resulting from the interventions is also a complex issue that requires further examination, because segregation may increase through the displacement of the poorest to even more peripheral areas with worse transport access. Further research on these aspects, which are not touched upon in the book, would greatly complement the initial stepping stones provided in Dávila’s book.
Switching to a far more pessimistic tone, the third section of the book discusses the plan for building an aerial cable-car line in Soacha (Cazucable), a relatively large autonomous municipality adjacent to Bogotá. The five chapters in this section discuss, in a rather overlapping manner, the political, administrative and financial pitfalls faced by the project. The story of the Cazucable is one of lack of integration of city administrations despite the evident functional integration of Bogotá and Soacha, coupled with geological conditions that call for disaster. Evidently, sound planning, institutional capacity and a broader view of transport-related interventions are called for in order to meet the high expectations of the residents of the affected areas.
The fourth section is devoted to the discussion of lessons from two plans to build similar projects in Cali and La Paz, and two running aerial cable-cars in Caracas and Rio de Janeiro. The chronic delays faced by these projects highlight the key role of continuous political support in ensuring the implementation of plans. The chapters on the lessons from Caracas and Rio de Janeiro do not offer comparable impact estimates, but they do suggest that the impacts may not be sizable given the overestimation of the demand for this particular mode of transportation.
The last section of the book concludes by discussing the effectiveness of interventions based on three inter-related elements: increase in mobility, reduction in poverty and urban integration of the impacted areas with the rest of the city. The first criterion is fairly quantifiable and comparable across time and cities, and would reflect the effect of offering faster, safer but still affordable alternatives to existing means of transportation. On the other hand, reductions in poverty caused by transport-related interventions and complementary projects are far more difficult to pinpoint. As it becomes clear after reading Dávila’s book, so far we do not have solid comparable empirical evidence on the magnitude of the reductions in poverty and inequality that can be attributed to different interventions, nor do we have a strong enough theoretical basis for understanding the channels through which these effects operate. Would, for instance, a combined strategy of localised formal jobs creation and increased transportation access be a better alternative for reducing poverty? Finally, the last element is less tangible because of its symbolic nature, but may be far more crucial with regards to the sustained impact of similar interventions. The change in attitudes following the interventions may be a key element in the narrowing of segregation and exclusion in the long term, even if there is not an apparent improvement in social indicators in the short term. As the Medellín example shows, interventions centred on transportation infrastructure provision can be a means to this end, but whether they gain enough momentum or fade out is a political matter.