Uncertain Regional Urbanism in Venezuela: Government, Infrastructure and Environment

Abstract

Uncertain Regional Urbanism in Venezuela explores the changes cities face when they become metropolises, forming expanding regions which create both potential and problems within settlements. To do so, it focuses on three metropolitan areas located in Venezuela’s Center-North region: Caracas, Maracay and Valencia, designated as "Camava."

Considering three core topics, government and territorial administration, infrastructure and environment, as well as looking at the reciprocal impact, this book describes and analyzes the determinant variables that characterize the phenomenon of regional urbanization in this area and in the wider Global South. It includes documentary research, semi-structured interviews and Delphi methodology, involving a total of forty experts from different disciplines to build a comprehensive outlook on the situation.

This book presents a broader understanding of the region to encourage a more sustainable and knowledge-based development plan, moving away from the exploitation of natural resources, with six future-oriented scenarios to consider. This is a much-needed study in the urban regions of Venezuela, which will be of interest to academics and researchers in Latin American studies, the Global South, architecture and planning.

Full text

Uncertain Regional Urbanism
inVenezuela
Uncertain Regional Urbanism in Venezuela explores the changes cities face
when they become metropolises, forming expanding regions which create
both potential and problems within settlements. To do so, it focuses on three
metropolitan areas located in Venezuela’s Center-North region: Caracas,
Maracay and Valencia, designated as “Camava.”
Considering three core topics, government and territorial administration,
infrastructure and environment, as well as looking at the reciprocal impact,
this book describes and analyzes the determinant variables that characterize
the phenomenon of regional urbanization in this area and in the wider
Global South. It includes documentary research, semi-structured interviews
and Delphi methodology, involving a total of forty experts from dierent
disciplines to build a comprehensive outlook on the situation.
This book presents a broader understanding of the region to encourage
a more sustainable and knowledge-based development plan, moving away
from the exploitation of natural resources, with six future-oriented scenarios
to consider. This is a much-needed study in the urban regions of Venezuela,
which will be of interest to academics and researchers in Latin American
studies, the Global South, architecture and planning.
Fabio Capra Ribeiro is Associate Professor at the Universidad Central de
Venezuela. He is a practicing architect, with a Master’s degree in Science in
Architectural Design and a PhD in Urbanism and fifteen years working on
social, spatial and environmental justice, particularly in the degradation of
the contemporary city through the study of integration spaces and boundary
conditions. His website address is www.capraribeiro.com.

Architecture and Urbanism in the Global South
Series Editors
Ashraf M. Salama
Professor, University of Strathclyde, Glasgow, United Kingdom
David Grierson
Reader, University of Strathclyde, Glasgow, United Kingdom
Architecture and Urbanism in the Global South places emphasis on devel-
opments in cities and settlements in the Global South which is defined geo-
graphically to include key capitals, major cities, and important settlements
within Africa, the Arabian peninsula, the Indian Sub-Continent, the south-
ern Mediterranean and the Middle East, South America, and South Asia.
The series aims to capture and depict architectural and place production
in these regions and to portray it to the global professional and academic
community. Written by international experts and researchers, the volumes
cover a wide spectrum of topics that range from vernacular architecture,
architectural heritage, urban traditions, explorations of the works of global
south and international architects, to themes that include the architecture
of squatter settlements, housing transformations, urban governance, the
impact of globalisation on cultural identity as manifested in architecture,
and sustainable urbanism.
Tiles in the Series
Architectural Excellence in Islamic Societies
Distinction through the Aga Khan Award for Architecture
Ashraf M. Salama and Marwa El-Ashmouni
Uncertain Regional Urbanism in Venezuela
Government, Infrastructure and Environment
Fabio Capra Ribeiro
For more information about this series, please visit: www.routledge.com/
Architecture-and-Urbanism-in-the-Global-South/book-series/AUGS

Uncertain Regional Urbanism
in Venezuela
Government, Infrastructure and
Environment
Fabio Capra Ribeiro

First published 2021
by Routledge
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© 2021 Fabio Capra Ribeiro
The right of Fabio Capra Ribeiro to be identified as author of this
work has been asserted by him in accordance with sections77 and
78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
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Contents
Acknowledgments vii
Introduction 1
1 Mapping the complexity of a poorly studied case 6
The urban region Caracas-Maracay-Valencia 7
Three attempts to deny the reality 16
A compound perspective to approach a complex case 22
Knowledge and foresight 27
The diculties to investigate in Venezuela nowadays 28
Strategies to operate in a harsh context 30
2 The formation of the main urban region of Venezuela 46
Camava definitions: what has been said 46
Strategic position, natural conditions
and sea proximity 51
First concentration, centuries of an archipelago country 53
Second concentration, from one caudillo to another 59
Third concentration, more than ever 71
3 Three factors to understand a harsh reality 80
Recently dead metropolitan government 80
Once decent infrastructure 90
No place for nature 107
Nothing less, nothing more, just Camava 119
4 Agreement on the complex future 131
Not-so-uncertain Delphi results 131
Incoming transversal conditions 152

vi Contents
5 Camava’s future expectation 163
Five scenarios for Camava 163
Looking through the scenarios 193
6 Synthesizing strengths and weaknesses 200
A more honest future 200
Final thoughts 205
Index 215

Introduction
The heart of any contemporary metropolis is very dierent from the Interna-
tional Space Station orbiting the Earth, but they are both urban. The urban
phenomenon is spread around the world, connected by streets and bridges,
but also by garbage and broadcast frequencies. From that point of view, it is
not a bipolar concept; it is possible to be just a little bit urban depending on
the intensity of the features taken into account (Ajl 2014, 538). This condi-
tion makes cities harder to recognize in virtue of an urban phenomenon that
spreads across the territory. Even so, they receive a name that seems to refer
to clearly recognizable entities. It seems possible to distinguish their central
areas, but it is much harder to understand their extension, not to mention
the fact that their fast expansion and dynamic nature constantly change
their shape, density and blurry limits.
Adding the intensive process of population growth with the territorial
extension beyond the central hubs of cities, a new path opens as an impor-
tant transformation of human settlements: regionalization (United Nations
1996, 54). In recent decades, there has been an intensified transformation
from clearly defined urban nodes to systems of human concentrations in
much more extensive and diused areas. Astudy published by the Univer-
sity of New York reported that– in a sample of 120 cities – the occupied
area increased by 28% while the population increased only 17% between
1990 and 2000 (The NYU Urban Expansion Program 2015). This phenom-
enon is particularly intense in developing countries, where populations are
expected to double between 2000 and 2030, while the urban footprint tri-
ples (Angel etal. 2011, 3). Similarly, the greatest growth is no longer hap-
pening in the largest cities but is instead concentrated in small and medium
urban centers (UN-Habitat 2016b, 9), strengthening the regional system.
An increasingly bigger percentage of the population is considered urban but
not because they live in compact cities; rather it is because the settlement
they inhabit comes to get that classification. In short, an expansion of the
regional urbanization phenomenon will play a key role in the future (Soja
2014, 284).
The urban population will practically double by 2050 (United Nations
2017, 2). This mass growth spreads across the world as one of the trademark

2 Introduction
phenomena of the past century and this one so far. Even if the focus given to
this matter in recent times may end up trivializing it, it is in fact an impor-
tant process that demands a dedicated examination. Some of the main rea-
sons to study it have to do with many somewhat recent problems such as the
consequences of climate change, but also many others are as old as the first
cities, like housing, inequality, safety, administration and many others. All
these circumstances seem to be part of an unstoppable avalanche that grows
larger and more complex with the urban area’s regional scale.
At the same time, the possibilities and potential also multiply. Urban
areas are spaces of innovation and concentrate more than 80% of the global
GDP (UN-Habitat 2016a, 1). They are the protagonist of the knowledge
and agglomeration economies and have the possibility to eectively and sus-
tainably address many problems thanks to the ideas born from the intense
human interaction that characterizes them. In general, while the coun-
tries that support the production of gold, oil, uranium, wheat or cattle get
increasingly poorer every day, those based on knowledge and skilled work-
ers tend to get wealthier faster. In terms of economic indexes, a commodity,
a basic good or raw materials are now worth 20% of what they were worth
in 1845, which progressively impoverishes those who keep trying to com-
pete in selling raw materials (Medina and Ortegón 2006, 29). Sadly, many
countries of the Global South currently are characterized by that economy
of exploitation of natural resources.
Looking toward the next decades, the same tendencies can be identified.
The future of mankind will reside in highly urbanized urban regions, or at
least in complex metropolitan structures (Secchi 2015, 151), but the way
population growth and urban footprint expansion have been and are still
taking place turn them into important problems (Lara and Cook 2013, 22).
Even though the plans and actions to confront this situation seem contra-
dictorily latched to images of the past (Piccinato 2002, x), particularly in
the Global South, only a handful of subnational governments are trying to
prepare for the future of their urban agglomerations. Despite that it would
be a mistake to think that the strategies that scarcely worked in the 20th
century will be appropriate for the 21st century (Harvey 2014, 63), the
consideration of the future of the urban regions is still an important debt.
Looking ahead in time, complexity and turbulence will increase the
uncertainty and prevent previsions (Fernández Güell 2011, 17), which
makes considering the future particularly dicult, but– at the same time–
reinforces the need to consider it. Knowing more about what could hap-
pen oers at least the possibility to prepare. If the creative energy of future
images declines, the value of reason and the possibility to lead a society
coherently also deteriorate (Medina and Ortegón 2006, 198). Uncertainty
always exists and can be quantified through probabilities or be understood
and described qualitatively, so it can be accepted, studied, managed and
incorporated into the reasoning (Medina and Ortegón 2006, 91). In order
to govern better in the world of the near future, foresight capability and

Introduction 3
strategic thinking must be strengthened and scenarios need to be created
to glimpse the possible risks and opportunities (Comisión Económica para
América Latina y el Caribe (CEPAL) 2016, 179). Essentially, no matter how
uncertain the future of the urban phenomenon might seem, there are instru-
ments to study it, and it is important to keep it in mind in any case.
Despite being a universal phenomenon, urban agglomerations do not
admit a uniform treatment because their reality is multiple and complex
(Chacón 2012, 240). The urban condition is not homogenous, and it has
not been homogenous in the past; it exists amid a process of constant trans-
formation that produces dierent conditions around the world (Brenner and
Schmid 2014, 333). So, considering the concern for the Global South, as
well as the future questions and uncertainties it oers, this research focuses
on an urban region in the central-northern area of Venezuela comprising at
least three metropolitan areas: Caracas, Maracay and Valencia. This sec-
tor condenses around ten million inhabitants that represent a third of the
national population into a territory of 200km by 75km. It also has a strate-
gic central position, concentrates most of the economic and political power,
oers the best services and has the most skilled workers in the country.
Perhaps Venezuela is mainly known for its large oil reserves, a product
that has given the country an enormous amount of resources. Even so,
already by the end of the past century, the model of the oil-exporting coun-
try had already entered a crisis due to the drop in commodity prices associ-
ated with the globalization processes that have favored knowledge-based
economies and growing value chains. It is precisely within this concept that
the country’s central-northern urban region oers an opportunity to com-
plement or even surpass the oil model and insert Venezuela into the logics
that currently characterize the world.
Contradicting this hypothesis, since the start of democracy in 1958, no
government has implemented strategies to consolidate the region. On the
contrary, alleging a great concern for the high concentration of people
and the expansion of slum areas, mainly due to the rapid migration from
the countryside to the cities, dierent national plans have tried to stop its
growth and even move part of its population to other areas. However, the
concentration process never stopped, but these government intentions did
discourage the construction of the necessary bases to serve the existing and
arriving population, further worsening their conditions and multiplying the
problems as years went by. Still, although it might be dicult to believe,
these ideas of dismembering these cities are present even today, two decades
into the 21st century, ignoring the global trends that currently favor the
potential of large urban concentrations.
Venezuela’s central-northern region is a scarcely studied case with many
questions around it. Additionally, the whole country has been going through
a significant crisis for decades, aecting every aspect of its society and even
hindering the possibilities to study it. Considering these diculties and the
great many variables characterizing this phenomenon, this book is focused

4 Introduction
on three topics: government, infrastructure and environment. Among the
keys for understanding the urban-regional trend, these three topics were
chosen after crossing some of the most relevant issues pointed to in the
documentary research with the observations raised by respondents about
the case study. Refining the approach to these aspects helped define the
reach and improved the feasibility.
About the future of this area, it is necessary to say that the territorial
foresight has been scarcely used in Venezuela (Salas Bourgoin 2013, 17).
Few foresight exercises have been made, much less regarding territorial
foresight, and literally there is no previous experience that encompasses
the scale here defined as the case study. Additionally, the research works
within a context where attention to the urban phenomenon is divided
and uncoordinated. Consequentially, during this tough exercise about its
future, there were not too many local records that served as a guide, none
referring to the area in question. In a study of Venezuela’s urban develop-
ment, Victor Fossi Belloso (2012, 114) establishes that, starting from the
second half of the 20th century, the evolution of ocial actions has usually
considered planning an autonomous activity within administration, whose
mechanisms to link back with the practical execution of plans have always
been defective, if not inoperative. Looking transversally through all these
reasons– commodities depreciation, inhabitant’s wellbeing, unconsidered
future– this book studies what could be considered– at least preventively–
an urban region with a significant potential for a country in need of new
answers for development.
Lastly, as a guide to approach this document, it is worth noting the con-
tent of each chapter. The first, “Mapping the complexity of a poorly stud-
ied case,” contains the entire scope of the research, problem, hypotheses,
objectives, methodology and limitations. The second, “The formation of the
main urban region of Venezuela,” analyzes the history of Venezuela’s cen-
tral-northern region going through the key moments that built its hierarchy.
The third, “Three factors to understand a harsh reality,” develops the three
focus points of the research: government, infrastructure and environment.
The fourth, “Agreement on the complex future,” presents the shocking
conditions that could play an important role in coming decades. The fifth,
“Camava’s future expectation,” presents the future scenarios developed for
this region. The sixth and last, “Synthesizing strengths and weaknesses,”
presents an additional scenario proposed by the author and synthesizes the
most important conclusions of the book.
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Introduction 5
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