Metodología para la implementación de supermanzanas de barrio para su autogestión vecinal. Anteproyecto en Cuenca, Ecuador

Abstract

Latin American cities face problems associated with urban expansion as well as deficient and technocratic planning. These issues have forced some municipal entities to adopt improvised solutions. Other cities have had to adopt urban models that do not respond to the socio-spatial reality of their settlements. In both cases, specific developmental processes have resulted. In 2019, in the city of Cuenca (Ecuador), urban planners developed several exercises to test the implementation of the model called “superblock”. Unfortunately, the exercises lacked a strategy to determine the model’s feasibility in the urban environment. Also, the model was not tested for its effects on social space. In this way, the degree work shows the difficulties that have arisen in urban neighborhoods (pilot) where municipal experimentation has attempted to respond to the reality of these neighborhoods. Such a proposal raises the need for a feasibility and suitability analysis of urban sectors affected by implementation of the Project. Analysis is also required for the development of a counterproposal to the delimitation and design of the municipal superblock. Based on the urban spatial analysis applied in the study sector, as well as the interaction with the residents of the sector - through perceptions sweeps, interviews and semi-structured surveys - the leap towards design of a blueprint of a self-managed neighborhood superblock can take place with the support of public management. We conclude that the results of the work allow methodological implementation in urban sectors with consideration of these factors: characteristics of residential use; reasonable levels of coexistence; and arising of conflict around mobility. Finally, a guide document is built (should be built? Is needed? ) to guide residents in the possibilities of self-management of a neighborhood superblock.