In early republican times (mid 19th century), spatial organization grouped professionals by trade, associating craftsmen and merchants by neighborhood in the city. El Vado is where metal workers, painters, and toquilla-straw hat manufacturers have been sharing a geographical space as well as redefining Cuenca’s cultural heritage.
Since 2010, these local artists started a campaign against noise and air contamination derived from excessive bus/car traffic. One of the measures they took was to place signs that read: “We are tired, stop pollution.” However, these detrimental conditions haven’t received much attention from municipal authorities. One of the problems here is limited official data on air pollution and noise, which has thwarted larger protests and complaints. Neighbors’ main sense of toxicity comes from their daily lives experiencing it, and the number of friends and family who have died of respiratory diseases, which they directly relate to air pollution.
In collaboration with other research groups at the University of Cuenca, Kaleidos—through its Environmental Governance Lab— was part of a “tactical urbanism” intervention in September 2019. In it, we attempted a small scale measuring of air pollution through one electronic sensor placed in this uphill street and 6 buckets for testing larger air pollution particles. Our objective was to measure whether the urban intervention our colleagues were developing had any significant effect on traffic, air and noise pollution. For this, we collected data for two weeks before the intervention, two weeks during the intervention, and two weeks after the urban intervention.
The results showed a slight reduction in car flow, while monitoring indicated high toxic particulate matter levels before, during and after the intervention. Daily pollutant averages were above 50 micrograms per cubic meter (µg/m3) of air, exceeding World Health Organization limits for 24 hours, and even over 100 ug/m3, exceeding national limits. In the same way, noise from traffic matches noise levels in industrial areas (above 70 decibels), resulting in constant and unhealthy air and noise levels in this area. Our intention was only to produce basic data that could be analyzed with neighbors who had long rallied for better urban policies—particularly around car traffic—in the area.
Most neighbors rent shops on this busy street due to the low costs of prime space, the reason behind these low prices are the terrible health conditions to which they expose themselves. For many of these reasons, I take this as a local example of gentrification and environmental (in)justice in the context of Cuenca, Ecuador.
In early republican times (mid 19th century), spatial organization grouped professionals by trade, associating craftsmen and merchants by neighborhood in the city. El Vado is where metal workers, painters, and toquilla-straw hat manufacturers have been sharing a geographical space as well as redefining Cuenca’s cultural heritage.
Since 2010, these local artists started a campaign against noise and air contamination derived from excessive bus/car traffic. One of the measures they took was to place signs that read: “We are tired, stop pollution.” However, these detrimental conditions haven’t received much attention from municipal authorities. One of the problems here is limited official data on air pollution and noise, which has thwarted larger protests and complaints. Neighbors’ main sense of toxicity comes from their daily lives experiencing it, and the number of friends and family who have died of respiratory diseases, which they directly relate to air pollution.
In collaboration with other research groups at the University of Cuenca, Kaleidos—through its Environmental Governance Lab— was part of a “tactical urbanism” intervention in September 2019. In it, we attempted a small scale measuring of air pollution through one electronic sensor placed in this uphill street and 6 buckets for testing larger air pollution particles. Our objective was to measure whether the urban intervention our colleagues were developing had any significant effect on traffic, air and noise pollution. For this, we collected data for two weeks before the intervention, two weeks during the intervention, and two weeks after the urban intervention.
The results showed a slight reduction in car flow, while monitoring indicated high toxic particulate matter levels before, during and after the intervention. Daily pollutant averages were above 50 micrograms per cubic meter (µg/m3) of air, exceeding World Health Organization limits for 24 hours, and even over 100 ug/m3, exceeding national limits. In the same way, noise from traffic matches noise levels in industrial areas (above 70 decibels), resulting in constant and unhealthy air and noise levels in this area. Our intention was only to produce basic data that could be analyzed with neighbors who had long rallied for better urban policies—particularly around car traffic—in the area.
Most neighbors rent shops on this busy street due to the low costs of prime space, the reason behind these low prices are the terrible health conditions to which they expose themselves. For many of these reasons, I take this as a local example of gentrification and environmental (in)justice in the context of Cuenca, Ecuador.