Fabio Capra-Ribeiro, PhD Architect and Academic Coordinator of the Master in Advanced Ecological Buildings & Biocities as well as the new Master in Mass Timber Design has recently published his book 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 analyses 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.

The book has been published by the renowned English publishing house Routledge.

More information here.

 

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Introduction

Chapter 1. Mapping the complexity of a poorly studied case

• The urban region Caracas-Maracay-Valencia
• Three attempts to deny the reality
• A compound perspective to approach a complex case
• Knowledge and foresight
• The difficulties to investigate in Venezuela nowadays
• Strategies to operate in a harsh context

Chapter 2. The formation of the main urban region of Venezuela

• Camava definitions: what has been said
• Strategic position, natural conditions and sea proximity
• First concentration, centuries of an archipelago country
• Second concentration, from one caudillo to another
• Third concentration, more than ever

Chapter 3. Three factors to understand a harsh reality

• Recently dead metropolitan government
• Once decent infrastructure
• No place for nature
• Nothing less, nothing more, just Camava

Chapter 4. Agreement on the complex future

• Not-so-uncertain Delphi results
• Incoming transversal conditions

Chapter 5. Camava’s future expectation

• Five scenarios for Camava
• Looking through the scenarios

Chapter 6. Synthesizing strengths and weaknesses

• A more honest future
• Final thoughts