Tactic urbanism intervention on El Vado
This past September 2019, Llactalab—an urban studies research group at University of Cuenca—proposed a tactical urbanism intervention with the aim of reducing pedestrians’ mobility risks in the str
El Vado air pollution stories
According to Juan, a metal worker air quality has only decreased over the years causing lung cancer among some of his colleagues and close kin.
air pollution social protest in El Vado
In 2010, artists and craftsmen-women who rent small local businesses, started an initiative against noise and air pollution resulting from excessive bus/car traffic.
Car traffic in El Vado
The elevated number of cars that pass through the narrow uphill street of La Condamine—located in the heart of this neighborhood—sees over 7000 vehicles per day and has generated a conflictive area
Brief history review of El Vado
El Vado is a historical neighborhood in the city of Cuenca, marked by rural migration, economic marginalization in the 19th century, and limited urban infrastructure—including the absence of adequa
Maka Suarez: thinking about air pollution locally
makasuarezI was interested in learning about how air pollution has been talked/researched in the New Orleans area. Mainly, the need to highlight local specificities and historical analysis. A 1950s study on air pollution in New Orleans (Air Pollution and New Orleans Asthma), for instance, documented asthma incidence among black communities (sadly the article still uses the N word), and its relationship to underground fire burning in nearby dumps. The study is more comprehensive and did a census in part of the city as well as a number of medical tests on 84 individuals.
A second study, this one from 2007, documented asthma in children (Prevalence of Indoor Allergen Exposures among New Orleans Children with Asthma). It has a relevant focus of the differences between document indoor allergen exposure in different areas of the US and how subtropical weather in NOLA plays an important role in the kinds of allergies that children with asthma face. One of the main findings of the study can be summarized in the following quote “our data show that asthmatic children in New Orleans may be exposed to a greater number of allergens at moderate to high levels compared to asthmatic children living in other inner cities and to the general population.”
Finally, a third reference, the book Race, Place, and Environmental Justice After Hurricane Katrina: Struggles to Reclaim, Rebuild, and Revitalize New Orleans and the Gulf Coast talks about something, others have already pointed out (@Omar Perez Figueroa for instance) regarding areas that undergo dramatic change and hardship after natural disasters like hurricane Katrina and Rita. This book, particularly chapter 5 (though I can’t access the full text) explains the highly toxic environment that resulted (and remains) in the New Orleans area due to little clean-up action following the disasters. Lack of funding, deference to poorly resourced local authorities, and policy-failure all affect New Orleans (and many of our sites of research) particularly the fate of vulnerable communities.
In connection with other research groups at the university, we got in touch with neighbors of El Vado in order to discuss what they thought of the urban intervention and in an attempt to include ci