Carnival Inc.
In the rainy season, streams of water take over Barranquilla. Streets transform into abundant, improvised rivers. They stop traffic, spilling over onto the…
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Theme: Urban Design and Planning
Carnavals, Global Mega Events and Visitors in The Marvelous City
In the heart of my home city, Melbourne, a television on the wall of a popular café plays footage from Rio de Janeiro’s famous Carnaval. Across the screen…
Read MoreWater-Friendly Cities?
The world just turned urban. For the first time in human history, urban citizens make up more than half the world’s population, the 2006/2007 UN-Habitat State of the World’s Cities Report tells us. In the last century, Europe and the Americas experienced intense urban growth. Today this is the reality for Asia and Africa….
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Grandmothers and Engineers
A little known fact about Venezuela is that grandmothers and engineers are at the forefront of the struggle to improve access to water and sanitation in poor neighborhoods. Nancy la Rosa, Rosalba Ruíz, Florencia Gutiérrez, Petra Escalona and Sulay Morales, all in their golden years, are working as spokespeople and organizers of the technical water committees (MTAs, mesas técnicas de agua) …
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From Water Wars to Water Scarcity
When Bolivian President Evo Morales arrived at the new Uyuni airport last August and found no water running from the tap, he publicly reprimanded and promptly dismissed his Minister of Water. As it happened, the pipes were merely frozen. The incident underscores the critical—and highly symbolic—role of water in the politics of this landlocked Andean nation. …
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