Agua, poder y territorio: estrategias locales de gestión urbana

Abstract

We report on results derived from investigations related with vicinal strategies on water management and their effects on the territorial configuration of Cochabamba (Bolivia) metropolitan area. These strategies and their effects are determined by several factors namely, water resources scarcity, accelerated urban growth, self-management legal possibilities and important levels of public investment in both municipal as well as metropolitan scales. The approach is done firstly by describing the features of the studied zone and the problematic of water in the region. Secondly, through the show and analysis of the different forms and strategies of water management, we pay special attention to their effects on the morphology of neighborhoods and the urban networks. The results show the generation of a different territorial ordering which, differing from the one usually adopted in the literature, seems to exhibit how certain types of networks create fragments instead of articulations.