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A paradigm shift in water management is recognized as a necessary and fundamental step for adaptation to climate change and crucial for furthering sustainability. In contexts of rapid urbanization, this paradigm shift is particularly challenged since social and environmental needs often come into conflict. In Bogotá, as other Latin-American cities, demands for new housing are increasing daily, while the overall housing deficit remains an unresolved problem. Currently, the city faces the challenges to deal with the pressure to continue to urbanize flood prone areas with low-cost housing projects and simultaneously protect these areas in view of flooding, which promise to increase with the predictions of climate change. In order to contribute to context-responsive solutions to the water and housing issues, this paper investigates the shifting relations between settlement patterns, water infrastructure and landscape in Bogotá's El Tintal watershed. This sub-watershed of the Bogotá River has a rich history of formal and informal low-cost housing. The critical reading of the landscape transformation of the El Tintal has shown how the water system interventions were and can be instrumental in different stages of development. This reading was the base to elaborate design investigations that could translate to spatial adaptation measures. This paper argues that “soft” water management tools can be part of a twofold strategy to create spatial quality and provide resilience for more qualitative future urban development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Latin America is a highly urbanized region characterized by remarkable inequality levels, also reflected in an uneven distribution of opportunities, making socio-economic segregation quite visible. Since the individual possibility to travel and therefore access to urban opportunities strongly depends on socio-economic status and the distances to overcome, highly unequal patterns of mobility and accessibility emerge. The continuous expansion of Latin American cities originates specific mobility-related inequalities visible in periurban areas, which tend to lack some key urban opportunities and public transport services usually available in cities. Due to established and new patterns of territorial segregation, these areas may generate new forms of marginality in relation to mobility, posing challenges for public action and territorial governance. Our paper considers if and how periurban areas experience different forms of mobility-related inequalities in three Latin American metropolises in Brazil, Chile, and Colombia (São Paulo, Santiago, and Bogotá, respectively). We do so by examining the differences among urban core and periurban zones based on four elements: socio-demographic features, access to the public transport system, spatial continuity, and functional dependence. Our analysis shows that the three metropolitan regions have different structures: while Bogotá and Santiago appear to be more dependent on the urban core, São Paulo shows more autonomous and self-sufficient periurban zones. The analysis also highlights different forms of peripherality, defined by differentiated mobility patterns and modal choices that suggest that city-specific lines for public action might be needed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]