On September 12th, 2019, the Observatory on Latin America (OLA) at The New School presented its newly published book Facing Risk: New Urban Resilience Practices in Latin America. The publication is the result of a collaboration agreement between the OLA and the Latin America development bank CAF. The authors of this book -most of them graduate students from the Schools for Public Engagement at The New School- had the opportunity to do field research in six cities across South America: Manizales, in Colombia, La Paz, in Bolivia, Cuenca, in Ecuador, Santa Fe and Pilar in Argentina, and Cubatão in Brazil.
Margarita Gutman OLA Codirector, opened the event explaining the nature and origins of this project. Then, Bart Orr described the SETS approach, the main conceptual framework used throughout the book. Following, three of the seven researchers, had the opportunity to share the highlights from the city they studied: Maria Carrizosa on Manizales, Colombia; David Lopez, on La Paz, Bolivia, and Lena Simet on Santa Fe, Argentina. The last part of the book presentation was done by Michael Cohen, OLA Codirector and Milano PhD Director, who briefly summarized the main transversal conclusions from the study. Timon McPhearson, faculty and Director of the Urban Systems Lab at The New School, offered some comments on the book and raised interesting questions about the preparedness of these cities to face an increasingly uncertain future.
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