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Using illustrations from some of Latin America's largest cities, the chapter examines the causes and consequences of urban expansion and the more recent phenomenon of urban sprawl. It reflects on the role of transport and mobility, both as consequences of urban growth and as causes of it. It reflects on the equity and sustainability dimensions of this phenomenon.

El documental "Encounters at the End of the World" (2007) de Werner Herzog reflexiona sobre los ideales humanos de exploración en el medioambiente extremo de la Antártida. A lo largo de la película, Herzog y sus personajes dan un rol a la Antártida como lugar de deseo y como lugar incomprensible en las narrativas que los personajes cuentan ellos mismos sobre sus propias vidas. Su habilidad para hacer esto es consecuencia del mito popular que muestra la Antártida como un páramo estático y vacío, así como de los modos de gobierno nacionalista que promueven la ciencia pero apartan otras formas de saber hacia la periferia. Los personajes de la película de Herzog están condenados a un ciclo de repetición interminable: forzados por un mito a revivir constantemente el momento del descubrimiento, y restringidos por los modos de gobierno que niegan la expresión formal de la sensibilidad exacerbada que experimentan al encontrarse en el espacio de la Antártida. Por último, este ciclo genera desesperanza y la película lleva a los espectadores hacia una inmersión en los tropos de las fronteras: En lugar del héroe hombre blanco yendo a rescatar a la naturaleza en peligro, encontramos al heroico hombre blanco angustiado con la mirada fija contemplando el vacío imposible. De esta manera, la película de Herzog se convierte en una parábola sobre la historia limitando y refrenando nuevas formas de saber. En una era de cada vez más incertidumbre medioambiental, y con la Antártida actuando como un test de tornasol para el impacto de los humanos en el planeta, así como una evaluación del futuro de la raza humana. "Encounters" nos pide que rechacemos la historia que no nos enseña nada nuevo, y nos pide que encontremos maneras de renovar el gran experimento de vivir en el mundo. Werner Herzog’s 2007 documentary Encounters at the End of the World concerns human ideals of exploration in the extreme environment of the Antarctic. Throughout the film, Herzog and his characters enrol the Antarctic variously as a site of desire and as a site of incomprehensibility in self-told narratives about their own lives. Their ability to do so is a consequence of both popular myth that casts the Antarctic as a static and empty wasteland, and nationalistic modes of governance that promote science but squeeze other modes of knowing to the fringe. The characters in Herzog’s film are thus doomed to a cycle of endless repetition: forced by myth to constantly revisit the moment of discovery, and constrained by modes of governance that deny formal expression of the heightened sensibility they experience when engaging with Antarctic space. Ultimately, this cycle generates despair and so the film bears witness to an inversion of frontier tropes: Instead of heroic white male coming to the aid of nature in distress we instead find the heroic white male in distress staring into an utterly hopeless void. In this way, Herzog’s film becomes a parable about history constraining new forms of knowing. In an age of increasing environmental uncertainty, and with the Antarctic enrolled as both a litmus test for human impacts on the planet, and for gauging the future of the human race, Encounters asks us to reject history where history teaches us nothing new, and it asks us to find ways to renew the great experiment of living in the world.

The richness of the plots lies in the indeterminacy conveyed by these voids, in the creation of expectation and in the capacity of these spaces to “generate desires”. The richness of the plots lies in the indeterminacy conveyed by these voids, in the creation of an expectation and in the capacity of these spaces to “generate desires”. The very name of the programme, ‘This is not a plot of land’, is an example of one of the many social intervention programmes that can be found in the city’s platforms and movements that are concerned with unused spaces and with improving the urban environment. It seeks to incite a game that consists of going beyond semantic restrictions, inviting us to propose a view that recognises the potential of these spaces. The interventions are based on a prior urban and socio-economic study, analysing the profile of the population, the existing facilities and the shortcomings of each of the areas to which the site to be intervened belongs. Small plots of land with a regular geometry for ease of use, and the use of the plots of land in good condition to allow a quick intervention, transforming them into children’s play areas, urban vegetable gardens, green carpet gardens, improvised sports fields, or others.

Funding: Este trabajo fue posible gracias al financiamiento de la Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) y realizado bajo convenio entre WCS y el Instituto de Investigaciones de la Amazonía Peruana (IIAP). ; New infrastructure that seeks to connect Iquitos with Saramiriza includes building a ~350-km paved road alongside the Tigre river in Loreto. This project is a threat to the conservation of one of the largest areas of tropical forest on the planet and the largest and deepest peatlands in the Amazon basin. In this study, focused on the second section of the proposed road (Huambé – Marsella), we used a “business-as-usual” scenario (BAU) and a “road” scenario to show that road construction would lead to substantial loss of forest cover and increase CO2 emissions. The current loss of forest cover in a buffer zone of 20 km around the Huambé-Marsella road, estimated up to 2018, was 3.4 %. Using a multi-layer perceptron (MLP) neural network, we estimated deforestation of 80 071.11 ha and emissions of 35.55 Mt CO2 -eq for the period 2019-2064 in the BAU scenario, while the scenario with the construction of the road would generate greater loss of forests (303 248.79 ha) and higher emissions (135.56 Mt CO2 -eq). Avoiding the construction of the road alongside the Tigre river would therefore prevent the loss of 83 462.58 ha of forests and the emission of 41.49 Mt CO2 -eq from 2019 to 2030. Therefore, the Peruvian government should assess alternative proposals for transportation in this area. For example, improved fluvial boat services could be used for the transport of cargo and people, while an air taxi service could also help to meet the needs of indigenous communities and riverine settlers. Compliance with international commitments to reduce greenhouse gas emissions will potentially be impossible if the road is constructed as it is estimated that will increase national emissions by 1.31 % from 2019 to 2030. The funds saved from not constructing the road could subsidize the use of a modern river fleet, the air taxi ...