La nueva geografía de las ciudades. Hacia un modelo que incrementa el riesgo de desastres

Abstract

The urban sprawl is an irreversible fact in the evolutionary process of the cities. The new geographies that are evident in the cities, denote an intensive peripheral, diffuse and informal expansion, generally towards areas with a high natural threat, problematic that is present in a moment in which the negative, natural and anthropic events are frequently and with high intensities. For this reason, the present paper aims to answer the question: how the new geography of cities affect the social construction of the risk of its inhabitants? Two cities of the Ecuadorian pre coastal network, Quevedo and Milagro, were selected as case studies. It was found that social inequalities in areas of urban expansion are strongly marked; the inhabitants of these zones do not consume or live the city in the same way as in the centralities, forcing its inhabitants to develop practices and possess imaginaries that increase their exposure to the risk of disasters.