Reimagining San Miguel de Allende: Cities in Transition

“Cities in Transition” is the second discussion in the monthly “Reimagining San Miguel as a Sustainable Community” series. Following introductory presentations by Silvia González, who works with the Transition Towns Network in Querétaro and Alberto Aveleyra who will discuss development issues in San Miguel de Allende, we will use the methodology called “World Cafe” in which small groups rotate from table to table to discuss the examine some of the issues of interest here in San Miguel such as city planning methods, citizen participation, alternative technologies, and the Transition Towns movement.

All are invited to stay for a social hour following the program with drinks and rap music by the group Ranchero Pandillero, an outreach project of CASA with the slogan “more hip-hop, less violence.”

Across the globe, we are experiencing an explosion of unsustainable urbanization that is expressed in in such problems overdevelopment, gentrification, lack of proper housing and growth of slums, mobility and traffic issues, inadequate and out-dated infrastructure, escalating poverty and unemployment, safety and crime problems, pollution and health issues, as well as poorly managed natural or man-made disasters and other catastrophes due to the effects of climate change.

Here in Mexico, the majority of the population is now urban and the problems of cities is one of the major challenges identified by a multi-disciplinary team in the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) that has produced The Environmental Agenda 2018 (http://agendaambiental2018.susmai.unam.mx/).

To meet these challenges, a number of innovative movements have been developing around the world.

Since 2005, the Transition Town Network has been helping over 1,400 communities in more than 50 countries to create a healthy human culture and resilient communities—reclaiming the economy, reimagining work and finding new ways of creating solutions together.