Sobre el análisis de la pobreza urbana y el medio ambiente: una visión socioecológica/ On the analysis of urban poverty and the environment: a socio-ecological view

The study of economic systems is mainly characterized by the analysis of the productive and distributive aspects of a society. By incorporating the environmental dimension to the economic analysis, the environmental economics branch focuses on remedying market failures to continue with cost-benefit approaches. As a critique of this vision, the ecological economics bases its studies on a systemic perspective. On the other hand, the self-organization and governance approach of Elinor Ostrom analyzes the sustainable use of environmental resources (natural) in a sustainable way. Combined with the prospective analysis, it allows progress in the comprehension of socio-ecological systems. Despite these advances, the treatment of environmental problems and poverty in an urban environment seems to be limited to specific quantitative cost-benefit approaches, in which the possibility of governance and bottom-up policies is ignored. To move in that direction, we propose a conceptual discussion on the environmental impact of urban poverty, based on the concept of socio-ecological system in an urban space.El estudio de los sistemas económicos se caracteriza principalmente por el análisis de los aspectos productivos y distributivos de una sociedad. Al incorporar la dimensión ambiental al análisis económico, la rama de la Economía Ambiental se concentra en subsanar fallas de mercado para continuar con valoraciones economicistas costo-beneficio. Como crítica a esta visión, la Economía Ecológica basa sus estudios en una perspectiva sistémica. Por otro lado, el enfoque de autoorganización y gobernanza de Elinor Ostrom analiza la utilización de los recursos medioambientales (naturales) en forma sostenible. Combinado con el enfoque cualitativo proveniente de La Prospective, permite avanzar en la definición y el estudio de los sistemas socioecológicos. A pesar de estos avances, en el tratamiento de los problemas medioambientales y la pobreza en el entorno urbano, el análisis económico parece estar limitado a enfoques cuantitativos puntuales de costo-beneficio, en los que la posibilidad de gobernanza y políticas bottom-up se ignoran. Para avanzar en esa dirección, en este artículo se propone una discusión conceptual sobre el impacto ambiental de la pobreza urbana, a partir del concepto de sistema socioecológico en un entorno urbano. Abstract The study of economic systems is mainly characterized by the analysis of the productive and distributive aspects of a society. By incorporating the environmental dimension to the economic analysis, the environmental economics branch focuses on remedying market failures to continue with cost-benefit approaches. As a critique of this vision, the ecological economics bases its studies on a systemic perspective. On the other hand, the self-organization and governance approach of Elinor Ostrom analyzes the sustainable use of environmental resources (natural) in a sustainable way. Combined with the prospective analysis, it allows progress in the comprehension of socio-ecological systems. Despite these advances, the treatment of environmental problems and poverty in an urban environment seems to be limited to specific quantitative cost-benefit approaches, in which the possibility of governance and bottom-up policies is ignored. To move in that direction, we propose a conceptual discussion on the environmental impact of urban poverty, based on the concept of socio-ecological system in an urban space