The Guayaquil Model

One of the most relevant application of the Guayaquil model is the project for The Guayaquil Aerovía, an urban aerial tramway similar to the other so-called Metrocable systems realized in Medellín, Caracas, Manizales, Cali, México City, Río de Janeiro or La Paz. The project began to take shape in 2014, then it was presented by the Municipality of Guayaquil in 2015 and its construction began in 2019. The Aerovía began its operations on December 21, 2020. Through these planning and design experiences Guayaquil has surely experienced one of the most famous processes of urban redevelopment in the Latin American context over the last twenty years. The aim was redefining the image of the city, reducing urban poverty and finally at turning this city into a tourist destination. Basically, the Guayaquil model can be considered a declination of neoliberal design strategies and policies focused on the 'importation' form other contexts of urban regeneration strategies with a particular predilection for design programme based on the enharcement of urban infrastructures, be they systems of open spaces, commercial equipments or mobility networks. Observing the case of Guayaquil, infraestrures manifest themselves as the output of practices of alliances among institutions, imaginaries, subjects, discourses, spatial devices, this is to say, as constructions of complex socio-spatial ecologies. Infraestructures are experimental projects, they are simultaneously 'things' and 'relationships between things'.Peer ReviewedPostprint (author's final draft