Empowering Hubs

Decision making processes building Rio´s urbanity these days are only defined by private interests.A wide-open symbiosis between government and companies, ignoring collective interest and public benefit, leads to a reality marked by unacceptable disgusting situations to shape carioca’s routines.A sociability highly influenced by stress and creativity can also be described by intense and extensive use of social networks, means to dilute and survive an urban dynamics shaped by lack of respect for citizens’ rights and needs.Dominance of private interests and subordination of public interests is structured by perverse dynamics resultant of structural informality: relativity of citizenship, conditioning basic rights’ access to level of proximity to a power hub; de-responsibilization, which diffuses responsibility of destructive actions; personalization, as decision making based on individual concern of public issues. We believe in the decentralization of private interests as key to reverse such scene and support a better future. We see the dynamics of people as means to reverse today´s disgusts.Previously dominating creativity and irreverence have given space to impatience and helplessness. Possibilities for sharing and sprouting of ideas are progressively reduced by an ongoing fragmentation, through displacement difficulties and enclosurement of urban net. Basic components of carioca living spirit are in risk of extinction.We propose actions to introduce new linking ways, subverting existing structure and rescuing primitive living characters.Creativity and social networking can work as levers for collective organization processes. A mediator to demonstrate possibilities in consonance with private interests starts a new connectivity.This process produces a place for civility, irreverence, culture and joy. An initial hub is located in Downtown’s Castelo – colonial centrality demolished by the 1920s hygienist urban renovation, which generated areas for collective use in the center of blocks, which remain under-utilized. In this fracture, we propose the production of a space and alternative path in a surrounding frenzy.A new hub neighbor to a bus terminal, a ferry station, a huge garage building, a tube station and the business centre´s main street. Structuring of such space, legally subordinate to many landlords -a non-articulated wasteland- can generate benefits to investors: increased property values, higher productivity in business, brand’s marketing and more. Also creating public benefit.All independent from public resource; a private initiative in a private plot. This small-world network with scattering of decision and production of new space constitutes a hub of experiences and stimulates new hubs to emerge, transforming a centralized net into a distributed one. Subdue to the forces of production of space (financial benefits, marketing) with no revolution, a new possibility arises with a powerful outcome: connective livable urban spaces.