IC2 Group Seminar: Klaus Gierhake ‘Public space and social innovation. The case of Quito (ECUADOR)‘

Klaus Giernake holds a PhD in Geography from the University of Marburg. He has been head of mission of cooperation projects of the European Union, Germany and Belgium in Latin America for 35 years, linked to governance, public policies and environmental management. He is also a researcher at CRELA Centrum für Regionale Entwicklung in Lateinamerika (Germany).

The concept of public space implemented by the administration Municipio Distrito Metropolitano Quito (MDMQ), 2009-2014, as a source of social capital and territorial cohesion is analyzed, proving that this concept is understood in a broader way than it is used in the tradition of urbanism. This concept includes a series of perspectives that enrich its meaning: a traditional perspective, a dynamic perspective, an environmental perspective and a social perspective. Complementarily, its introduction in local administration has been endowed with its own budget programs, thus ensuring the sustainability of a communal policy for public space. As it is presented in the MDMQ vision, public space is an instrument of sectoral coordination, whose interpretation as a cross-cutting program constitutes a novelty in the discourse of existing scientific studies, since it presents concrete and visible experiences of its use to foster territorial cohesion. Moreover, it is an instrument for ex post evaluations of municipal network projects, for bringing the discussion on territorial cohesion to a tangible level for the population and local administration and for discussing a territorial perspective of social capital.