I have to share this great article written by Juan Manuel Restepo on Favela Issues.

In today’s cities we see how governments struggle to create solutions and to implement large policies. Cities are more complex, diverse and dynamic making governance almost impossible. Governments can’t make changes in these cities by themselves. They need to build collective efforts with all the stakeholders in the city.

Nevertheless, politicians keep on promising and acting as if they had the capacity to make real changes by themselves. They keep on bringing THE SOLUTION for mobility, security, education and health without really understanding the issues or the actors behind them that control real power in the city. During the political campaigns they promise everything and give figures of all the great changes they want to make. But when they get elected the passionate candidates crush with a wall of the real power that controls the city through…