Acknowledgements
The project was funded in part through a 2012 P3 Student Design for Sustainability Award from the US Environmental Protection Agency and by support from the School of Architecture, the LBJ School of Public Policy, the Department of Geography and the Environment, and the Lozano Long Institute for Latin American Studies, all at the University of Texas. The authors wish to acknowledge the invaluable assistance provided by Antonio Almonte, Joaquín de la Cruz, and Larry Álvarez from the municipality SDN; Omar Rancier, Dirección General de Ordenamiento y Desarrollo Territorial; Andrés Navarro and Juan Torres, Distrito Nacional; German Herrera and Nicolás Mendoza, FUNDSAZURZA; Benita García, Fundación Agricultura y Medio Ambiente; Sandra Amparo and Marianela Pinales, CIAMF; Chichi Vallejo, COPADEBA; and especially Gabriel Báez for initiating the collaborative work in SDN. Most importantly, we thank our colleagues, friends and co-researchers in Los Platanitos, especially the members of FUMPLA and Mujeres Unidas, for their engagement and leadership.
Notes
1. Those who rely for their livelihood on the informal economic practice of collecting and reselling recyclables such as discarded glass, carton, plastics and metals.
1. Vermiculture refers to composting using earthworms to speed up the decomposition process.
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Bjørn Sletto
Bjørn Sletto is Associate Professor in the Program in Community and Regional Planning and the Teresa Lozano Long Institute of Latin American Studies at the University of Texas at Austin. His research interests include indigenous and community-based planning, environmental justice, and informal economies in Latin America. Email: [email protected]
Juan Torres
Juan Torres is Senior Planner with the Municipality Santo Domingo Distrito Nacional, responsible for community planning and the participatory budgeting process. He has three decades of experience with participatory research, participatory planning and infrastructure remediation in slum communities in Santo Domingo. Email: [email protected]
Nicolas Mendoza
Nicolas Mendoza is responsible for strategic planning and community education in health, recycling, and household waste management for Fundsazurza. He speaks frequently on issues of risk and vulnerability, community-based solid waste management, and recycling in international forums. Email: [email protected]
Rosario Rizzo Lara
Rosario Rizzo Lara is a graduate from the Institute of Latin American Studies at the University of Texas at Austin where she researched the impact of the development of new international markets on corn farmers in Veracruz, Mexico. She is currently focusing on migration studies and the Latino population in the USA. Email: [email protected]
Nathan Brigmon
Nathan Brigmon is a graduate from the graduate program in community and regional planning at UT-Austin who uses GIS research and design techniques to collect, analyze, and visualize information for planning, business, and community development projects to better inform planning and development processes. Email: [email protected]
Tania Davila
Tania Davila is an advisor to the Vice Minister of Planning for Good Living “Buen Vivir” in Ecuador, where she develops social and environmental public policy. She received master's degrees from the program in community and regional planning at the University of Texas at Austin and the Latin American Faculty of Social Sciences of Ecuador. Email: [email protected]
Matthew Clifton
Matthew Clifton has a master's degrees in community & regional planning and public affairs. He is interested in the nexus between the public sector, private sector, and infrastructure development in Latin America. Email: [email protected]
Pamela Sertzen
Pamela Sertzen is a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellow and PhD student in the Department of Geography at Syracuse University. She focuses on emotionally driven memory work in Rio de Janeiro's favelas as residents struggle for a more just landscape. Email: [email protected]
Lindsey Carte
Lindsey Carte is a Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of Environment and Society at Utah State University. She studies migration in Mexico and Central America using ethnographic and participatory approaches. Email: [email protected]
Solange Muñoz
Solange Muñoz is a Latin-Americanist and geographer. She currently works as a lecturer in the Residential College at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. Her researcher interests include urban processes, housing and marginalized communities and social movements. Email: [email protected]
Oscar Omar Diaz
Oscar Omar Diaz is a doctoral student in cultural studies and education interested in working with local and international students to map their communities and their classrooms in order to better understand their complex relationships with the world around them. Email: [email protected]
Amparo Chantada
Amparo Chantada specializes in urban geography with a doctorate from Paris-Sorbonne University. As Director of the Institute of Urbanism at the Universidad Autónoma de Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, she is concerned with issues of urban sustainability and environmental justice. Email: [email protected]