Sergio Montero

Innovation in the Green Economy: An Extension of the Regional Innovation System Model?:

Policy makers increasingly look to green innovation as a source of job creation. Using the case of California, we argue that green innovation complicates traditional models of innovation and its role in economic development. This study uses secondary source data and a survey of 650 green and traditional businesses to define the green economy, identify innovation of products and services, and link innovation to sectoral and regional growth. The authors find that the type of innovation and its role varies widely by sector. The most environmentally challenged firms are among the most likely to innovate new processes, whereas new green innovative companies are more likely to respond to local and regional markets. Innovation does not necessarily foster growth. It is a boost to traditional firms, but emerging green firms may need additional tools and the support of local networks to transform new ideas and products to new markets.

Worlding Bogotá’s Ciclovía: From Urban Experiment to International “Best Practice”

“Best practices” are either celebrated as inspirational examples that can spur policy change and learning in other places or critiqued as “one-size-fits-all” models that do not consider the complexity of local contexts. Less is known about the forms of power, governance, and legitimacy that are embedded in the construction and mobilization of certain policies as world policy models. This article critically examines the concept of “best practice” by analyzing the case of Bogotá’s Ciclovía, a weekly 70-mile street-closure program to promote urban biking and physical exercise. The analysis sheds light on the shifting rationalities and constellations of local and transnational actors, networks, and agendas that have shaped the program from its experimental beginnings in the 1970s through its construction as an international “best practice” in the 2000s. Las “mejores prácticas” suelen ser o bien presentadas como ejemplos inspiradores y creativos que pueden impulsar cambios políticos en otros lugares o criticadas como modelos “universales” que no toman en consideración la complejidad de los contextos locales. No obstante, se sabe relativamente poco sobre las formas de poder, gobernanza y legitimidad que están insertadas en la construcción y movilización de ciertos programas como modelos de política mundial. El artículo hace un examen crítico del concepto de “mejores prácticas” analizando el caso de la Ciclovía de Bogotá—un programa semanal de cierre de calles que promueve el ciclismo urbano y el ejercicio físico. El análisis arroja luz sobre las racionalidades cambiantes así como las diferentes constelaciones de actores, redes, y agendas locales y globales que le han dado forma al programa desde sus tímidos comienzos en los años 70 hasta su construcción como una “mejor práctica” internacional en los últimos años.

Study tours and inter-city policy learning: Mobilizing Bogotá’s transportation policies in Guadalajara:

While modern urban planning has traditionally been shaped by policies and instruments from European and North American cities, in recent decades there has been an increase in South-South policy learning and a number of cities of the global South have emerged as alternative urban planning models. Yet, less is known about the practices through which urban policy actors in cities of the South learn from other Southern cities’ policies. This paper examines the case of Guadalajara, Mexico, where different local public and private actors introduced a new policy issue—sustainable transportation—in the local and state government agenda making extensive references to Bogotá, Colombia. Study tours are identified as key practices that facilitated the adoption of Bogotá’s transportation policies in Guadalajara. Using qualitative and ethnographic methods, I show that study tours were powerful instruments to promote policy change thanks to their capacity to: (1) educate the attention of influential local policy actors through hands-on “experiential learning”; (2) expand local coalitions through the building of trust and consensus around a policy model; and (3) mobilize public opinion through references to already existing policies. In doing so, I suggest that study tours should be conceptualized as both learning and governance instruments that a variety of actors can use to translate their shifting beliefs of how the city should be organized into public policy. The analysis of the actors that organized these tours also reveals the friction between local and transnational agendas shaping the apparent South-South circulations of Bogotás transportation policies.

Persuasive Practitioners and the Art of Simplification: The “Bogotá Model”

This article analyzes how Bogotá’s transport programs TransMilenio BRT and Ciclovía were learned and adopted in Guadalajara, Mexico. It proposes that the construction and mobilization of simplified “narratives of progress” and the persuasive capacities of the actors that tell these stories, what I here call “persuasive practitioners”, are largely influential in driving policy learning and adoption of other cities’ policies.

San Francisco Through Bogotá’s Eyes: Leveraging Urban Policy Change through the Circulation of Media Objects

This article connects two emerging debates in urban studies—the need to pay more attention to the role of nonhuman actors in urban planning and the ways in which media objects affect urban politics and planning—by examining how a video on Bogota’s car‐free Ciclovia program facilitated the adoption and implementation of a similar program in San Francisco. The analysis shows that media objects have the capacity to act as fulcrums in processes of leveraging urban policy change owing to their potential to alter urban governance structures. The article analyzes the digital storytelling and ‘eye‐opening’ practices through which the video enabled policy changes to be implemented in San Francisco, while also tracing the local and transnational actors, networks and agendas that were involved in the production and circulation of the video through digital archival research and multi‐sited fieldwork. In doing so, it shows the active role that media objects play in shaping urban policymaking processes and provides an example of a relational methodology for studying the digital materialities through which urban policy ideas increasingly circulate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Promotion of Recreational Walking: Case Study of the Ciclovía-Recreativa of Bogotá

Abstract nThe Ciclovia-Recreativa of Bogota is a community programme in which streets are closed to motor vehicle traffic and open exclusively for people so they can enjoy a safe, free space for walking, jogging, cycling and skating. Currently, Ciclovia-type programmes have been implemented in cities from all the continents of the world. This case study aimed to assess the association between walking behaviours and Ciclovia participation among adults and older adults and the potential factors associated with the sustainability and scalability of this programme. Adults who reported participating in the Ciclovia were more likely to walk at least 150 minutes per week (POR 2.08, 95% CI 1.43–3.02). Likewise, among older adults, living in a neighbourhood with Ciclovia corridors was marginally associated with having walked for at least 150 minutes per week (POR 1.29, 95% CI 0.97–1.73). Main factors that could contribute to the development and sustainability of the programme include policies from different sectors concurrent with community support. Factors associated with the scalability of the Ciclovia include: (1) local officials that travelled the world to speak about Bogota’s urban transformation, (2) a transnational network of sustainable transportation and public health advocates of the programme, (3) a network of Ciclovia experts that shared technical and administrative details needed to organise an event and (4) the digital technologies that made the viralisation of photos and videos of Bogota possible. The Ciclovia is a multisectoral and scalable programme associated with the promotion of walking.