[HN Gopher] Medellin's Green Corridors
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Medellin's Green Corridors
Author : fodmap
Score : 200 points
Date : 2024-03-06 16:01 UTC (6 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (reasonstobecheerful.world)
(TXT) w3m dump (reasonstobecheerful.world)
| toss1 wrote:
| Very cool, in many senses of the word.
|
| We certainly need more of this.
|
| More importantly, this may also reduce the heat-soaking of the
| earth underneath the city as well as the surrounding countryside.
| BudaDude wrote:
| Finally some good news!
|
| I would love to see a city or building try this in the US
| more_corn wrote:
| The SF moma has a living wall on the patio. It is refreshing.
| The new transit center has a park on the roof. One of the most
| calming and comfortable public spaces in SF.
| sudosteph wrote:
| It's not by design, but one thing I loved about living in
| Raleigh, NC is how many of the trees were preserved as it
| developed. It's quite nice (except during pollen season if you
| have allergies) and the shade is pretty valuable when dealing
| with those summers. It's especially noticable compared to
| Durham, which was not able to preserve as many trees close to
| it's downtown core and some big roads. Though Durham still has
| something like 52% tree coverage? The housing development craze
| in that area is definitely making a dent in the the coverage
| for the region as a whole though.
| the_optimist wrote:
| Looks beautiful. I assume our hockey stick temperature charts
| capture this urban heat island effect of between two and five
| degrees, right? Anybody know?
| wbeckler wrote:
| The typical temperature chart is an average across the planet
| or a region. Definitely not population-weighted.
| gfarah wrote:
| Medellin is bursting with greenery! Everywhere I look, trees
| stand tall, and many of the newer buildings boast impressive
| vertical gardens. This not only creates a visually stunning
| cityscape but also sparks my imagination, making me dream of a
| future where other cities around the world embrace a similar
| level of environmental integration.
| onemoresoop wrote:
| Are you from Colombia or you moved there? If you've been in
| Medellin for more than 10 years how does it compare to today?
| baristaGeek wrote:
| I would say that beyond the green corridors, the main
| difference is how global it feels now. Lots of international
| cuisine, international DJs playing here, foreigners around,
| real estate ads in English, etc.
| onemoresoop wrote:
| I assume the COL has only increased, am I wrong?
| quechimba wrote:
| Medellin is the most beautiful city I have ever been to. It's
| very green and clean.
| andreshb wrote:
| Username checks out :)
| jonah wrote:
| You must not have been to all parts of it. There are some very
| grungy, crowded, run-down areas as well.
|
| (The nice parts are pretty nice though.)
| root_axis wrote:
| Like almost every city on the planet.
| quechimba wrote:
| Of course. But for the most part it's beautiful. My best
| friend used to drive taxi and when I had nothing to do I
| would go with him in the car while he was working, so I've
| been around. I like the architecture in the barrios.
| andrewstuart wrote:
| Melbourne has large "green belts" through the suburbs which are
| meant to be off limits to development.
|
| However they are constantly being rezoned to residential housing
| through political corruption.
| asymmetric wrote:
| I wonder what the options are for cities in arid climates, which
| are only becoming more so due to climate change. The few trees in
| this area are already threatened by droughts, so it seems like
| planting more greenery would just increase the burden on a water
| system that's already at breaking point.
| bobthepanda wrote:
| The Middle East has existed in arid conditions for centuries.
| Generally, you want to engineer lots of shade and narrow paths
| for breezes.
|
| The American Southwest and the baking suburbia is basically the
| opposite of how one should design for such a climate.
| fermuch wrote:
| This is a very interesting initiative, and fills me with hope.
| Not only better temperatures, but even better air (PM2.5 levels
| reduced!)
|
| But I do wonder, what about insects? Are there more insects
| because there are more places for them to live?
| fodmap wrote:
| I assume there will be more insects but also more insect
| predators. I mean, life always finds its way, and usually a
| balance as well.
| gfarah wrote:
| Indeed, there is an abundance of butterflies, bees, and other
| such creatures amidst the urban area --a surprising sight for a
| densely populated city. However, it's not to the extent that it
| becomes bothersome.
| tzumby wrote:
| I just checked and the pm2 levels are as bad as they were when
| I visited pre Covid (50 mg/m^3). I was there for 3 months, in
| El Poblado neighborhood and the air quality was horrendous, I
| would never go back. The depression in which the city lays also
| keeps all the pollution in place for longer.
| wbeckler wrote:
| I hate when writers describe plants as an ongoing carbon sink.
| They are a one-time carbon sink. So using "cars" as a comparison
| to carbon volumes is confusing, because cars will keep emitting
| after a plant is full grown and starts shedding leaves and wood
| that turn back into methane or carbon dioxide.
|
| The key benefit of the plants is cooling the city without
| electricity, which is an ongoing effect.
| markerz wrote:
| Similarly, we can't plant enough trees to offset our total
| carbon emission because we've released SOOO much carbon that
| was previously just buried underground as oil. We would need to
| plant more trees than we have ever seen.
| dumbo-octopus wrote:
| More trees than have ever existed, given we burn both coal
| (trees) and oil (algae)... and a _loooot_ more oil.
| worik wrote:
| > They are a one-time carbon sink
|
| Depends how you manage them, and their detritus
|
| If you burn it, you are correct
|
| There are other approaches that sink the carbon and improve
| soils.
| GenerWork wrote:
| I'm really interested in the geotextile pavements that were
| mentioned at the end of the article. As someone who lives where
| it can get pretty rainy, having a cheap yet effective geotextile
| driveway would be great.
| TaylorAlexander wrote:
| Check out permeable concrete and permeable pavers:
|
| https://youtu.be/ERPbNWI_uLw
| kleton wrote:
| Seems like a microplastic source.
| passive wrote:
| An initial cost of 16 million, and yearly maintenance of 600,000,
| for a city of 2.5 million? Per person, $5 initially and $0.25 per
| year.
|
| That seems incredibly cheap for the benefits. Colombia looks to
| have a GDP per capita about 1/10th of the US, so if we scale it
| up 10X...
|
| I live in a relatively cold climate, and I would still be
| delighted to pay $2.50 a year for this kind of infrastructure
| development. Heck, even scaling it up 100X seems like it would be
| worth considering.
|
| Maybe there's a cost I'm missing here, but for a hot city, the AC
| savings alone seem like they would be worth it, not to mention
| the 40% reduction in respiratory infections through increased air
| quality.
| gottorf wrote:
| > Colombia looks to have a GDP per capita about 1/10th of the
| US, so if we scale it up 10X...
|
| Ah, yes, but costs for public projects like this in the US is
| far greater than 10x Colombia's.
| marcinzm wrote:
| Yes, amazingly paying someone $2/hour won't fly in a major US
| city.
| throwup238 wrote:
| It will if they're convicts on a chain gang.
| roughly wrote:
| Acknowledging the general ickyness of prison labor, I'd
| be curious what the overall effect on wellbeing and
| recidivism among prisoners would be of spending time
| working outside planting trees to make the local
| community a better, more beautiful place.
| TaylorAlexander wrote:
| Probably better than making garments for McDonald's and
| Walmart, but yeah we should abolish prison labor (and
| prisons).
|
| Here's a report on the state of human rights abuses in
| prison labor in the United States:
|
| https://news.uchicago.edu/story/us-prison-labor-programs-
| vio...
| joecool1029 wrote:
| It was pointed out to me awhile back that the 'slave
| states' that utilize this kind of labor need all sorts of
| low-level nonviolent crimes to lock people up with.
|
| Why, you may ask? It turns out giving violent offenders
| (murderers, wife beaters, gang bangers) tools like
| shovels in an open environment can be pretty dangerous.
| Guards would rather have some pothead teenager to order
| around.
| Wytwwww wrote:
| Are you saying that the people building those parks in
| Colombia were only paid $0.2 per hour?
| marcinzm wrote:
| > The groundwork is carried out by 150 citizen-gardeners
|
| Probably lower on average given a lot of them got paid $0
| it seems.
| roughly wrote:
| I'd happily pay $25/year. $2/mo to live in a city with that
| kind of greenery and QOL improvement? Absolutely sign me the
| fuck up.
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| Highly recommend Medellin if you can swing the remote expat
| life.
| onemoresoop wrote:
| How is the COL compared to the local salaries? And how is
| the job market there?
| baristaGeek wrote:
| Unless you're in tech or a few other sectors (eg: long
| tail exports such the company that manufactures
| transistors for Tesla, which is near here) the local job
| market is very bad. Particularly with new prices, in the
| wealthy areas it's comparable to a city like Lisbon now.
|
| If you have a remote job however, it's a no brainer. For
| example, renting a 3 bedroom in a wealthy area (through
| the local route, not Airbnb) within a gated community
| that has a pool, a gym, etc = $1,000. A private maid/chef
| once per week = $80. Normal Uber ride = $4-$6. Meal for 2
| in a very fancy restaurant = $50 - $75.
|
| Makes SF prices feel insane.
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| Agree with everything in your comment.
| darth_avocado wrote:
| You have to keep PPP in mind when you look at numbers like
| this. In San Francisco, for example, the park and recs dept
| gets the budget in the tune of hundreds of millions. Does it
| mean they are wasting the money? Absolutely not. Land
| acquisition, construction, hourly wages (with minimum wage at
| $36000/year excluding benefits) etc. are all very expensive in
| absolute dollars in some parts of the world, while in others,
| it is very cheap. You simply cannot compare the two.
| mc32 wrote:
| A counterpoint is their $1.7M toilet.
|
| But yeah at 10x that'd be taking away from significant
| programs never mind 100x.
| thriftwy wrote:
| In a cold climate, these wide boulevards lose their leaves in
| the autumn and the turn into enormous ducts for cold wind to
| traverse freely. You freeze just while crossing it.
|
| In cold climate, you definitely do not want tall buildings with
| space between them, or straight roads. Unfortunately that's
| what gets built.
| itishappy wrote:
| Fascinating! Got any examples of particularly good or bad
| cold-climate cities?
| thriftwy wrote:
| Particularly good: Central St. Petersburg, especially
| Petrograd island[1] and other districts with smaller
| streets such as Peski/Kolomna. Smaller streets, slightly
| broken grid and uniform height 5-storey buildings lead to
| never experiencing serious wind. It has a different pest
| that is ice on the sidewalks, though. Vasilievsky island is
| slightly worse as there's wider streets and more regular
| grid.
|
| Particularly bad: The same St. Petersburg but now
| Brezhnevist and contemporary built up districts such as
| Murino[2] or Veteranov[3] (but any of these, actually).
| Even the pompious Stalinist Moscow avenue[4] would be quite
| uncomfortable in chilly wind and -15C. Wide streets mean
| faster winds _and_ more walking. St. Petersburg is very
| transit oriented so most people do walk.
|
| The newly build Vostochnyi Cosmodrome Tsiolkovsky town[5]
| seems super chilly as it is the same pattern of high-rises
| separated by a long nothing. And it's located way north.
| You would need a space suit just to get groceries.
|
| 1. https://yandex.ru/maps/-/CDFjZUm4
|
| 2. https://yandex.ru/maps/-/CDFjZU-0
|
| 3. https://yandex.ru/maps/-/CDFjZY7J
|
| 4. https://yandex.ru/maps/-/CDFjZY2B
|
| 5. https://yandex.ru/maps/-/CDFjZR0D
| stickfigure wrote:
| Colombia is equatorial. It rains a _lot_ ; the green spaces
| probably don't need irrigation. It might not be so easy or
| cheap to pull this off in places like Los Angeles, Los Vegas,
| or Phoenix.
| apercu wrote:
| Those places (all places) should be primarily using local
| flora.
| TaylorAlexander wrote:
| Yep exactly. I decided to look up the local flora for Los
| Angeles and found this nice article. It notes that Los
| Angeles has a Mediterranean style climate, and there
| certainly are plenty of local flora options to choose from:
|
| https://la.curbed.com/2018/8/23/17720768/los-angeles-
| plants-...
| apercu wrote:
| I'm in year two of turning the front yard (half-acre) in
| to prairie. I'm _mostly_ using local flora but the
| climate is changing so there are more options. More
| challenging is that I had started with drought resistant
| indigenous stuff but the predictions are that
| anticipating the coming years weather is "unpossible" and
| that even the local stuff is going to fail half the time.
| digging wrote:
| > We built and built and built. There wasn't a lot of thought
| about the impact on the climate. It became obvious that had to
| change.
|
| That feels like a quote out of a novel or a Hollywood movie.
| Absolutely thrilled for Medellin to be able to enact this kind of
| change. It's a huge struggle in the US and extremely dispiriting.
| jonah wrote:
| We were there in January. There are some amazing, modern, clean
| and green parts of the city. The botanic gardens (Jardin Botanico
| de Medellin) are beautiful and considerably cooler than the
| surrounding parts of town. The metro - with cable cars linking
| off to the hillside neighborhoods - is very clean, modern, and
| efficient.
|
| We saw the city hall vertical garden - pretty neat.
|
| An immense amount of effort has gone into revitalizing the city
| in recent years.
|
| One thing that struck me though, is that the rising tide hasn't
| quite lifted all boats - or people to be more precise. I saw a
| lot more beggars, people living on the streets, and homeless
| encampments than in Bogota, or Cali or other cities. It feels
| like a disconnection from community and family that is still
| present in other places - especially smaller cities and towns. I
| hope they can figure out ways to help the bottom 1%. (Realizing
| that is a common refrain worldwide.)
| p_j_w wrote:
| >the rising tide hasn't quite lifted all boats
|
| It turns out that, in spite of what libertarians might like to
| tell everyone, people and societies aren't actually boats and
| marinas. Who would've thought?
| BizarroLand wrote:
| One possibility is that some homeless may move to the city in
| hopes of either finding work or catching a break to get out of
| the homelessness.
|
| We see that a lot in Seattle, that people who became homeless
| out in Enumclaw or Goldbar or wherever slowly get drawn towards
| the city because the systems that support the homeless are
| there, whether it be infrastructure that can be used for
| shelter or soup kitchens or day labor or even just a good
| corner to beg from.
|
| Its not the only source of the homeless by any stretch of the
| imagination, but it is a source.
| neoecos wrote:
| While top in HN, in the local newspaper a warning about the bad
| air quality of the city.
|
| https://www.elcolombiano.com/antioquia/restricciones-por-mal...
| MrPowers wrote:
| I love Medellin and lived there for many years, but the air
| quality is terrible and getting worse. You can talk with any
| locals and they say that the climate is noticeably different than
| it was in the past.
|
| Medellin is surrounded by mountains and the contaminated air
| cannot escape. There didn't used to be a lot of cars, but now
| there is financing so the number of cars is growing
| significantly.
|
| The hills are steep and old busses spew black smoke.
|
| Here is some more info on pollution in Medellin:
| https://medellinguru.com/medellin-pollution/
|
| Saying Medellin's temp decreased by 2 degrees Celsius based on
| "Mejorar el microclima hasta 2degC" is a misinterpretation. I
| think this article is quite misleading.
| jp191919 wrote:
| Air quality in Bogota is terrible as well.
|
| I think a good first step would be ditching all the diesel
| vehicles that have minimal/non-existant exhaust emissions
| systems.
| gfarah wrote:
| Many factories are relocating outside the valley, and the use
| of electric vehicles (including cars and motorcycles) is
| increasing.
| somegent wrote:
| Chicago has done something similar with rooftop gardens to reduce
| temperatures. https://www.epa.gov/arc-x/chicago-il-uses-green-
| infrastructu...
| ambyra wrote:
| Any links to how to build these at home? Like a 10 to 15 foot
| version? It'd be really interesting to find out how to keep the
| plants' roots from clogging the water supply.
| cycomanic wrote:
| Medellin is a fascinating city and over the years had leadership
| that really cared about how to most effectively help throe
| citizens and not being afraid to make radical chandes and big
| investments.
|
| E. G. They build the metro cable essentially a "ski lift" public
| transport system up the steep slopes of the hills surrounding the
| city. It's a great example how to transform communities by giving
| people access to transport and thus economic opportunities (the
| metro cable changed a 2h walk to the metro station at the base of
| the valley into a 15min gondola ride). It wrestled the slums from
| the control of the gangs and massively reduced crime in the
| areas.
| evanjrowley wrote:
| Brings a new and nicer meaning to the term _walled garden_
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