The Cable Car and Urban Miracles in Latin America: Neoliberal Urbanisation and the Right to the City

This paper is about the use of the cable car as a disruptive technology in connecting divided cities – the divide between the formal and informal city – in Latin America. The cable car has become a symbol for achieving ‘urban miracles’ through innovative urban governance, planning and social participation. It has become an iconic technology and essential ingredient to attract support for urban development plans and international investment. Using Brenner’s theoretical framework of ‘new state spaces’ this paper examines the rescaling of governance and development associated with neoliberal urbanisation. Its empirical focus is the cable car as a disruptive technology to address problems of traffic congestion, citizen insecurity and investment in the informal city in Latin America. The paper explores whether the cable car has become a Trojan horse for the expansion of neoliberal urbanisation in the informal city or whether it has expanded ‘rights to the city’.