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Humanizing cities

Tactical urbanism – community design for cities of the future

By United Nations Development Programme

June 28^th, 2022

“Tell me where you live, and I’ll tell you who you are,” the popular saying goes. In Ciudad de la Costa, Uruguay, the residents could be described as cheerful, with strong ties to nature and a penchant for living life outdoors.

That’s how Leticia Cannella, an anthropologist and local resident, describes this small city in the department of Canelones. Founded at the turn of the last century, it sits alongside the waters of the Rio de la Plata and the country’s capital, Montevideo.

Ciudad de la Costa is also notable for having seen some of the highest population growth in Latin America in recent decades: between 1985 and 1996, the number of residents increased approximately 92 percent, transforming a sparsely populated coastal area into a true city.

Humanizing cities

Humanizing cities

Today, more than half of the global population lives in cities, a number that is expected to rise to two thirds by 2050, according to the United Nations Population Fund.

Rapid urbanization comes with challenges. But many cities like Ciudad de la Costa see this as an opportunity, not a threat, as the sustainable urban mobility project “TuCalle” demonstrates.

Designing together to live together

The Ciudad de la Costa neighbourhoods of Lagomar and San José de Carrasco share an intersection where three roads come together. Residents complained that vehicles often drove through it at unsafe speeds. Resident Sergio Laporte says cars sometimes even “went the wrong way”. The intersection is also next to a plaza where children frequently play.

“I have a son who rides around the neighbourhood on his bike... I needed to make sure that intersection was safe,” says Pierina Franchi, a Ciudad resident.

Intrigued, she attended a meeting organized by UNDP and the Uruguay Accelerator Lab along with the MOVÉS Project and the Governments of the Department of Canelones and Ciudad de la Costa. The objective, through the TuCalle pilot project, was to have neighbours co-design urban solutions to improve their quality of life.

Humanizing cities

Humanizing cities

Humanizing cities

Humanizing cities

Pierina says she thought she was attending “a normal meeting” but instead found “a different experience that I truly didn't expect”. It was an exercise in "tactical urbanism", which allows neighbours to collectively propose solutions to reclaim public space and maximize its value to society in a way that is innovative and experimental. In this case, TuCalle made it clear that the local community should be at the heart of the project.

Residents of Ciudad de la Costa were involved in the concept, design and execution of the project. Photo: MOVÉS/Rodrigo Razquin

Over nine months, the project held seven meetings with neighbours, including children, and with partner organizations to identify challenges and opportunities, and work together on proposals. This resulted in the redesign of one of a critical intersections. It included three key solutions:

Better road safety = greater mobility

A pedestrian-only walkway was built, as well as a mixed-use roadway where bicycles have the right of way, and the speed limit is 30 kilometres per hour.

Motorless = less risk

One-way paths were built on both sides of a canal for exclusive use by bikes, skates and other non-motorized modes of transportation—the first in the country to make special accommodation for this kind of urban mobility.

Safety + accessibility + participation = a city for its citizens

A large pedestrian space is planned, based on drawings students made of their neighbourhood. It will connect to seven crosswalks and pedestrian paths, which improves the area's safety and accessibility.

Take a virtual visit to the redesigned intersection

The project was bold, low-cost and quick to implement, which simplified the process and got residents more involved.

“I needed to feel like I was doing something for my neighbourhood,” said Pierina.

Rethink to rebuild

The improvements can already be felt. To assess the results, 140 people were interviewed before and after the intervention. Four percent of those surveyed felt that the intersection was safe or very safe before the project, a number that rose to 81 percent after the redesign.

Humanizing cities

Because the project is scalable, it was able to go beyond the intersection: infrastructure for cyclists and pedestrians was extended 500 more metres so that it could connect to other routes. The project was also able to replicate streets that prioritize active mobility with 30-kilometres-per-hour speed limits in other parts of the city.

“It's been an absolutely positive experience, and I think it should be replicated in other places,” says Sergio.

Humanizing cities

Humanizing cities

Humanizing cities

That’s already happening. In Ciudad del Plata in the department of San José, some 55 kilometres from Ciudad de la Costa, the TuCalle experience is acting as a jumping off point. The participatory assessment stage is finishing up now; the next step will be to create working groups to co-design and implement an initiative that meets the needs of residents.

The pilot project contributes to Sustainable Development Goal 11, which aims to build sustainable cities and communities.

“We want to build local capacity for participation and inclusion... and this project allowed us to reimagine the city from the residents’ perspective,” says Francisco Pons, Head of Exploration for the UNDP Acceleration Lab in Uruguay.

The pilot project contributes to Sustainable Development Goal 11, which aims to build sustainable cities and communities and prioritizes inclusivity. Photo: UNDP Uruguay

TuCalle seeks to propel transformation for a better urban future, a topic of discussion at the Eleventh World Urban Forum, and one critical to achieving the Global Goals and a secure future for an increasingly urban world population.

Humanizing the city

Noelia Botana, a consultant with MOVÉS, sums it up nicely: “The essence of TuCalle was citizen participation and experimentation.”

If residents don't feel safe or feel like they are part of a community, they are more likely to move to other neighbourhoods or even other cities. And cities can't exist without people. Effective citizen participation takes times, but if implemented effectively, it can produce tangible and positive results.

Humanizing cities

Humanizing cities

Humanizing cities

TuCalle is proof, dismantling the myth that people won't participate in processes that impact their day-to-day lives because they assume it’s the job of policymakers. By combining participation and execution using an innovative, experimental and realistic approach, it has made part of Ciudad de la Costa more sustainable, resilient, safe and user-friendly.

© 2026 United Nations Development Programme

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