Medelln, Colombia

MEDELLNS BOOM: PARADOXIES OF THE NEW METROPOLITAN MAINSTREAM

Medelln is the second economic centre of Colombia. The capital of the Antioquia province is situated at 1.538 meters, amidst high hills. In 1980, the Metropolitan Region Medelln and Aburr Valley was constituted, it integrates ten municipalities together with Medelln, and today has a population of about 3.4 millions. The urban region has an extension of 1157 km2 and a population density of 2877 inhabitants/km2. Medelln once enjoyed the reputation of being one of Latin Americas most progressive industrial centres with a long tradition of civic minded public service and urban planning. Medelhalf of the 20th century were not initiated by external investors, but by local capital and local elites, unlike other Latin American industrial regions. Textile industry was the engine of economic growth. The historical particularity of Medellns economic history contradicted current Third-World-development theories. Medellns elite promoted the image of a city where high rates of capitalist productivity were possible thanks to the elites social responsibility. In the mid-1970s, Medelln was still Colomdictions of the local economic model which entered in a deep crisis. The crisis was confronted by the concentration of regional capital and the constitution of an economic group, Grupo Empresarial Antioqueo, in 1979. The group headed the metropolitan regions economic restructuring; today it is Colombias turing, growing informality (50.2% of all urban jobs in 1984, and 55.7% in 2000), as well as the expansion of the global drug of the world. The expansion of the drug economy opened new economic perspectives in Medelln. During the late 1990s, in and shopping-centre culture spread across the city, the housing market was booming: luxurious apartment towers, fenced in and tightly monitored by private security forces, appeared everywhere in Medelln. At the same time, a wave of extreme violence eroded Medellns social fabric. From 1989 to 1993, the year when the icon of the global narcotics trade, the Colombian drug lord Pablo Escobar, was killed in Medelln, 28.700 people were assassinated in the city. Most were young men between fourteen and twenty-six years old of the urban underclass. Between 1994 and 2004, other 34.600 people were killed; only after 2004 this numbers diminished. The more the urban crisis increased the more the citys inthe 1990s, public debates at Round Tables and Open Forums between grassroots organizations, local NGOs, trade unions, universities, the municipality and the citys business sector, as well as strategic planning, aimed at managing the urban crisis, and at developing a postindustrial model of a City of the Future. The debates pushed Medellns transition from an industrial to a service metropole. The background of Medellns makeover and its recent boom is paradoxical: on the one hand, the debates, and on the other hand, the formation of paramilitary-led corporate mercenaries

Colombia 1137748Km2 Urban Region 1157Km2

* Inhabitants * Inhabitants

41966004 3400000

World-wide deindustrialisation, however, sharpened the contra-

Mara Soledad Betancur, Angela Stienen, Omar Urn

Metro Bello

Metro Cable - Aerial Passenger Tramway

Social Housing Pajarito - Ciudadela Nuevo Oriente Metro Cable - Aerial Passenger Tramway

Urban Mass Transport System Stadium

Parque Berrio Metro - Estacion San Antonio Inner City Decline

La Alpujarra

New Financial Headquarter

New Urban Centre

Legend
Urban Region Central areas

new CBD
Areas of State-Led Reinvestment / Areas of Urban Regeneration Areas of Private Reinvestment / Areas of Intense Neighbourhood Upgrading Trendy Neighbourhoods Gated Communities / Exclusionary Zones Areas of Privatization Very High Income Area Areas of disinvestment

Social Housing Itag Envigado

Subcentres Strategic Urban Infrastructure Projects Flagship Projects Events Failed and Grounded (large) Projects

Ls Estrella
Informal Settlements Spaces and Places of Resistance / Alternatives

Metro

Sabaneta

scale 1:25.000

Urban Expansion

Flagship Project: Headquarter Bancolombia

Purpose Regeneration of former industrial areas, transition from an industrial to a nancial centre in Latin America constructed area: 125.000 sqm, employees: 6.000, security cameras: 1200 approx. U$ 190 millions Bancolombia Interior Architects (USA), Consorcio ConvelAIA. Investors Projets costs Purpose Dimensions

Infrastructure: Metro de Medellin

Transform the urban transport system and render urban transport more efcient system length 32 km, part of the system is a 15 meter high concrete viaduct, 25 stations and 6 Metrocable stations, 500.000 users U$ 2.174 millions, U$ 1.009 millions corresponds to the real cost of the project, the rest of U$ 1165 millions corresponds to the overcost due to corruption Colombian State, Department of Antioquia, Municipality of Medelln. Purpose

Urban Expansion: Housing

Urban expansion of high income housing and social housing. The latter aims at confronting the citys housing shortage and at relocating people from the citys geological high risk zones. Purpose

Alternative: Participate Upgrading

Neighbourhood upgrading and conict management. Neighbourhood with an area of 451.810 m2 and with 34.000 residents when the upgrading project started in 2004. Approx. U$ 78 millions Municipality of Medelln

Dimensions

Dimensions

Projets costs Investors Architects

Projets costs Investors

The new headquarter of BANCOLOMBIA was inaugurated in 2009. It is the strongest symbol of Medellns transition from a declining industrial region to an emerging nancial centre. The building was constructed in the citys most important former industrial area, near the historic centre. The regeneration of the citys declined industrial areas is the key strategic goal of Medellns strategic plan Medelln 2015. It aims at re-establishing Medellns image as a booming metropole in Latin America. BANCOLOMBIA is Colombias rst bank, it belongs to the countrys rst economic group Grupo Empresarial Antioqueo, which is rooted in Medelln. Bancolombias headquarter is the hugest building a bank ever built in Latin America. The building has direct access to Medellns metro system and to the citys main express highways. It is the agship project of a number of important regeneration projects realised in the same area during the last 5 years. The sculpture of superman posing like Rodins Thinker in front of the building reinforces the buildings symbolic meaning.

The mega-project Metro de Medellin was the impetus of Medellns urban renewal and restructuring. The Metro started operation in 1995. It crosses the city on a fteen meter high concrete viaduct from North to South (line A) and from downtown to the West (line B). The Metro radically transformed the citys transport system. The metro operation company (Empresa de Transporte Masivo del Valle de Aburr) was created in 1979 in association with the municipality of Medelln and the provincial government. In 1982 the metro project was approved by the national government, and in 1984 the company contracted a German-Spanish consortium to realise the construction works. The works were executed during the citys deepest economic crisis. They were stopped, between 1989 and 1992, due to corruption, and nished in 1995. The Metro Style (Esttica Metro) today is a kind of brand of the citys upgraded and renewed public space. In 2004 and 2007, Metro Cable, two aerial passenger tramways have connected part of the lowest income districts on Medellns hillsides to the Metro system. Aerial passenger tramways are not often used as mass transportation system. The project had been brought to the citys public Round Tables in 1996. At that time, however, it was planned as a tourist attraction that linked together the citys panoramic sites. The project raised a heated public debate. The public debate may have pushed Medellns rst independent mayor, Sergio Fajardo, to transform a tourist project into a project for mass transportation.

Urban expansion in Medelln has been limited due to geological risks. Housing shortage is severe, specially, for low income sectors. Strategic planning dened two strategic zones of urban expansion in the South and West of the metropolitan region. In the South (municipality of Sabaneta), private investors realised two huge projects of high income housing: the Gated Communities Aves Maria (constructed area 99.000 m2) and Suramerica. The investor of the rst project is the economic group Monarca which represents the regions Emergent Capital (narco dollars). The investors of the second project are economic groups of the regions traditional elite. The projects stand for competing interests between traditional and emergent capital factions in the urban region. They became more obvious after the reinsertion of the paramilitary forces and the legalisation of narco capital. Both projects represent a trend in urban development: High income sectors move to gated communities in green areas at the citys edge. The projects put in danger important natural reserves of the metropolitan region, and were built against the resistance of conservation movements.
Below: High Income Housing Aves Maria and Suramerica

The realisation of the Metro project has been strongly criticised by the left because of its high cost, demolitions and resettlements, heavy architecture, surveillance and repression in the Metrospace. Low income groups, however, are much more in favour of the metro. Many consider that the metro improved their life conditions: The metros price scheme is relatively balanced, and the transport system is very efcient: It takes more than 2 hours to cross the city by bus from North to South, while the Metro covers the same distance in 37 minutes. From downtown to the citys West it takes 9 minutes by metro and 1 hour by bus.
Below: The sculpture of superman Above: Metro Station Football stadium

In the Western zone of urban expansion, the municipality together with private social compensation funds, and funds of the national government realised a huge social housing project Pajarito/Ciudadela Nuevo Occidente. The project is the result of participatory planning in the context of Medellns 1999 Plan de Ordenamiento Territorial-POT. The project was designed to relocate families from the citys geological high risk zones. It was articulated to the new mass transport system, Metro Cable, which connects it to the centre of the city. During the South American Championship in Medelln, in March 2010, some of the buildings had hosted international sport delegations. The social housing project has approx. 40.000 residents. The impact of the project is ambivalent: Housing conditions improved considerably, while underemployment could only partially be faced by the construction of a market. Relocated residents lost direct access to their former informal working place downtown.
Below: Social Housing PajaritoMedellin

The citys rst participative upgrading program was implemented in Moravia, a neighbourhood close to the citys historical centre. The neighbourhood was part of Medellns former dump. Between 1977 and 1983 around 15000 people settled on the dump, which was 30 meter high and had an area of 76.000 m2. In 1983, the municipality closed the dump. Residents resisted to relocation and started negotiating participative upgrading with the municipality: decontamination, legalization of land tenure, public services, improvement of housing and public space. In 1990, the municipality declared Moravia a special area of urban upgrading. During the 1990s, Moravia turned into a dynamic centre of informal economy: Recuperar, a cooperative specialized in waste management emerged in the neighbourhood and expanded to more than 1000 workers. 70% of the waste gathered by the cooperative is recovered by its associates through the Source Separation Programme which serves industries, businesses and public and private institutions. But at that time, Moravia also turned into an epicentre of Medellns urban conict. The neighbourhood became a laboratory of conict management when the municipality started negotiations with the armed gangs. In 2004 the municipality declared Moravias participatory upgrading a strategic urban project. Today, Moravia is localized close to strategic infrastructures: the citys new central bus station, universities, hospitals, new leisure parks; its ground rent potential is high and inhabitants constantly feel the pressure of being relocated. The residents organization, mobilization and combativeness provoked a wave of solidarity in the city which forced the municipality to declare Moravia a zone of re-development where residents must be protected from being expelled by future mega-projects. During participative planning in Medelln (POT), Moraviass residents negotiated the gure of residents protection with the municipality. This gure means that upgrading projects in the city must conserve the existing social tissue and economic networks. The negotiations outcome was Moravias Global Upgrading Plan. This plan is an exemplar result of successful social resistance to prot oriented urban regeneration.

Below: Moravia Neighbourhood Centre

Synthesis over all four projects and outlook

Medelln is one of Latin Americas booming cities. The citys makeover during the last six years is breathtaking. In the 1990s, the city was the capital of the global narcotics trade and the most dangerous city of the world. The public debates during the 1990s are the beginning of Medellns discursive and material re-signication and reconstruction. They aimed at pacifying the city and at making it rise like a phoenix at the turn of the century. The public slogan of the municipality during the 1990s read: Tomorrow we will live in the city that we all dream of today. Some consider Medelln the capital of reaction in Latin America and see its boom as result of the formation of paramilitary-led corporate mercenaries after the arrival of Colombias President Alvaro Uribe Vlez, in 2002. The 4 projects, however, represent the paradoxes of Medellns boom: on the one hand, the boom is the triumph of capital and of reaction; but on the other hand, it is also the triumph of social resistance to prot oriented urban reconstruction, by the imposition of basic civic rights.

1972 Edicio Coltejer, headquarter of the citys leading textile company, symbol of the industrial boom

1997 Edicio Inteligente, headquarter of the citys efcient public utility company, symbol of the technological transition

2009 COLOMBIA: headquarter of Colombias transition to a nancial centre.

leading bank, symbol of the

Authors: Soledad Betancur, Instituto Popular de Capacitacion-IPC, Medellin, Angela Stienen, Pedagogical University, Berne, associate Instituto Popular de Capacitacion-IPC, Omar Uran, Universidad de Antioquia, Medellin, associate Instituto Popular de Capacitacion-IPC