How Gritty, Crime-Ridden Medellín Became a Model for 21st-Century Urbanism

[M II A II R II K]

Latin America’s New Superstar


Mar 31, 2014

By Greg Scruggs



Read More: http://nextcity.org/forefront/view/m...-latin-america

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In 1993, Escobar was killed by Colombian special forces, and a decade later, in 2004, the city’s first Metrocable gondola line opened, inaugurating Medellín’s now celebrated urbanismo social (social urbanism) agenda. Now, ten years after that gondola first connected the city’s poorer hillside neighborhoods to its bustling central business district, Medellín finds itself on the global stage once again, this time as a city basking in the glow of admiration for pioneering a new type of urbanism.

- Suddenly, Medellín has become a best-practices case study for mayors and policymakers worldwide. At 2.4 million residents, it is slightly smaller than Chicago, and with a metro area of only 3.5 million, about the size of greater Seattle. Founded in 1616 by Spanish conquistadores, it’s nestled in an Andean river valley at 5,000 feet above sea level, with a pleasant climate that has earned it the nickname City of Eternal Spring. A colonial mining city, it became provincial capital in the early 19th century after Colombia’s independence, and remained a center of gold and coffee exportation.

- It was around the turn of the century that Medellín’s rebirth began. In an effort to repair yet another divided Latin American city, Mayor Sergio Fajardo, the son of one of Colombia’s most famous architects, made a bold declaration during his 2003-2007 administration. “Our most beautiful buildings must be in our poorest areas,” Fajardo said. --- This was – and continues to be – a radical idea in an urban world where most cities locate their Central Parks and Trafalgar Squares in prosperous, tourist-friendly districts.

- But rather than simply sprouting top-notch architecture in the comunas, the Medellín city government adopted an approach called the integral urban project (PUI in Spanish). Each architectural and urban design intervention was viewed holistically as part of a comprehensive plan for neighborhood revitalization. Thus, the famed Metrocable Line K terminated in the rough Santo Domingo neighborhood at a civic symbol: España Library, an obsidian complex on a dramatic hillside surrounded by a landscaped park. As a dual-purpose commuter and visitor route, Line K has a steady stream of users throughout the day. Careful planning and diagnostics also led to choices for station locations that disrupted the drug trade.

- The Metrocable is a great example of how social urbanism creates a double-dividend, simultaneously dissolving the bonds of narco-trafficking while also improving daily quality of life. As Echeverri explained in a 2011 interview, “With the location of stations, libraries and schools, we are creating a system of local urbanity. In theory, this is going to touch a lot of people’s lives.”

- Metrocable was such a success that it has expanded to two other lines, including an extension of Line K that provides affordable access to a mountaintop nature preserve. Administered by the Metro de Medellín, an efficiently run transit agency, the gondolas are not a money loser and were initially financed by a public-private partnership, as were other projects pursued by the Urban Development Company, such as headline-grabbing escalators installed as part of an urban makeover of a neighborhood called Comuna 13.

- While the Medellín miracle has given rise to a more robust city, it’s done so by relying on a neoliberal constellation of corporate partners and powerful multinationals. The Grupo Empresarial Antioqueño (Business Group of Antioquia) is a coalition of businesses representing 125 companies in the Antioquia department, the vast majority of which are located in the capital of Medellín.

- Led by a quartet of the city’s corporate titans – the country’s largest commercial bank Bancolombia, cement manufacturer Argos, insurance giant Sura and food manufacturer Nutresa — the coalition generates seven percent of the Colombian GDP and an aggregate market capitalization of around $17 billion USD. Complementing the locals, several foreign companies have recently set up their Colombian shops in Medellín, from Toyota and Mitsubishi to Phillip Morris and Kimberly Clark.

- The combined efforts put Medellín in the class of progressive cities like Portland, Vancouver and its South American neighbor, Curitiba, which became famous starting in the 1970s for its bus rapid transit (BRT), its recycling initiatives and its parks and public spaces. Clara Irázabal, associate professor of planning at Columbia University, is the author of City Making and Urban Governance in the Americas: Curitiba and Portland, and she taught a planning studio on Medellín’s greenbelt in 2013. “Medellín is at that pivotal point now that Curitiba reached,” Irázabal argues, “because it’s at a pinnacle – as certified by the World Urban Forum – and new projects will generate less attention. If Medellín becomes addicted to that recognition they might become disappointed.”

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[mello]

Medellin is becoming a popular place for expats and this article really lays out the impressive transformation. Is it possible that (Gasp) US cities could learn something from a Colombian city?

[Perklol]

Not impressive. Still has a long ways to go . . .

[chris08876]

East Asia is the model for 21st-Century Urbanism.

[Yuri]

It's bizarre how even when the international press comes up with something positive about a place in the developing world, they have to show the worst of it.

Originally Posted by Eveningsong

Not impressive. Still has a long ways to go . . .

You're saying that based on what?

[llamaorama]

Obviously the idea is that it has risen to the challenge of solving it's problems in new ways.

Most cities can't even get to the point of solving anything because they are too caught up in the churn of politics and bureaucracy.

[Hamilton]

Originally Posted by chris08876

East Asia is the model for 21st-Century Urbanism.

I've been to both Medellin and many of the "new" cities in East/SE Asia (new in the sense that they experienced rapid modernization only in the last 20 years--Beijing, Shanghai, Hanoi, Jakarta). I have to say that the East Asian cities are no more a model than Medellin is. While they've undergone impressive transit expansion and skyscraper construction, they have terrible, terrible pollution problems to the point that your lungs hurt walking around. Most of the new neighborhoods are soulless and anonymous--a model of mid-20th-century urbanism, not 21st-century urbanism. The most beautiful and well-planned cities of East Asia -- Singapore, Hong Kong, Tokyo, Seoul-- developed in the late 20th century.

Medellin, on the other hand, is an environmental leader. Other cities with similar geography, located in the basin of a valley, have horrible air pollution problems, but not Medellin. They provide water, sanitation, and electricity to every slum along the hills, and have been striving to connect these neighborhoods to services such as libraries, schools, and transit (even addressing the inherent geographical challenges in creative ways, such as cable cars and escalators). For a city of a relatively small population, it has an impressive, clean, and growing heavy rail system. Of course, it has problems on an equal magnitude to those of the East Asian cities, including a murder rate on par with some of the poorest American cities.

It's certainly not a model for 21st-century urbanism for US cities that are already developed, but for the "new" cities of the future that will modernize mostly in the 21st century, it's a pretty brilliant example.