MURDER CAPITAL to MODERN MIRACLE? THE PROGRESSION of GOVERNANCE IN MEDELLÍN, COLOMBIA
A dissertation submitted in partial ful llment of the requirements for the MSc Urban Development Planning Word Count: 14,992
Veyom Bahl
Development Planning Unit University College London
September 5, 2011
MURDER CAPITAL TO MODERN MIRACLE? THE PROGRESSION OF GOVERNANCE IN MEDELLÍN, COLOMBIA
VEYOM BAHL | Development Planning Unit | University College London | 2011
TABLE OF CONTENTS
LIST OF FIGURES vii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ix ABSTRACT xi
CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION THE SIGNIFICANCE OF MEDELLÍN, COLOMBIA 1 1.1 Introduction and Objectives 1 1.2 Outline and Findings 2 1.3 Research Limitations 3
CHAPTER TWO: ANALYTICAL FRAMEWORK GOVERNANCE, STRUCTURATION & THE CITY 5 2.1 Notions of Governance 5 2.2 Structure and Agency 7 2.3 Implications for the City 11 2.4 Analytical Framework 12
CHAPTER THREE: CASE STUDY GOVERNANCE PROGRESSIONS IN MEDELLÍN 15 3.1 Historical Development 15 3.2 Period One: Illicit Governance (Violence and Narcotra cking) 18 3.3 Period Two: Governance Experimentation (PRIMED) 21 3.4 Period ree: Governance Renown (Social Urbanism) 24
CHAPTER FOUR: CONCLUSIONS PROSPECTS FOR MEDELLÍN & SOCIAL URBANISM 31 4.1 Distinct Governance Experiences 31 4.2 Lessons from a Broader Perspective 33 4.3 Prospects for Medellín and Social Urbanism 34
BIBLIOGRAPHY 37
LIST OF FIGURES
CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION 1.1 Regional Maps 1.2 Panorama of Medellín
CHAPTER TWO: ANALYTICAL FRAMEWORK 2.1 Types of Structures 2.2 Levels of Social Organization
CHAPTER THREE: CASE STUDY 3.1 Population Growth (Medellín Metro Area) 3.2 Urban Expansion (1985-1998) 3.3 Homicide Rates 3.4 PRIMED Intervention Zones (First Phase) 3.5 Medellín Human Development Index 3.6 PUI Intervention Zones 3.7 Santo Domingo Library-Park 3.8 Metrocable 3.9 La Francia-Andalucía Bridge 3.10 Workshops for Imagining Projects 3.11 Animation Phase (La Quintana) 3.12 Sergio Fajardo and Local Children
CHAPTER FOUR: CONCLUSIONS 4.1 Progression of Governance in Medellín
vii
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I owe a debt of gratitude rst to Julio D. Dávila, whose invaluable insights, pragmatic intellectualism and contemporary research served both to inspire me and inform this work. In her capacity as Course Director of the MSc Urban Development Planning, Caren Levy has indelibly molded my thinking on cities and positively guided my future practice in urban development.
I am indebted to Vanesa Castán Broto, Camillo Boano, Colin Marx, Jorge Fiori and Pushpa Arabindoo, who provided a tremendous training ground through their teaching. I also thank my good friends from the MSc Urban Development Planning, the MSc Building and Urban Design in Development and Goodenough College for a memorable year; the administrative and academic sta at the Development Planning Unit for their support; and London’s many cafés for their extended hospitality.
My deepest gratitude goes to the ouron Award and family, whose extraordinary generosity allowed me to pursue this degree. Finally, I thank my parents, Sudarshan and Manju, and my brother, Ankur, for their enduring faith in education and in me.
VEYOM BAHL September 5, 2011 London, United Kingdom
ix
ABSTRACT
e most violent city in the world only twenty years ago, Medellín, Colombia is now a beacon of progressive urban development. Governance and structuration theory provide an analytical framework through which three stages of this remarkable transformation can be assessed. During an illicit hegemony, narcotra ckers and state military forces ruthlessly controlled the city, and clientelism and corruption went unchecked. e principle results of the period were xity of violence, a destabilization of formal government and a systematic disempowerment of the urban poor, who populated the city’s precarious mountainsides. Progressive interventions, inspired by a wave of decentralization in the late-1980s, sought to redress growing informality and enable local agency. e city’s rst resulting policy experiment, PRIMED, was short-lived, however, because it did not improve municipal administration, strengthen community organization or build a political clientele around pro-poor governance. Learning from PRIMED, the current social urbanism agenda has ignited a political movement for poverty alleviation and directed spectacular infrastructure investment to the city’s poorest regions. Yet, as social urbanism reaches maturity, escalating violence and the city’s competitiveness agenda risk derailing its redistributive goals. Viewing these three periods in continuum suggests that while e ciency, agency and equitable distribution are critical components and outcomes of good governance, the level of interdependence fostered—particularly through strong state leadership—profoundly inuences both the longevity of good governance practice and the durability of its impact. e city’s trajectory, furthermore, o ers some substantiation of structuration theory. Local political leadership has built and nanced a progressive discourse, which has, over time, established new social structures to govern the city’s public a airs.
KEYWORDS Medellín / Colombia / urban poverty / urban inequality / governance / structure and agency / narcotra cking / PRIMED / social urbanism
xi FIGURE 1.1: REGIONAL MAPS
COLOMBIA (SOUTH AMERICA) ANTIOQUIA PROVINCE (COLOMBIA)
MEDELLÍN METRO AREA (ANTIOQUIA)
DISTRICT OF MEDELLÍN (MEDELLÍN METRO AREA)
N INTRODUCTION 1 THE SIGNIFICANCE OF MEDELLÍN, COLOMBIA
1.1 INTRODUCTION AND OBJECTIVES
With more than half of the world living in cities and urbanization intensifying, “the human condition has become the urban condition” (Amin, 2006, 1012). Yet, as Latin American cities demonstrate, the urban environment is a site of extraordinary contradiction. Latin America is among the most urbanized beginning in the 1950s, the city became entangled in regions of the world, with 79 percent of its a logic of unrest and violence linked to a burgeoning population residing in cities (UN-HABITAT, international drug trade. By the 1990s, Medellín 2010, 12). Cities generate 60 percent of Latin was the deadliest city in the world (Hylton, 2007; America’s gross domestic product (Cadena, et al., Lamb, 2010). 2011, 1). Yet, Latin America is also the “land of inequality,” where the poorest 30 percent earn only Yet, two decades later, the city is a beacon of urban 7.5 percent of income (UN-HABITAT, 2008, 67), development innovation. Under the philosophy of and more than 110 million people live in slums “social urbanism,” successive mayors have mobilized (UN-HABITAT, 2010, 32). e 1980s are referred the city’s political capital to address extreme to as “the lost decade” (Schuurman, 1993, 191). poverty and inequality (Echeverri, 2008; Devlin, Authoritarian governments, economic decline, 2010). Rhetoric has been backed by spectacular heavy indebtedness, impervious clientelistic political infrastructural investment, cross-sector partnerships culture and failed economic restructuring produced and a determined e ort toward participatory “truly incalculable” rami cations for urban poverty democracy (Brand and Dávila, 2011; Fukuyama and (Harris and Nef, 2008, 87). Colby, 2011; Hylton, 2007). Colombia is among the most successful countries in the world for reducing Medellín, Colombia, is in many ways, a microcosm slum incidence, having overseen a near-40 percent of these tensions and transformations. Colombia reduction since 2000 (UN-HABITAT, 2010, 39-40). was enmeshed in a decade-long civil war that Nonetheless, new tensions have arisen between a ected the lives of millions mid-century. Violence Medellín’s aspirations for more inclusive public catalyzed extensive migration to industry- a airs and its desire for e cacy, competitiveness rich Medellín, which was unprepared for rapid and the establishment of a global model for urban urbanization (Palacios, 2006; Lamb, 2010). Millions development (Brand, 2010). settled in precarious, mountainside slums, and the city’s o cial response to resulting poverty was is dissertation seeks to analyze this profound neglect or repression (Blanco and Kobayashi, 2009; shi in Medellín through the lens of governance PRIMED, 1996). Once economic decline took hold and structuration theories. On the one hand FIGURE 1.2: PANORAMA OF MEDELLÍN Source: Terry, 2010
governance theory suggests that, in an increasingly Chapter ree employs this analytical framework to interconnected world, cities have greater capacity study governance in Medellín in three periods: rst, to engage a multitude of actors toward progressive an era of illicit governance de ned by violence and and e ective urban development. Qualifying narcotra cking; second, a short-lived experiment that optimism, structuration theory reminds that in governance innovation in informal settlements progress is, ultimately, a balancing act between the known as PRIMED; and third, the city’s current forces of structure and human agency. With this in urban development philosophy known as “social mind, this dissertation evaluates the extent to which urbanism.” ough each is presented separately, Medellín has in the past or now does represent time frames overlap and each period critically a model of good governance, one that promotes informs those in its future.1 e ectiveness, agency, equitable distribution and interdependence. Finally, Chapter Four presents summary arguments on the extent to which Medellín has, over time, met the ideals of good governance and the factors 1.2 OUTLINE AND FINDINGS that have driven or constrained progressive shis To cohere social urbanism and its antecedents, in its balance of structure and agency. e chapter Chapter Two introduces the theoretical concludes with considerations on the prospects for underpinnings of this analysis. Governance theory Medellín and social urbanism. is situated in relation to, rst, Anthony Giddens’s duality of structure and agency and, second, the e research nds that the era of a narcotra cking nature of the contemporary urban environment. stronghold, despite its illicit nature, represented a e chapter concludes with an analytical framework, form of governance, even though its principle results synthesizing how relevant theoretical debates could 1. For this reason, corresponding dates are not assigned to the inform a case study. eras studied.
2 | VEYOM BAHL were xity of violence, a destabilization of formal government and the systematic disempowerment of individual choice. PRIMED’s holistic interventions, by contrast, sought to actively enable agency and channel city resources toward the poor. e program was short-lived, however, because it did not strengthen municipal administration, build a political clientele or embed interdependence. Learning from PRIMED, social urbanism has successfully ignited a political movement around good governance for poverty alleviation. Yet, the proliferation of social urbanism as a model risks prioritizing city marketing above the social needs the ideology is envisioned to serve. Viewing the three periods in continuum suggests that while e ciency, agency and equitable distribution are critical components and outcomes of good governance, the level of interdependence fostered— through state leadership—strongly inuences both longevity of practice and durability of impact.
1.3 RESEARCH LIMITATIONS Research has been constrained in three principal respects. First, social urbanism is current and evolving, and urban development research on Colombia disproportionately studies the capital, Bogotá. Consequently, contemporary research on Medellín focuses more on policy and process than on outcomes. Second, while this work acknowledges Medellín’s inherent heterogeneity and its attendant challenges, the research does not take an explicitly gendered perspective. is is due both to space constraints and the limited catalogue of gender-based literature on Medellín. Finally, the author has translated all Spanish-language sources, a limitation to the extent that nuance in local speech may have been inadvertently overlooked.
INTRODUCTION | 3
ANALYTICAL FRAMEWORK 2 GOVERNANCE, STRUCTURATION & THE CITY
2.1 NOTIONS OF GOVERNANCE A Discursive Shi
Over the last fifteen years, a discursive shift has emerged in government and political administration: “[t]erms such as ‘governance,’ ‘institutional capacity,’ ‘networks,’ ‘complexity,’ ‘trust,’ ‘deliberation’ and ‘interdependence’ dominate the debate, while terms such as ‘the state,’ ‘government,’ ‘power’ and ‘authority’…have lost their grip on the analytical imagination” (Hajer and Wagenaar, 2003, 1). ough “social science is no less immune to fads with the range of actors, powers and relationships than popular culture,” this shi in vocabulary is, in that shaped contemporary public life (Jessop, 1998, fact, “captur[ing] changes in both the nature and 3). Famously, Manuel Castells argued for de ning topography of politics” (ibid.). cities as spaces of ows and societies as systems of networks (1996, 468). Hajer and Wagenaar e ascension of this discourse encapsulates a added that “we can discern shi s in networks: new half-century of changes in economic, political and networks eroding the power of previously powerful social organization. Simply put, the move from ones. Moreover, there is the instability of networks: state-centered governing paradigms in the 1950s the awareness that society experiences a ‘new to market-dominated interventions in the 1980s modernity’ in which established institutions might placed questions of e cacy and responsibility at prove less stable and solid than we assumed and are the center of debates on the management of public less well positioned to keep risks at bay” (2003, 5, a airs (Jessop, 1998, 3). Which institutions would emph. original). be most e ective in responding to public needs? Which institutions were, ultimately, accountable Ideals and Opportunities for progress? ese questions implied a “gradual ough the word “governance” was not new, it was shi in focus…from input control to outcomes and adopted in the 1990s to account for all manner output control,” in the conduct and organization of of phenomena: from a minimal state to good public a airs (Pierre and Peters, 2000, 4). governance, corporate governance to new public management, and from self-organizing networks Yet, under increasing international (some say global) to socio-cybernetic systems (Rhodes, 1996, integration of government, economics and culture, 653). Governance was, furthermore, identi ed at the conventional dualisms of state versus market multiple levels of interaction: interpersonal, inter- and private versus public appeared incompatible organizational and inter-systemic (Jessop, 1998, 2). For the present purposes, governance is broadly Challenges and Considerations understood as “the process of social and economic Notwithstanding these opportunities, the dynamics coordination, management and steering” of of governance raise new challenges for public a airs. public a airs, not con ned to the state apparatus Hajer and Wagenaar (2003) identify ve: (Painter, 2009, 313). It implies “a movement from the hierarchical, top-down exercise of power and New Space of Politics. First, a governance rules of state-based systems, to more horizontal, framework emphasizes “politics that takes place networked systems reliant on the interaction of between organizations,” rather than through the independent and inter-dependent actors who share imposition of state models (Hajer and Wagenaar, a degree of trust” (Dávila, 2009, 41). 2003, 8, emph. added). In an important critique, Erik Swyngedouw argues that governance e rapid acceptance of the governance lexicon has discourse fabricates “a proliferating maze of opaque been, in part, politically motivated. Amid neoliberal networks, fuzzy institutional arrangements, ill- antagonism to a hierarchical and bureaucratic de ned responsibilities and ambiguous political state—and parallel citizen frustration with state objectives and priorities” (2005, 1999). Despite ine ectiveness—the dialogue of governance di ering outlooks, both conceptions highlight promoted a “new and more contemporary image at that moving from a one-actor terrain toward more the same time as it provided some degree of support uid governance raises questions of responsibility, and legitimacy to further cut-backs in public authority and accountability. Jon Pierre and Guy expenditures” (Pierre and Peters, 2000, 6). Peters have aptly responded that, even with a “new space of politics” (Hajer and Wagenaar, 2003, 8), Despite these multiple, even dubious, origins, the state remains a central actor with ultimate “governance” has substantial appeal. It immediately responsibility for “provid[ing] a set of goals for links “the political system with its environment… governing” (Pierre and Peters, 2000, 31). inking about governance means thinking about how to steer the economy and society” (Pierre and Politics and Policymaking Under the Condition Peters, 2000, 1). “Good governance” discourse of Radical Uncertainty. In a postmodern turn, promotes cross-sector partnerships and citizen governance theory acknowledges that politics and participation, which are “viewed as empowering, policymaking operate “under the condition of democracy enhancing and more e ective forms radical uncertainty” (Hajer and Wagenaar, 2003, of governing” (Swyngedouw, 2005, 1992, emph. 10). Government is no longer assumed (nor can added).2 Furthermore, broadening responsibility contend) to hold “absolute knowledge” (ibid.). In for governing enlivens a focus on e ciency (Rhodes, this environment, “concrete problem solving, joint 1996, 653, emph. added). e term not only responsibility, continuous performance-based and indicates a changed understanding of how social collective learning become potential building stones activity is coordinated, but also predicates a shi in of a viable alternative strategy” (ibid.). how society thinks about public a airs, helping: The Increased Importance of ‘Difference’ for “practitioners and theorists alike to unlearn the our Understanding of Politics. Contemporary, embedded intellectual reexes.… ere is a move particularly urban, societies are extraordinarily from the familiar topography of formal political institutions to the edges of organizational heterogeneous. Accountable to a multitude of activity, negotiations between sovereign bodies, groups, institutions of governance become more and inter-organizational networks…. e responsible for “translation: between languages, disparate actors who populate these networks between discourses, and ultimately between people” nd nascent points of solidarity in the joint (Hajer and Wagenaar, 2003, 11). Swyngedouw realization that they need one another to cra disputes the possibility of translation, arguing e ective political agreements…acceptable to all that while governance enables participation and who are involved (and to expand the circle of reignites state-civil society relationships, governance involvement)” (Hajer and Wagenaar, 2003, 3). also “rede ne[s] and reposition[s] the meaning 2. e term “good governance” has similarly been ascribed of (political) citizenship and, consequently, the a variety of meanings, most notoriously associated with nature of democracy itself….New arrangements neoliberal structural adjustment programs. of governance have created new institutions and
6 | VEYOM BAHL empowered new actors, while disempowering revolves around the exercise of (or the capacity others….leading to a substantial democratic de cit” to exercise) entitlements and institutional (2005, 1991). power” (ibid., 1999).
For this reason, Pierre and Peters advocate for a us, on the one hand, governance is thought to state-centered model of governance; “[m]arkets may better encapsulate the realities of public a airs and be e cient in allocating resources but…the state enhance democracy, e ectiveness, and e ciency remains the only creature in society that can play through collective action. On the other hand, [the] political—and democratic—role” (2000, 13). governance is seen as challenging these very ideals us, “the most important thing that governments by changing the nature of democratic practices and can do is take all the valid, but conicting and promoting high—some would argue unachievable— expensive, wants and demands from society and aspirations of partnership, interdependence and convert those into a set of more or less coherent trust. e role of the state emerges as a critical policy statements” (ibid., 31). In this ambition, variable in determining the extent to which shis toward participatory democracy can aid in governance achieves its promise. understanding the multitude of public interests (ibid., 45). 2.2 STRUCTURE AND AGENCY Acting upon an Awareness of Interdependence. eory of Structuration: Under governance, problem solving becomes a Reconciling “Empire-Building Endeavors” collaborative task requiring extensive coordination. Social justice theory prizes self-determination and Undeniably optimistic, interdependence suggests self-development—that each individual should that “the essence of dealing with policy conicts have both the option to choose the life she wants might be a more substantial process of deliberation, to lead as well the capacity to bring that vision to shared problem solving and developing regimes fruition (Young, 1990). Central to this theorization of joint responsibility than merely interest-based is a debate that has generally eluded governance bargaining” (Hajer and Wagenaar, 2003, 11). discourse: what capacity do ordinary people have to shape their environments? To what extent does Policymaking and the Dynamics of Trust and the individual have e cacy within and against the Identity. Finally, despite increasing interdependence, social, political and economic structures implicated “trust cannot be assumed” (Hajer and Wagenaar, in his surroundings? To what extent can governance 2003, 12). e complexity of governance alter long-standing structures of domination? arrangements necessitates that policymaking be “not simply about nding solutions for pressing In a series of seminal works released in the late problems,” but also about “nding formats that 1970s and early 1980s, Anthony Giddens expounded generate trust among mutually interdependent precisely on this balance between “structure” actors” (ibid., emph. original). Swyngedouw and “agency” in human society (Giddens, 1976; contends this idealism is unwarranted. He argues Giddens, 1979; Giddens, 1981, Giddens, 1984). that, rather than promoting trust and identity, the Culminating in a work entitled e Constitution instruments of governance “are an integral part of of Society: Outline of the eory of Structuration, the consolidation of an imposed and authoritarian Giddens argued that social theories had become neoliberalism, celebrating the virtues of self- “entrenched” in a misguided division between managed risk, prudence, and self-responsibility” society and the individual (Giddens, 1984, xx). (2005, 1998). He adds that: On the one hand, functionalist and structuralist thought, despite other divergences, “tended “network-based forms of governance do not to express a naturalistic standpoint…strongly (yet) have codi ed rules and regulations that emphasiz[ing] the pre-eminence of the social whole shape or de ne participation and identify the over its individual parts (i.e., its constituent actors, exact domains or arenas of power….While such absence of codi cation potentially permits and human subjects)” (ibid., 1). On the opposing end of elicits socially innovative forms of organization the spectrum, interpretive sociology, hermeneutics and of governing, it also opens up a vast terrain and phenomenology rejected the “tendency…to see of contestation and potential conict that human behavior as the result of forces that actors
ANALYTICAL FRAMEWORK | 7 neither control nor comprehend” (ibid., xvi). ese (Sewell, 1992, 2). Referring not to the “intentions schools emphasized “action and meaning,” and people have in doing things but their capacity to do “there [was] not much talk of constraint” (ibid., 2). those things in the rst place…[a]gency concerns Giddens found the dichotomy unsatisfactory in its events of which an individual is the perpetrator, simplicity: in the sense that the individual could, at any phase in a given sequence of conduct, have acted “If interpretive sociologies are founded, as di erently” (Giddens, 1984, 9). us, agency implies it were, upon an imperialism of the subject, the capacity to “exert some degree of control” over functionalism and structuralism propose an imperialism of the social object. One of my circumstances (Sewell, 1992, 20). In this respect, principal ambitions…is to put an end to each of agency is the “basis of power” (Giddens and Pierson, these empire-building endeavors” (ibid., 2). 1998, 84), conceived as the “transformational capacity to get things done” and “the ability to Giddens promulgated the eory of Structuration, achieve one’s wishes, even against the desires of “based on the premise that this dualism” of subject others” (Tucker, 1998, 82). and object—of society and individual—as binary opposites “be reconceptualized as a duality” (1984, For Giddens, both knowledgeability and agency xx). By “duality” Giddens sought to highlight “the are innate (1984, 3). However, agency is “formed essential recursiveness of social life” (1979, 5). Put by a speci c range of cultural [rules] and resources more simply, “[w]e should see social life not just available in a person’s particular social milieu. e as ‘society’ out there or just the product of ‘the speci c forms that agency will take consequently individual’ here, but as a series of ongoing activities vary enormously and are culturally and historically and practices that people carry on, which at the determined” (Sewell, 1992, 20). Furthermore, at same time reproduce larger institutions” (Giddens any given moment, an agent is positioned socially, and Pierson, 1998, 76). Under structuration spatially and temporally within: immediate theory, society is not “the plastic creation of human surroundings and relationships (“co-presence”); subjects” (Giddens, 1984, 30), not least because varied social roles (“time-space distanciation of humans cannot determine all the consequences societal totalities”); the ow of day-to-day activities of their actions (Giddens, 1979, 7). Nonetheless, (“daily time-space paths”); an individual life history human activity shapes and reshapes—while is itself (“life cycle”); and, nally, the life cycle of the shaped by—the structures in which it takes place institutions that frame one’s context (“the longue (Giddens, 1984). dure é of institutions”) (Giddens, 1984, 84-85). e inuence an individual’s speci c set of agencies can Agency: Actors as Knowledgeable Beings have is, therefore, ultimately conditioned upon this In understanding the individual, Giddens began time-space “positioning” (ibid., 24). from “hermeneutic starting-point” (1984, 3), deriding that “a good deal of social theory… Structure: Rules, Resources and Domination has treated agents as much less knowledgeable The other element of Giddens’s duality underlines than they really are” (ibid., xxx). ough he that knowledgeable human agents act within distinguished between practical consciousness societies that are influenced—even governed— (what individuals know), discursive consciousness by structures. Giddens identifies three types: (what individuals know and are able to articulate) structures of signification, domination and and the unconscious, Giddens explained that actors legitimation (Figure 2.1) (1984, 30). Structures “monitor continuously the ow of their activities…. of signification influence modes of discourse, [T]hey also routinely monitor aspects, social and significance and meaning. Structures of physical, of the contexts in which they move” (ibid., domination impinge upon political and economic 5). Giddens roundly emphasized that “every social institutions through the authorization and actor knows a great deal about the conditions of allocation of resources. Structures of legitimation reproduction of the society of which he or she is a regulate normative behavior through legal member” (1979, 5). institutions. These structures “make it possible for discernibly similar social practices to exist Agency, or “the e cacy of human action,” is across varying spans of time and space and which intimately connected to human knowledgeability lend them ‘systemic’ form” (ibid., 17).
8 | VEYOM BAHL FIGURE 2.1: TYPES OF STRUCTURES Source: Giddens, 1984
Structure(s) eoretical Domain Institutional Order Signi cation eory of coding Symbolic orders / Modes of discourse
Domination eory of resource authorization Political institutions eory of resource allocation Economic institutions
Legitimation eory of normative regulation Legal institutions
Structures exist in two types: rules and resources. structures only when they mutually imply and Rules are “generalizable procedures applied in the sustain each other over time” (Sewell, 1992, 12).3 enactment/reproduction of social life” (Giddens, 1984, 21). They are the formal and informal, Structuration: In uence through “Virtuality” explicit and implicit laws, practices, norms, For Giddens, structures form one of three levels symbols and assumptions that guide human of social organization (Figure 2.2). “Structures,” activity. Rules allow agents to “know what one is as discussed, include rules and resources. Further supposed to do in particular situations” (Tucker, abstracted, “systems” are sets of recurring social 1998, 81). An understanding and awareness of interactions, which are informed by structures. rules “is the very core of that ‘knowledgeability’ e highest level is “structuration,” or the way in which specifically characterizes human agents,” which social systems are produced and reproduced although “such knowledge does not specify all over time as a result of changes or constancies in the situations which an actor might meet with” structures (Giddens, 1979, 66). (Giddens, 1984, 21). e idea of structuration is Giddens’s declarative Resources are also of two varieties: allocative and statement on how agency and structure interact: far authoritative (Giddens, 1984, 33). Allocative from rei ed, structures are “both the medium and resources are those which “generat[e] command the outcome of the practices which constitute social over objects, goods or material phenomena. systems” (1981, 27, emph. added). While Authoritative resources refer to types of “[s]tructures shape people’s practices…it is also transformative capacity generating command people’s practices that constitute (and reproduce) over persons or actors” (ibid.). Giddens has faced structures” (Sewell, 1992, 4). Under this duality: consistent criticism over his relatively obscure definition of authoritative resources; nevertheless, “[S]ociety is a structured phenomenon and…the “the gist is clear enough: allocation is essentially structural properties of a group or a society have economic domination, authorization politico- e ects upon the way people act, feel and think…. ideological” (Callinicos, 1985, 145). [But] society only has form and that form only has e ects on people in so far as structure is produced and reproduced in what people do” The interplay of rules and resources determines (Giddens and Pierson, 1998, 77 and 82-83). the extent to which structures come to “express forms of domination and power” that actually “In and through” human activities, “agents influence human activity (Giddens, 1984, 18 and reproduce the conditions that make [their] activities 33). Sewell explains that “[rules] not empowered possible” (Giddens, 1984, 2, emph. added). or regenerated by resources would eventually be abandoned and forgotten, just as resources without cultural [rules] to direct their use would eventually dissipate and decay. Sets of [rules] 3. Note: Sewell replaces the word “rules” with “schema” to and resources may properly be said to constitute emphasize that rules can be both formal and informal.
ANALYTICAL FRAMEWORK | 9 FIGURE 2.2: LEVELS OF SOCIAL ORGANIZATION Source: Giddens, 1979
Level De nition Structure Rules and resources, organized as properties of social systems. Structure only exists as “structural properties.”
System Reproduced social relations between actors or collectivities, organized as regular social practices
Structuration Conditions governing the continuity or transformation of structures, and therefore the reproduction of systems
is worldview is sustained through Giddens’s acknowledges that “the more institutions bite into conception of structures as “virtual.” Rules and time and space, the more resistant they are to resources “are characterized by the ‘absence of manipulation or change by any individual agent” subject’” and exist exclusively when invoked through (Giddens, 1984, 170). Giddens also writes that the actions of knowledgeable agents (Giddens, 1979, structures are “both enabling and constraining” 66). “Structure,” Giddens writes, “is out of time and (Giddens, 1979, 70). However, he “sedulously space, save in its instantiations and coordination avoid[s]” any “speci cation of the stringency of as memory traces” (1984, 25). Put another way, constraints” (Archer, 1990, 78, emph. added). structures “are contingent claims which have to be By “making [structure and agency] mutually sustained and ‘made to count’ through the e ective constitutive,” structuration theory “prevents mobilization of sanctions in the contexts of actual examination of their interplay....Structural encounters” (ibid., 30, emph. added). Without properties are integral to social constitution and exercising human agency to reinforce rules or reconstitution, but when do they throw their mobilize resources, structures would cease to exist. weight behind one or the other?” (ibid., 78 and 83). Similarly, Giddens o ers “no discussion of the Enablement versus Constraint historically speci c conditions that lead oppressed It is worth restating three elements of structuration groups to resist, and that provide their resistance theory. First, Giddens de nes structures as being with sources of organization and power” (Callinicos, “recursively organized.” Rules and resources 1985, 140). are neither xed nor once-built. Rather, their production and reproduction are ongoing. Second, Margaret Archer argues that Giddens’s lack of for Giddens, rules and resources are “virtual” and speci city results in a theoretical “hyperactivity exist only once “instantiated” by knowledgeable of agency,” in which actors “generically enjoy very human agents. By consequence, human agency high degrees of freedom” (1990, 77). ough what is at any moment inherently capable of altering she and others like Arthur Stinchcombe appear to structures and potentially upending forces of demand is a predictive—rather than explanatory— domination. Finally, rules and resources are science of society, they raise legitimate questions mutually sustaining. Agency that alters rules cannot as to “what sorts of milieux can produce what sorts be wholly e ective in changing structures without of outputs to structures” (Stinchcombe, 1990, 56). also impacting the control and dissemination of Giddens explains that “the conditions of social allocative and authoritative resources. e converse reproduction vary so widely between di erent types holds as well. of society” that such speci city at a theoretical level is unreasonable (1979, 215). One objective To what extent, however, can structures constrain of the present analysis, then, is to explore these agency? is is a nal point on which Giddens interactions within the context of a particular case. has received the most fervent criticism. Giddens
10 | VEYOM BAHL 2.3 IMPLICATIONS FOR THE CITY e urban environment is also characterized Cities are the most dynamic testing ground for by extraordinary heterogeneity. Heightened by the ideals of governance and structuration theory , internal and international migration, this diversity o ering contextual complexity to theoretical is not only evident in the people who compose analysis. Urban areas are now home to 3.3 billion the city—varied by age, class, ethnicity, gender, people—more than half of the world’s population religion, ability and sexuality—but also their (UNFPA, 2007, 1). Indeed, by 2030, urbanites are interests and interactions (Sandercock, 1998, expected to number 5 billion, with urban growth 165). Heterogeneity has made more pronounced continuing at “an unprecedented scale” (ibid.). “the challenges of negotiating…multiplicity and is population growth has yielded complex and di erence” (Amin, 2006, 1012). Changing social, contradictory cities—capital and power rich and economic and demographic structures “can call increasingly heterogeneous, yet notorious for into question longstanding notions of citizenship inequality and informality (Amin, 2006; Mayer and national identity” (Sandercock, 1998, 165). e 2007; Robinson 2006; Sandercock, 1998; Soja and idea of a “public interest” also becomes contested Kanai, 2007). as municipal administrations are tasked with understanding diverse “ways of being” and “ways ough cities have had economic prominence since of knowing,” and building what Leonie Sandercock at least the Industrial Revolution, capital has become calls “an epistemology of multiplicity” (ibid., 181). increasingly concentrated in cities as a result of a new wave of economic integration (Soja and Kanai, Finally, in stark contrast to their embedded 2007). Cities are increasingly seen as command wealth and power, many of the world’s cities are centers for global ows of capital, culture and also characterized by pronounced inequality labor, particularly under new “exible” economic and informality (Harris and Nef, 2008, 13). In models that allow for integrated, yet transnational Latin America, “exploitative relations of capitalist production and distribution (Sassen, 1991; Soja production and distribution, the hierarchical and Kanai, 2007). Furthermore, this economic structures of power and forms of coercion, and the focus on cities has coincided with their political networks of political and social inuence” have transformation (Brenner, 2004). e diversi cation produced among the most unequal cities in the and decentralization of state powers to multiple world (ibid., 4). ough: levels of government has created “new state spaces” (ibid.) in which municipal governance can, “some degree of geographically uneven theoretically, more e ciently allocate resources and development has always been present in the “ensure the public sector responds to the needs and human occupation of the earth…the global aspirations” of its constituencies (Alam, 2006, 2). distribution of wealth and power today is almost surely more polarized (and unjust) than ever before, with growing numbers of the superrich A less optimistic view of these shis raises concerns concentrated in a few favored spaces and over the capacities and interests of municipal places while a billion or more people live, oen administrations. Local government “now performs strikingly adjacent, in increasingly compacted new tasks that are more technically complex and slums” (Soja, 2010, 57; Davis, 2006; Soja and politically sensitive than the tasks they performed Kanai, 2007). before” (Alam, 2006, 4), exacerbating the “emergent, contingent, contested, and potentially unstable Indeed, while informality is not synonymous outcomes” of local administration (Brenner, 2004, with poverty, informal settlements are linked to 85). A case in point is economic steering, which economic insecurity, precarious housing, disease, increasingly tests cities’ abilities to respond to local malnutrition, drugs and violence (UN-HABITAT, demands while pursuing international economic 2003, vi). In fact, 80 percent of urban expansion competitiveness. Municipal administrations have in the Amazon, one of the world’s fastest growing been criticized for “place-marketing…and new regions, has occurred in informal settlements forms of local boosterism,” which can ignore local (Davis, 2006, 17). imperatives or impede local decision-making (Mayer, 2007, 91; Sa er, 2002). e urban environment, thus, is de ned by tensions: on the one hand, “[d]ense and heterogeneous
ANALYTICAL FRAMEWORK | 11 cities and city regions have become the driving Indicators of Analysis forces of the global economy, generating enormous Bringing together governance, structuration and wealth as well as technological innovation and the urban context, four analytical criteria emerge to cultural creativity….But at the same time, urban assess the quality of urban governance: agglomerations can also function to intensify inequalities and social polarization” (Soja and o Distributing Rules and Resources. Virtual Kanai, 2007, 68). While, “the myriad bolt-holes that rules and resources are retained and controlled are to be found in cities provide some possibility to by human beings and given power through the millions of dispossessed, dislocated and illegal action (Giddens, 1984). us, the control and people stripped of citizenship to acquire some mobilization of a city’s rules and resources political capital” (Amin, 2006, 1012), “too oen, impinges directly upon whether structures are the reality of local, empowering institutions and maintained or reconceived (ibid.). What is to programs fails to match the rhetoric” (Kearns and be evaluated are the impacts of governance— Paddison, 2000, 849). whether agents in contemporary cities are granted equitable control over the production e city highlights critical questions for and reproduction of rules, and the mobilization governance and structuration theory. How and distribution of the city’s wealth in e ective can governance be in sites of diversity and authoritative and allocative resources. Of heterogeneity? How well can governance balance critical importance is that rules and resources be structure and agency—and distribute capital and mutually enforced for systemic change. power—to counter extreme urban poverty and inequality? How well can the ideals of governance o Achieving Effectiveness. While acknowledging foster interdependence among the multitude of that policymaking occurs “under the condition actors in the urban environment? of radical uncertainty” (Hajer and Wagenaar, 2003, 10), “e ciency and e ectiveness in the use of resources still matter” (Kearns and Paddison, 2.4 ANALYTICAL FRAMEWORK 2000, 848). Indeed, among the core precepts Synthesis of eoretical Arguments of governance is that a broader engagement of Given increasing international connectedness, actors can result in a more e ective management cities have been conceived of as spaces of ows and of urban a airs—that intended outcomes can societies as systems of networks. Concomitant be achieved e ciently and responsibly (Hajer with these changes to the organization of human and Wagenaar, 2003; Jessop, 1998, Pierre and activity, a notion of “governance” has emerged. Peters, 2000; Swyngedouw, 2005). e objective Responsibility for organizing and coordinating of the present analysis is to test the extent to public a airs is being devolved to a range of actors which these claims are reected in practice or and sectors. Governance theory promotes a vision whether governance is pursued more as a means of society that is heterogeneous and uncertain, but to devolve responsibility. e ectively shaped by collaborative problem solving among actors of mutual trust. o Enabling Agency. ough agency is innate, it is also conditioned by individual life While social structures can inuence, constrain experiences and social structures (Giddens, or dominate action, knowledgeable human agents 1984; Sewell, 1992). As such, to enable also shape the structures that surround them. agency, particularly in heterogeneous and Composed of rules and resources, structures are unequal cities, requires improving individuals’ “virtual” and exist only as agents invoke, produce capacities and opportunities to act, and to act and reproduce them. ough agencies vary by with inuence. e goal is not to guarantee individual and across time and space, a capacity for predetermined outcomes in favor of the urban agency is innate and implies that human actions poor. Rather, in light of Giddens’s duality of can, indeed, be mobilized toward structural change structure, the objective is to evaluate the extent in the city. e notion of a duality of structure is to which governance practices progressively entirely compatible with the optimism of good shi the balance of structure and agency in urban governance. favor of local capacity and decision-making
12 | VEYOM BAHL authority. Without enabled agency, structures of signi cation, dominance and legitimation persist unchallenged. o Embedding Interdependence. Finally, governance in a networked society is believed to foster collaboration, trust, joint responsibility and collective decision-making by the heterogeneous actors in the city (Hajer and Wagenaar, 2003). e inclusion of more actors in governance, furthermore, can be seen as a means of enhancing the proximity and representativeness of institutions to their constituents. What is of interest is not only whether these utopian ideals are manifest in the praxis of governance, but also whether they become embedded so as to set precedents for future collaborative action toward the same progressive ends.
In the following chapter, these four analytical criteria are employed to assess the success of governance in ameliorating conditions of urban poverty over three periods, constituting a half- century in the history of Medellín.
ANALYTICAL FRAMEWORK | 13
CASE STUDY 3 GOVERNANCE PROGRESSIONS IN MEDELLÍN
3.1 HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENT City Origins
Medellín is the “most conservative city in Colombia, the continent’s most conservative country” (Hylton, 2007, 71), and yet, over the last two decades, Medellín has produced among the most progressive urban development innovations. Medellín is the capital of Antioquia, a northern economic capital of the region by the late-1700s, province home to 12 percent of the Colombian and in the late-1800s induced the rst Colombian population and source of nearly 15 percent of gross industrialization on the pro ts of thriving co ee domestic product. With 3.5 million people, the exports. Economic opportunities in Medellín Metropolitan Area of Medellín is Colombia’s second formalized still-present links between the city largest and has rapidly urbanized over the last sixty and its rural surroundings, as the city became a years, becoming a political, economic and cultural destination for migrant laborers in manufacturing hub (Blanco and Kobayashi, 2009, 81).4 and industry (Hylton, 2007; Palacios, 2006).
Colombia’s mountainous topography has created Early prominence and state weakness also geographical divides, its diverse population has engendered a distinct local entrepreneurialism; in created social divides, and its unequal capitalist contrast to many Latin American cities, Medellín’s development has created socio-economic divides, growth was not due to North American investment, which have proven immensely challenging to govern but rather to “native” business (Hylton, 2007, 73). centrally (Palacios, 2006, xiii and 265). As a result, In tandem with the Catholic Church, Medellín’s Colombia has operated as a patchwork of cities economic sector developed a culture that prized and city-networks, and Medellín has historically discipline, work ethic, hierarchy and authority operated with a measure of independence (ibid., (Melguizo and Cronshaw, 2001, 113; Lamb, 2010, 36 226; Lamb, 2010, 175). and 296).5 In the 1940s, Colombia was entrenched in a decade of civil war, known as La Violencia. Medellín was founded as a commercial center and Medellín emerged physically unscathed, yet violence gold-mining town in 1675. e city became the in the countryside accelerated migration to the city
4. e Metropolitan Area of Medellín is composed of ten 5. “Despite the e orts of the Catholic Church and local municipalities, of which the municipality of Medellín is elites…the city of Medellín has also led [Colombia], since the largest and wealthiest. e municipality of Medellín is further early twentieth century, in terms of prostitution, alcoholism, composed of 16 districts (comunas), which are clustered to the and imprisonment rates” (Melguizo and Cronshaw, 2001, 113). east and west of the Medellín River within the Aburrá Valley. FIGURE 3.1: POPULATION GROWTH (MEDELLÍN METRO AREA) Sources: PRIMED, 1996; MedellínInfo
3,500
3,000
2,500
2,000
1,500
1,000
500
POPULATION (THOUSANDS) 0 La Violencia 1905 1925 1945 1965 1985 2005 YEAR and rapid urbanization (Lamb, 2010). At the same Locals, including Pablo Escobar, understood that time, local elitism—which fomented clientelism in “smuggling cheap goods—clothing, cigarettes— both business and politics—viewed urban poverty from the duty-free zone of Panama to beat high as an invariable corollary to industrialization. In import tari s would prove a lucrative alternative 1947, Life magazine dubbed Medellín a “capitalist to domestic production and an e ective means of paradise” (Hylton, 2007, 75). money laundering” (Hylton, 2007, 78). Smuggling eventually provided avenues for international Violent Submersion distribution of cocaine processed in Colombia. By the late 1950s, however, Medellín’s prosperity Growing frustrations with the government’s was declining. Co ee prices were falling, and inability to address poverty incited social unrest burgeoning Asian manufacturing reduced demands and a “dynamic that confer[red] legitimacy on for local exports (Hylton, 2007, 76; Lamb, 2010, revolutionary projects and violent alternatives” 37). Nonetheless, migration to the city continued (Barón and Mond, 2001, 13; Lamb, 2010, 207). In at a “dizzying pace” (Melguizo and Cronshaw, 2001, general, “the 1980s saw an escalation in armed 114). Medellín’s population grew from 350,000 conict at the national level; with the emergence to 1.5 million between 1951 and 1985 (Figure of paramilitary groups, self-defense groups, militia 3.1) (Fukuyama and Colby, 2011). With housing organizations, and others of their ilk, the boundaries and employment shortfalls, millions settled in the between political, social, and criminal motives physically and socially precarious mountainsides, blurred” (Melguizo and Cronshaw, 2001, 114-115). where the state was noticeably absent (Figure 3.2) (Lamb, 2010, 82). Low school retention e consolidation of illicit economies provided a brought high youth inactivity and unemployment battleground for local power. Violence escalated (PRIMED, 1996, 36). A “marginal citizenry” precipitously, and in 1991, Medellín was the most became embedded into a “sharply segregated violent city in the world (Figure 3.3) (Echeverri, and exclusionary” urban fabric (Melguizo and 2008). In December 1992 alone, the city reported Cronshaw, 2001, 114). By 1972, 50 percent of the 647 murders, an average of more than 20 homicides population—600,000 people—lived in informal each day (Lamb, 2010, 118). By 1989, 45,000 youths settlements (PRIMED, 1996, 29). had been assassinated, and the following decade would bring the death of 55,000 more (Carvajal, e economic decline and rise in inequality 2011, 2-5; Hylton, 2007, 72). Indeed, “the logics of coincided with the formation of the Medellín cartel. narcotra cking and the associated violence became
16 | VEYOM BAHL FIGURE 3.2: URBAN EXPANSION (1985-1998) Source: Dávila, 2011
Occupation to 1985 Occupation 1985-1998 N embedded in the local economy, social and political culture,’ and launching major urban programs practices;” “indices of corruption and clientelism that helped coalesce major shis in their cities’ became elevated…and levels of poverty worsened” trajectories” (Dávila, 2009, 38). Responding to (Carvajal, 2011, 2-5; Avilés, 2006). In 1994, while “the failure…of Washington consensus [neoliberal other Colombian cities grew, employment fell in economic] policies to address endemic poverty, Medellín by 1.5 percent and unemployment jumped massive inequality, rising informality in the from 12.4 to 14 percent (PRIMED, 1996, 36). business sector6, and violent conict” (Bateman, et ough urban planning had been institutionalized al., 2011, 1), Medellín mayors (and their peers in in 1899 (Hylton, 2007, 73), the state was ill- Bogotá) have begun “a new generation of municipal equipped to confront the multitude or gravity of programs seeking to physically upgrade existing development challenges (PRIMED, 1996, 21). [informal] settlements and to integrate them both physically and socially into the fabric of the city” Contemporary Transformations (Brand and Dávila, 2011, 2). High-pro le, holistic Amid the country’s downward spiral, seeds of interventions executed through cross-sector transformation were planted as decentralization collaboration and participatory methods have given policies emerged internationally. ough Medellín a “makeover” (Hylton, 2007). e city narcotra ckers would maintain a stronghold on increasingly “embodies an impressive combination Medellín until a peace agreement was forged in the of imagination and boldness” (Brand and Dávila, mid-2000s, governance decentralization o ered 2011, 2). both vertical and horizontal shis of power— strengthening local governments and incorporating Why Medellín? non-state actors (Dávila, 2011). In the late- Medellín brings together the many contending 1980s, Colombia began to institutionalize citizen forces of the contemporary city—migration, participation and strengthen local democracy as a heterogeneity, informality, public administration, formal response to violence and disenfranchisement international economic integration and illicit (Calderon, 2008; Carvajal, 2011; Dávila, 2009). activity, to name but a few. From its origins as an economic nerve center within an unmanageable Mayors mobilized their newfound prominence and national territory; to its status as the deadliest city power by “enacting bold scal and institutional 6. Of all jobs in Medellín, the informal sector provided 50.2 reforms, helping to reduce crime and violence, percent in 1984, 51.8 percent in 1992, and 55.7 percent in 2000 fostering tolerance and the creation of a ‘citizen (Betancur, 2007, 1).
CASE STUDY: MEDELLÍN, COLOMBIA | 17 FIGURE 3.3: HOMICIDE RATES Sources: Lamb, 2010; Corrales, 2010 HOMICIDES / 100,000 PEOPLE
YEAR in the world, governed by narcotra cking; to its and economic coordination, management and noteworthy resurgence as a progressive force for steering” (Painter, 2009, 313), even if the primary urban development, Medellín exempli es Neil achievement of that governance has been a Brenner’s argument that local actors critically “murderous downward spiral” (Hylton, 2007, 78) shape contemporary political, social and economic of violence and conict (Ferreyra and Segura, 2000; development (2004). Medellín is increasingly Lamb, 2010; Melguizo and Cronshaw, 2001). recognized around the world as a model of “highly competent city management” (Dávila, 2009, 39), and e rise of an illicit governance structure in this not in spite of its violent past. Medellín can be attributed to several factors, principal among them: economic downturn To what extent is Medellín’s transformation beginning in the 1950s; the city’s inability to cope exemplar of “governance”? What has been its with mass in-migration following La Violencia; trajectory, and what have been its merits? How has the economic opportunity of the drug trade; and governance in Medellín, in its various forms since the historic weakness of the Colombian central the 1950s, addressed the priorities of achieving government (Fukuyama and Colby, 2011; Hylton, e ciency, enabling agency, distributing rules and 2007; Lamb, 2010; Palacios, 2006, PRIMED, 1996). resources, and embedding interdependence? By the 1980s, Medellín had also adopted neoliberal economic paradigms to bolster a powerful and independent private sector. e city’s capitalistic 3.2 PERIOD ONE: ILLICIT patterns became further ingrained, with families GOVERNANCE (VIOLENCE AND increasingly dependent on employers for support NARCOTRAFFICKING) and politicians willing to provide services through Research on contemporary Medellín tends to clientelism and corruption (Hylton, 2007). ese view the city’s current political climate as having policies exacerbated urban poverty and did little to overcome a period of lawlessness—a period quell violent reactions (Bateman, et al., 2011; Avilés, without governance. Quite the contrary, the illicit 2006; Harris and Nef, 2008). stronghold over Medellín represents a distinct form of governance. e complex interactions Responding to growing economic insecurity, local between the state, communities, narcotra ckers, gangs and le-wing guerilla forces multiplied paramilitaries, guerrillas, local gangs and state the already violent presence of narcotra ckers armed forces were, indeed, a “process of social (Melguizo and Cronshaw, 2001). e national
18 | VEYOM BAHL government “operated only a small army and repressed by the state (ibid.). Local militias national police. Members of the country’s opposing narcotra ckers followed suit; “their traditional elite liked things this way, preferring to activities included improvement projects such as protect themselves by arming local paramilitaries. clean-up, paving, painting, sports and recreation, as Over time, the paramilitaries grew in size, power well as night patrols and the resolution of domestic and independence” (Fukuyama and Colby, 2011). and neighborly disputes” (Hylton, 2007, 81; Violence became mainstream, and the state lacked Melguizo and Cronshaw, 2001). resources to respond. A governance structure had been inadvertently established through the ese were the perverse positives of illicit complex interactions of the wealthy and poor, the governance: despite propagating violence and formal and informal, and the violent and otherwise disorder, for some, the system provided “the illicit—interactions framed by conicting economic, means—money, identity, respect—to escape” political and social objectives. poverty (Lamb, 2010, 46). By consequence, the rules of violence and drug tra cking o ered viable, even Distributing Rules and Resources7 legitimate livelihoods, “a model of upward mobility Under this system of governance, capitalist for broad sectors of the population” (Melguizo and structures “remained subject to a family monopoly, Cronshaw, 2001, 118-119). e price paid would be and manufacturing never developed from light “thousands of corpses,” “the lure of easy money,” and consumer goods into heavy goods and machinery” “a broken system of authority relations, in which (Hylton, 2007, 76). Imperviousness in economic neither one’s family, nor one’s community, nor one’s organization heavily restricted “any trickle- church, nor one’s government had the credibility down wealth e ect” (ibid.). Neoliberal economic needed to enforce norms of behavior that could restructuring prompted declines in the agrarian enable peaceful coexistence and maintain social, economy and manufacturing, while further familial, or personal stability” (Lamb, 2010, 71). entrenching inequality (Ahumada and Andrews, 1998; Avilés, 2006). Indeed, by the late-1990s, Achieving Eectiveness 0.3 percent of holdings controlled 60 percent of For the ruling drug class—perhaps also for elements productive land; 10 percent of the population held of the political elite—this form of governance was 58 percent of national income; and unemployment e ective, as it conferred short-term command over reached 20 percent, with devastating consequences, local capital and power. Narcotra ckers and state particularly for poor urban youth (Avilés, 2006, 391; military forces were ruthless in maintaining their Hylton, 2007, 77). e city’s response vacillated domination, while the political class partly secured between ignoring or actively repressing informality livelihoods through corrupt allegiances to those and poverty (PRIMED, 1996). forces (Avilés, 2006; Hylton, 2007; Lamb, 2010).
Yet, outside the formal economy, Medellinenses Yet, from a longer-term perspective, the governance found support through illicit resources. Pablo structure produced a highly ine ective “negative Escobar and the Medellín cartel employed “the stalemate” in which neither the state nor the armed plata [that] came from the drug trade—hundreds factions could triumph (Barón and Mond, 2001, of millions of dollars per month by the mid-1980s” 26). Neoliberal restructuring aimed to produce a to bribe city o cials, while also funding social “low-intensity democracy;” in which the state took programs, building soccer elds, churches, schools a secondary role in all matters, including security and “even entire barrios where poor people living (Avilés, 2006, 383). rough its retrenchment, in shacks could be relocated into brick houses with the state would, theoretically, allow for political electricity and running water” (Lamb, 2010, 51). opposition, individual freedom and a more In exchange, Escobar was able to recruit “small attractive environment for foreign investment. street gangs…on an ad hoc basis to carry out select However, neoliberal reforms failed to integrate assassinations and other acts of violence” from those swaths of the urban population and promoted a areas that had been tacitly ignored or actively privatization of violence, whereby responsibility for repressing internal conict was “in large part shied 7. For narrative reasons, the four analytical criteria are to private groups of armed civilians” (ibid., 381- presented in a di erent order in each period studied. 382). e Colombian state had “neither the power
CASE STUDY: MEDELLÍN, COLOMBIA | 19 nor the authority to settle social conicts or enforce state security agencies, and the organized the law,” resorting instead to “deals, compromises, criminal groups…do not represent the 37 and confrontations” (Melguizo and Cronshaw, 2001, million Colombians. But the 37 million 112). e local government, in turn, was a “weak Colombians have never given a clear voice to a agent…bargaining as if it were on the same level rejection of extrajudicial state violence and the systematic impunity of its perpetrators or of the as other armed groups. It never appear[ed] as the protagonists of the conict and their methods” legitimate locus of power with the right to impose (Barón and Mond, 2001, 15-16). its will” (ibid., 127). A cyclical pattern emerged in which violence and clientelism exacerbated In an environment de ned by violence, “citizens the weakness of public institutions, and in turn, act simply out of self-preservation or the survival permitted further violence (Ferreyra and Segura, instinct. Unable to count on the legally constituted 2000; PRIMED, 1996). state or its system of justice…they turn to the armed group that o ers the most favorable alternative or e ordinary residents of Medellín, ultimately, perhaps simply have to submit to whichever group su ered. Upheaval over the city’s command has taken over the zone” (Melguizo and Cronshaw, functions e ectively deteriorated the urban fabric, 2001, 112). Elites who advocated for a low-intensity degraded the livelihoods of the urban poor, and democracy also “allowed or promoted state and forestalled political and economic progress. Even para-state repression as a necessary complement to once migration stemmed in the 1980s, neither economic and political change” (Avilés, 2006, 392). governance nor social integration improved ough Medellinenses possessed innate agency, (Melguizo and Cronshaw, 2001, 114). their ability to express it was immobilized or, at best, strongly inuenced by structures of violence. Enabling Agency Agency enabled during the period was not the Embedding Interdependence intent, but rather a byproduct, of illicit governance. Interdependence in a society marked by such ough mismanagement had dismantled the tensions is undoubtedly an illusory ideal. Within legitimacy of the political system and fed political the ruling classes, “interdependence” was manifest alienation (Nickson, 1995, 146), economic and in mercurial allegiances, lasting only as long as security challenges fueled social organization expedient. Ruling families “reproduc[ed] modes of (Carvajal, 2011). Over 200 civic strikes took place domination characteristic of domestic servitude,” in Colombia between 1970 and 1986 (Nickson, and social relations “emphasiz[ed] ‘absolute personal 1995, 146), and “a broader urban le was becoming loyalty and obedience’ to help shape a working- visible, as worker, student and guerrilla networks class ethos of vertical ties to patrones and prompt, began to converge” (Hylton, 2007, 77). ough e cient execution of orders” (Hylton, 2007, 74). their protests—in some cases, kidnapping and Even within the maze of narcotra cking, an alliance extortion—were met with “savage repression by of convenience, including state forces and Escobar’s state forces” (ibid.), these actions represented a former associates, would turn against Escobar and (violent) civic engagement that sought to challenge see to his being jailed in 1991 and then killed in the governance structures in place. 1993. e network formed for his defeat would then establish “a new order” under Diego Fernando Despite their history of political struggle, many civic Murillo, or Don Berna, and his criminal allies, La organizations founded during this period are now Terraza (ibid., 83-85). viewed not as representatives of social dissatisfaction but as “part extremist…masquerading as a political Early attempts at militia demobilization also movement” (Lamb, 2010, 213). Furthermore, failed because of distrust and poor collaboration beyond civic organization, agency was limited or (Melguizo and Cronshaw, 2001; Lamb, 2010; severely constrained. e Colombian population Rozema, 2008). Under various names—“peace failed to grow inuential voices of opposition to camps,” “Coosercom,” “Convivir”—successive narcotra cking hegemony: administrations spent over a decade testing methods to reintegrate violent agents. Yet, individuals “ e 15,000-20,000 guerrillas, the 5,000 linked to paramilitaries were placed on government paramilitaries, the rogue elements within the commissions, demobilization was poorly nanced,
20 | VEYOM BAHL FIGURE 3.4: PRIMED INTERVENTION ZONES (FIRST PHASE) Source: PRIMED, 1996
Central-Eastern Zone Center City
Northwestern Zone
Central-Western Zone N
demobilized agents were killed by residual forces, 3.3 PERIOD TWO: GOVERNANCE and rumors spread that even then-President Ernesto EXPERIMENTATION (PRIMED) Samper’s election campaign had been funded, in Like much of Latin America, Colombia began part, by narcodollars (Lamb, 2010, 209). decentralizing state authority to municipal governments and citizens in the 1990s (Nickson, Demobilization would not be marginally successful 1995; Nickson, 2010). Mayors were rst elected by until 2002, when it was conceptualized through popular vote in 1989 (Lamb, 2010, 127); the 1989 a collective ideal: that “peace is good business” National Urban Land Reform mandated that urban (Barón and Mond, 2001, 14). Murillo took credit policies “address the integration of subnormal for the shi, stating that he understood the “need [informal] settlements” (Calderon, 2008, 56); a new to create the ‘necessary climate so that investment national constitution was rati ed in 1991, “de ning returns, particularly foreign investment, which is participation as a constitutive principle and function fundamental if we do not want to be le behind of the Colombian State” (Carvajal, 2011, 2-5) and by the engine of globalization’” (Hylton, 2007, increasing local governments transfers to 41 percent 86). e irony is that, despite Murillo’s hand in the of national revenue by 2001 (Betancur, 2007; disintegration of Medellín, arguing in favor of a Nickson, 2010)8; and the 1997 Law of the Territorial collective ideal earned him momentary legitimacy Order mandated that municipal administrations through a “fusion of politics, property and organized create local development plans (Calderon, 2008, 58). crime” (ibid., 85). us, in the midst of continuing violence (Hylton, Alan Gilbert raised a critical question emerging 2007), impervious clientelism (Ferreyra and Segura, from this period: 2000), growing informality (PRIMED, 1996)9, and the “inglorious end” to neoliberal economic “[T]he main need throughout Latin America policies (Bateman, et al., 2011, 1), the municipal is for better urban leadership....[I]t is di cult state was being granted greater responsibility to to know how it can possibly emerge under address local crises through participatory methods. current circumstances. Without more resources and a change in the political economic system, 8. Despite the Constitution’s democratization focus, legislators how can urban leadership be strong without bowed to Pablo Escobar and included non-extradition being autocratic, how can local democracy as a fundamental right (Lamb, 2010, 61). When Escobar emerge when even elected governments repress surrendered later that year, it would be on his own terms. e community autonomy?” (1992, 228). non-extradition clause was repealed in 1996 (ibid., 129). 9. In the twenty years prior to PRIMED, 80 percent of new settlement had been informal (PRIMED, 1996, 37).
CASE STUDY: MEDELLÍN, COLOMBIA | 21 In Medellín, this ethos produced the Integral treatment” to informal lifestyles, accepting that they Program for Subnormal District Improvement in may “interfere with certain formal standards” and Medellín (Programa Integral de Mejoramiento de regulations (PRIMED, 1996, 50). Barrios Subnormales en Medellín, or PRIMED). PRIMED sought the “bettering of life quality ough no independent evaluation was conducted, of the population of subnormal districts in the PRIMED sta estimated the program bene ted city” and “the uni cation of the city and the 51,000 people, only 25-30 percent of the target improvement of district cohabitation” (PRIMED, but approximately 20 percent of the population 1996, 59). Holistic interventions were to be the in informal settlements in the municipality of means of urban reconstitution in the poorest Medellín (Consejería Presidencial Para Medellín, areas of the municipality of Medellín—including 1993, 14; PRIMED, 1996, 12; Betancur, 2007, 2). narcotra cking and paramilitary strongholds Pedestrian infrastructure cover rose from 40 to 60 (Betancur, 2007; PRIMED, 1996). percent (compared with an average of 90 percent in the rest of the city). Approximately 2,800 square PRIMED had six objectives: strengthen planning, meters of public spaces were developed, and water management and inter-institutional collaboration; and sewer systems were extended to 90-95 percent promote community participation and state-civil of households. More than 3,500 dwellings were society partnerships; improve basic infrastructure, improved (Betancur, 2007, 6). PRIMED also o ered public services and public spaces; upgrade funding for “collective initiative projects” identi ed informal housing; secure land tenure for informal by communities, thus marginally shiing control of settlements; and mitigate geological risks on the public resources to communities (PRIMED, 1996, mountainsides (PRIMED, 1996, 59; Betancur, 2007, 117).10 ough PRIMED also hoped to achieve 4). ough estimates vary, the program aspired land tenure regularization, existing legislation and to reach 140,000 to 200,000 people living in 30 landlords constrained its e orts (Betancur, 2007, to 70 informal settlements (Calderon 2008, 56; 10). Approximately 2,100 households received legal Blanco and Kobayashi, 2009, 80). e rst of two tenure, falling short of a targeted 5,180 (ibid.). phases was to run from 1992 to 1997 and would target three informal districts, which were most ough these achievements are no small feat, amenable to immediate intervention (Figure 3.4). particularly in Medellín, PRIMED failed to gain a e second phase would begin aer an evaluation political constituency (see Interdependence), and of the rst and would target the remaining ve the program was terminated before beginning its informal districts (Consejería Presidencial Para second phase. e ve informal zones most in need Medellín, 1993, 14). PRIMED’s US$31 million of intervention were le without the city’s support cost was funded predominantly by KfW, a German (Consejería Presidencial Para Medellín, 1993, 14). development bank (31.3 percent) and national Furthermore, PRIMED’s underlying approach to sources (68.5 percent), including housing subsidies, rule and resource distribution was disconcertingly municipal funds and community contributions in two-sided. Rhetorically, PRIMED sought to better cash or in kind (ibid.). integrate informal settlements into the urban fabric. Yet, the municipality also argued that PRIMED Distributing Rules and Resources would “lead to densi cation, and consequently, Undoubtedly its greatest success, PRIMED’s a better use of urban land, diminishing demand underlying objective was that “residents of pressures for new housing in the last available lands subnormal zones stop to be ignored (sic)” in the city” (ibid., 15). Similarly, the municipality (PRIMED, 1996, 119) and that the city invest in was motivated to PRIMED because “[a]ll the local priorities (Betancur, 2007, 4). is represented important cities of the world are getting ready to be a radical shi in rules for a municipality that acquainted with the global economy…and Medellín previously relied on “repressive measures against city cannot be the exception” (Sergio Naranjo, people illegally occupying any space” (PRIMED, 1996, 30), including “slum clearance, isolated 10. Medellín also implemented participatory budgeting from 1997-2000 (Urán, 2004, 2), and again beginning in 2004. paternalistic interventions…and political clientelism Medellín is one of the world’s largest cities with participatory or negligence” (Betancur, 2007, 2). Furthermore, budgeting; it currently accounts for ve percent of the Medellín indicated a desire to o er “exible municipal budget (Devlin, 2010; Schmidt, 2011).
22 | VEYOM BAHL quoted in PRIMED, 1996, 11). PRIMED was ird, PRIMED did not o er job training, implicitly tied to an international competitiveness employment opportunities with PRIMED were agenda, which required ameliorating but also temporary, and skills acquired did not aid in containing informality. securing full-time positions (Betancur, 2007, 10). Finally, PRIMED’s e orts were constrained by Achieving Eectiveness technological challenges, incomplete information All PRIMED interventions “aimed at improvements and the di culties of coordinating with local in economic conditions and quality of life with organizations (PRIMED, 1996, 98). ough long-term social impacts” (Betancur, 2007, 5-6). UN-HABITAT would list PRIMED as an urban Moreover, PRIMED actively sought to ght “the development “best practice” in 1996 (Blanco and loss of governmental legitimacy” (PRIMED, 1996, Kobayashi, 2009, 81), PRIMED is, ultimately, faulted 42) precipitated by “the extremes of paternalism, for its overly ambitious agenda and rather ine ective political patronage/clientelism, favoritism, and implementation (Betancur, 2007, 8). isolated or crisis interventions….It assumed an apolitical form of intervention based on high levels Enabling Agency of professionalism and e ciency. It operated on the e municipality acknowledged outright that a basis of a carefully designed plan and criteria for “divorce between the civil society and the public each of its components” (Betancur, 2007, 4). administration had been generating for a long time, due to the absence of adequate…mechanisms that In 1999, PRIMED conducted a random survey of could allow the community and civic participation” 300 participant households. Results were “likely (PRIMED, 1996, 39). To its credit, PRIMED: skewed” as two-thirds of respondents had received home improvements, and no baseline survey was “wanted community involvement all the way conducted (Betancur, 2007, 10). Nonetheless, from determination of needs and establishment “ninety-six percent of respondents indicated that of priorities to implementation and maintenance. their quality of life had improved. e highest levels e agency was convinced that if the community did not gain ownership, the program could not of satisfaction came from home improvements achieve its intended and more intangible goals… (66%), public spaces (49%), and legalization of namely, the e ective insertion of the area into tenure (36%)….In fact, PRIMED had the highest the city, trust in government, its institutions, and credibility among government entities at 48%, the rule of law, and continuation of the work” followed by the utility company (14%)” (ibid.). (Betancur, 2007, 5).
Researchers, however, o er a more critical account. Community participation was, thus, closely aligned First, Andrew Nickson argues that major political with PRIMED’s broader goals of e ciency, e cacy reforms in Latin America “did not bring about and democratic legitimacy. PRIMED set up o ces any reform of municipal management style,” and near the sites of intervention and were in regular municipal administrators remained ill-equipped to contact with local leaders through ve sector-based implement the decentralization agenda (Nickson, community committees per zone of intervention 1995, 154). PRIMED acknowledged that delays (PRIMED, 1996, 65 and 116). in project execution made it “typical to listen to sentences like: ‘PRIMED is one more program of Despite these e orts, however, the practice the Administration; it is only promises’” (PRIMED, of participation proved de cient. While the 1996, 80). Second, though PRIMED established communities were involved in “those aspects of contact with local armed groups at each site (ibid., the implementation in which local consent was 65), resistance, bribery demands, and renegotiations required,” they were generally “absent from the when militia leadership changed stymied initial planning and decision-making process” implementation (Betancur, 2007, 7). PRIMED’s (Betancur, 2007, 9). PRIMED objectives were o ce in the Central-Western Zone (Zona Centro “heavily biased toward the priorities and agendas Occidental) was also caught in violent cross re in of government” (ibid.), and from the outset, other May 1994, leading “many of the o cials” to seek local needs (predominantly non-infrastructural) psychological support (PRIMED, 1996, 93). were “discarded” as “out of the program possibility” (PRIMED, 1996, 109). In attempt to reasonably
CASE STUDY: MEDELLÍN, COLOMBIA | 23 manage expectations, PRIMED “appeared before the Furthermore, PRIMED’s independent community with concrete proposals that” PRIMED administrative structure conferred a political had independently determined “corresponded isolation that would, ultimately, impede its longevity. to real sector problems” (ibid.). As a result, PRIMED “was not properly inserted into the general community participation took on a passive and agenda of the municipality….As such, it did not consultative, rather than collaborative function. enter the organic municipal structure guaranteeing its full inclusion in the general plan for the city” Moreover, due to immature local organization (Betancur, 2007, 8). e program faced its demise and limited capacity-building e orts, only 18 in 2000 both because “traditional representative and “collective initiative projects” were funded while technocratic planning mechanisms” resisted and PRIMED had the funds to support 240 (Betancur, resented its innovative approach (Calderon, 2008, 2008, 8-9). PRIMED did not e ectively spur 61) and because the program’s placement within the longer-term social organization as it had intended; municipal bureaucracy ensured that only “limited community committees shut down once PRIMED electoral capital…could be derived from…[its] implementation was complete. While PRIMED isolationist culture” (Betancur, 2007, 11). PRIMED acknowledged some of these shortcomings and had “never entered the political ideals and agendas established workshops to aid in community capacity of the moment” (Calderon, 2008, 57; Blanco and building, the program did not survive to see those Kobayashi, 2009). When PRIMED was terminated, e orts tested (ibid.). the Medellín establishment lost a hard-earned “trust in the capacity and legitimacy of administrative Embedding Interdependence institutions” (Calderon, 2008, 62), which only years PRIMED acknowledged openly that for success, earlier, PRIMED had claimed was its “greatest “traditional jealousy and antipathy” would have program achievement” (PRIMED, 1996, 104). to be overcome, and “a participative style of management [would have] to be developed on the basis of a continuous ow of information and an 3.4 PERIOD THREE: GOVERNANCE intense communication” (PRIMED, 1996, 50 and RENOWN (SOCIAL URBANISM) 52). ough PRIMED was administered under At the end of PRIMED, Medellín still faced the Housing and Social Development Corporation “high levels of poverty, poorly coordinated state of Medellín and was accountable to the Mayor, it interventions, a de cit of public spaces, insu cient operated through an independent structure. As housing and a deteriorating natural environment” such, it maintained a reputation free of clientelism (Calderon, 2008, 54). In 2004, Medellín had COL$7 and “attract[ed] an array social forces (e.g. the billion to pay obligations of COL$84.4 billion Catholic Church, philanthropic entities, institutes (Devlin, 2010, 8). Violence had precipitated massive and universities) that had been traditionally capital ight; 1.9 million Colombians emigrated alienated by the politically charged and self- between 1996 and 2005 and almost US$10 billion interested parties commonly involved in this type of le the country between 1998 and 2003 (Rettberg, work” (Betancur, 2007, 4-5). 2007, 484). Critics also feared that Mayor Luis Pérez (2001-2003) was “adverse to participatory and In theory, PRIMED served a coordinating and democratic processes” (Carvajal, 2011, 2-5). oversight role, bringing together the activities and resources of other government agencies, NGOs and “ ings began to change with the election of Álvaro subcontractors. Yet, PRIMED lacked the capacity Uribe as president of Colombia in 2002….Uribe to coordinate the “complexity of an approach with dramatically expanded Colombia’s military and so many partners and elements,” particularly as it national police and launched an all-out o ensive” worked around prior patronage-based agreements against paramilitaries, ultimately, negotiating a that had been negotiated in the communities paci cation strategy (Fukuyama and Colby, 2011). (Betancur, 2007, 7). Coordinating committees were For Medellín, the turning point came when Sergio oversta ed and responsibilities were not clearly Fajardo, “a mayor of a distinct political class,” delineated (ibid., 8). With delays and ine ciencies was elected to serve from 2004-2007 (Carvajal, in project management, PRIMED struggled to 2011, 2-5). Fajardo represented a unique blend of maintain community support (PRIMED, 1996, 97). populism and establishment, building a reputation
24 | VEYOM BAHL FIGURE 3.5: MEDELLÍN HUMAN DEVELOPMENT INDEX Source: Echeverri, 2008
Lighter color N indicates lower HDI.
FIGURE 3.6: PUI INTERVENTION ZONES Source: Echeverri, 2008
for empathy toward the poor while retaining links conversations identi ed twin challenges in Medellín: to inuential business interests through his personal “profound social inequalities and historically- networks (Devlin, 2010, 2). Fajardo was elected accumulated debts [to the poor], and deep-rooted with more votes than any mayoral candidate in violence” (Echeverri, 2008). From that analysis, Medellín’s history (ibid.). a “social movement came to life” (Alonso Salazar, quoted in Fukuyama and Colby, 2011), and with the In the early 1990s, Fajardo had brought together Fajardo’s election more than a decade later came “a “fed-up members of the city’s community political revolution…to turn the ideas into a real- organizations and religious, academic, and world policy agenda” (Fukuyama and Colby, 2011). business institutions…to discuss ideas to x their Fajardo called for “social urbanism,” a governance embattled city” (Fukuyama and Colby, 2011). ose framework that channeled “great investments in
CASE STUDY: MEDELLÍN, COLOMBIA | 25 FIGURE 3.7: urban projects” to the areas with the city’s lowest SANTO DOMINGO LIBRARY-PARK Human Development Index scores (Figures 3.5 and Source: Echeverri, 2008 3.6) (Brand, 2010). Social urbanism scaled up and redirected PRIMED’s prescription. An integrated system of civic infrastructure, social housing, transportation projects and economic development became the “agships” of broader transformation (Echeverri, 2008) that, unlike PRIMED, did not only address functional need, but also promoted high- visibility “spaces of citizenship, democracy and co- existence” (Medellín, quoted in Brand, 2010).
“Diligently executed,” these Integral Urban Projects (Proyectos Urbanos Integrales, or PUIs) are carried out in ve phases—Diagnosis, Planning, Design, Implementation, and Animation—and each has social, institutional and physical objectives (Calderon, 2008; Medellín, n.d.). Social objectives FIGURE 3.8: METROCABLE focus on community participation, organization Source: Echeverri, 2008 and leadership (Medellín, n.d.). Institutional objectives call for “coordinated action among all municipal actors” and promote “alliances with the private sector, NGOs, national and international organizations and community-based organizations” (ibid.). Physical objectives prioritize time management and quality (ibid.). On paper, social urbanism is exemplar of the governance discourse.
Distributing Rules and Resources Social urbanism continues PRIMED’s progressive transformation of the rules that structure Medellín. Its aspirations to improve “quality of life” are articulated in terms of “pride and self-esteem” and ensuring the poor “feel integrated in the FIGURE 3.9: development of the city” (Echeverri, 2009, 2). LA FRANCIA-ANDALUCÍA BRIDGE Critically, municipal resources bolster these rules. Source: Echeverri, 2008 “Total spending by Medellín’s city government doubled between 2004 and 2008” due, in large part, to revenues from “a high municipal tax rate that is tolerated by a uniquely civic-minded business elite” (Fukuyama and Colby, 2011) and from Empresas Públicas de Medellín, the public utility provider mandated to give 30 percent of its net pro t to the city (Brand, 2010; Brand and Dávila, 2011; Bateman, et al., 2011). Participatory budgeting, furthermore, grants citizen authority over ve percent of the municipal budget (Schmidt, 2011).11
Library-Parks. Between 2004 and 2007, Medellín constructed 1.3 times more public space than
11. See Footnote 10.
26 | VEYOM BAHL had been built in the 53 years prior, including 20 Despite remarkable redistributive potential, new parks (Calderon, 2008, 83). Architectural concerns are emerging over awareness of library- competitions were held to design high-pro le park programming and their accessibility due to library-park and secondary school complexes, distance from residential zones (McDermott, 2010). “buildings which, for their scale, form, materials and Similarly, the Metrocable prohibits carrying large colors, contrast strongly with their surroundings, loads, which diminishes its utility for informal and clearly announce that the local administration vendors. In fact, less than ten percent of public is providing facilities, worthy of envy even in the transport journeys in the areas surrounding wealthy areas of the city” (Figure 3.7) (Brand, Metrocable stations utilize the Metrocable/ 2010). Furthermore, library-parks enter into local Metro combination (Brand and Dávila, 2011, 8 life through community and cultural activities, and 13). Finally, it is unclear the extent to which such as reading and computer literacy programs microenterprise is generating growth or “recycling (McDermott, 2010). poverty” by not strengthening consumer demand or building more sustainable small- and medium- Metrocable.12 Medellín also innovatively installed enterprises (Bateman, et al., 2011, 3). cable cars associated with ski slopes for transit to and from mountainside settlements (Figure 3.8). Enabling Agency Constructed with local labor, the “Metrocable” Building on 1980s and 1990s policy changes, transports 67,000 people daily (Blanco and Fajardo’s election signaled that “public participation Kobayashi, 2009, 85). Public space improvements, in Medellín was no longer considered as a threat but housing upgrades and environmental risk rather as a mean (sic) to legitimize a new democratic management ank the Metrocable, sowing more model” (Calderon, 2008, 62). Participatory holistic urban renewal. In fact, “the value of public processes in social urbanism “recognize cultural, investment in complementary urban upgrading demographic, territorial and ethnic diversity” and projects exceeded by a factor of six the cost of have contributed to “maturation of local citizenship” building the cable-car system itself” (Brand and (Carvajal, 2011, 9). Dávila, 2011, 18). ree bridges have also been constructed to connect districts across Medellín’s e Diagnosis stage involves a survey of community mountainsides (Figure 3.9). e spectacular organizations on-site, and community input on imagery of the these interventions has transformed analyses of the existing urban fabric. A “Workshop how “a critical area of the city was perceived by for Urban Imagining” (Taller de Imaginarios insiders and outsiders…leading to relevant social, Urbanos) also solicits community members’ ideas to socio-spatial and socio-economic revitalization, help shape interventions (Calderon, 2008, 76-77). while promoting inclusive patterns of urbanization” Like PRIMED, community committees are then (Blanco and Kobayashi, 2009, 76). established during Planning. O cial PUI teams are “constantly in contact” with these committees, and Microenterprise. PUIs are also associated “some [PUI team] members are located directly in with Cultura E, a program to enhance local the area of intervention” (Calderon, 2008, 68). As entrepreneurialism. Fourteen business development with PRIMED, however, PUI programs are strongly centers (Centros de Desarrollo Empresarial Zonal, biased toward physical developments; “(though or CEDEZOs) have been established in the poorest highly participatory), the PUI Team comes already neighborhoods; a micro nance institution (Banco with predetermined plans and projects” (ibid., de las Oportunidades) has o ered over 50,000 loans 99). By consequence, community visions for non- in eight years to microenterprises (Beszterczey and infrastructural interventions are overlooked, leading O’Neil, 2011); and business leaders have established to a Planning stage that is more “consultative” than the consortium Pro-Antioquia to promote economic “shared control” (ibid., 100). growth by harnessing local production for their supply chains (Bateman, et al., 2011). During the Design phase, a second series of “Workshops for Imagining Projects” (Talleres de 12. e Metrocable was initiated under Fajardo’s predecessor, Imaginarios Por Proyecto) ask community members Luis Pérez, but can be understood through social urbanism as a high-visibility infrastructure intervention in informal to envision ideal designs for projects that have settlements. passed the Planning stage (Figure 3.10). Responses
CASE STUDY: MEDELLÍN, COLOMBIA | 27 FIGURE 3.10: to questions like: “What does this place mean to WORKSHOPS FOR IMAGINING PROJECTS me?” “Which memories does this place bring to Source: Echeverri, 2008 me?” and “What would I like [it] to have?” are molded into actionable strategies for community approval and, thereby, provide “shared control” over decision-making (Calderon, 2008, 99 and 101). Communities are then involved in Implementation through employment, and in Animation as they take symbolic ownership of completed projects through community events (Figure 3.11).
Unlike PRIMED, these engagements have catalyzed deeper community organization for commerce, local tourism, and infrastructure maintenance (Calderon, 2008, 84). e municipality has signed “civic pacts” with communities, not only outlining post-construction responsibility sharing, but also FIGURE 3.11: helping communities to “develop an awareness of ANIMATION PHASE (LA QUINTANA) what they could contribute to collective endeavors, Source: Echeverri, 2008 no matter how humble their means, and, perhaps more importantly, a sense of what they were entitled to expect from the government” (Devlin, 2010, 7). Criticisms of agency enablement in social urbanism—that power struggles “cannot be shaken by participation, but are rather reected and replicated directly in it” (Carvajal, 2011, 5-7)—are characteristic of those launched against participation processes more generally.
Embedding Interdependence Social urbanism has bene ted greatly from the history of PRIMED. Indeed, actors who participated in PRIMED have helped execute social urbanism programs, thereby allowing for “the PUI Model to FIGURE 3.12: build on a process that in spite of its shortcomings SERGIO FAJARDO AND LOCAL CHILDREN had already mobilized part of the community and Source: Echeverri, 2008 created the beginnings of the mainstream of acting on slum areas” (Calderon, 2008, 91). Furthermore, PRIMED taught that a lack of interdependence would hinder program longevity. Fajardo’s tactics demonstrate his awareness of this point: for more than a decade, he established “an unorthodox coalition of business people, grassroots community organizers, and the middle class” to sign on to his “radical political agenda,” (Fukuyama and Colby, 2011; Brand and Dávila, 2011).
As mayor, Fajardo bred interdependence by example, prizing transparency, co-responsibility and open communication. He appeared regularly on radio, in print, and on television to answer constituent questions. Indeed, “[p]eople had the
28 | VEYOM BAHL perception that Fajardo was in the street every day,” and his ethical management had broader impact. prepared to work collaboratively with Medellinenses Over his term, industrial and commercial tax lings to tackle the city’s challenges (Figure 3.12) (Devlin, increased by nearly 45 percent (ibid., 8). 2010, 7). By consequence, a candidate from the social urbanism movement was elected to succeed ough Fajardo did not tackle corruption Fajardo; “[t]hat two mayors with the same roots in the police or lower levels of government succeed each other in o ce had never happened (Devlin, 2010, 10), PUIs have been lauded for before” (Sergio Fajardo, quoted in Dávila, 2009, 53). e ective management and nancing. e Urban Development Corporation (Empresa de Desarrollo PUIs also clearly de ne roles for each actor. Again Urbano), which implements PUIs, “brings together learning from PRIMED, PUIs are integrated into the tested techniques, young professionals and city’s development plans, such that their success is academics…a fortuitous combination that allows considered “strategic for achieving the development for new ideas to be implemented in very short time of Medellín” as a whole (Calderon, 2008, 92). frames” (Brand, 2010). ough keystone projects Although raising questions as to whether PUIs are are relatively inexpensive (library-parks cost US$6 collaborative or simply coordinated, PUI teams million, and the Metrocable US$25 million per line), maintain databases of planned projects across all PUIs have been paid for almost entirely through the public agencies and seek to link them as appropriate city’s capital funds, not new borrowing or external (ibid., 95). Funding for PUI interventions has also donations (ibid.). Unlike PRIMED, continuity of come, in large part, from Empresas Públicas de funding and e cient approvals have reinstated trust Medellín, a uniquely interdependent institution in in the state (Blanco and Kobayashi, 2009, 88). its own right (Brand, 2010; Brand and Dávila, 2011; Bateman, et al., 2011). Yet, an unnerving concern is emerging. Current Mayor Alonso Salazar’s (2008-2011) slogan for the Finally, in another departure from PRIMED, city is “Medellín: Supportive and Competitive,” in social urbanism projects aim to create high- contrast to Fajardo’s “Medellín: e Most Educated” visibility community spaces and are less oriented (Brand, 2010; Echeverri, 2008). Salazar’s lexicon toward small-scale infrastructural improvements. “juggles two fairly incompatible logics” (Brand, Library-parks seek to provide functional learning 2010), reecting demands that mayors achieve both environments, but also spaces of gathering socio-political objectives, while also enhancing their (Calderon, 2008, 76). Similarly, the Metrocable cities’ competitiveness (Dávila, 2009; Dávila, 2011). provides conveyance for mountainside settlements, While high-visibility projects meant that “for the and yet has also promoted local tourism, bringing rst time, the people of Medellín ‘actually saw things Medellinenses to parts of the city they had never happening’” (Devlin, 2010, 7), “the aesthetic impact” seen (Brand, 2010). can also be employed “to promote an economically competitive and socially progressive image” (Brand Achieving Eectiveness and Dávila, 2011, 16, emph. original). Concerns Owing to demobilization negotiated by the surfacing over: inaccessibility of the library- Colombian state, during Fajardo’s term “the parks (McDermott, 2010); limited economic paramilitaries largely…refrained from overt impact of microenterprise (Bateman, et al., 2011); violence….Fajardo’s timing was fortuitous” the Metrocable’s negligible impact on mobility, (Devlin, 2010, 2). Nonetheless, Fajardo’s e ective economic activity or land values (Brand and Dávila, capitalization of those opportune years deserves 2011); and the sheer lack of outcome assessment much credit. Not seeking membership in a major (Devlin, 2010) do not inherently cast doubt on political party and still winning election in a the motivations behind social urbanism. ey do, landslide gave Fajardo unprecedented credibility.13 however, highlight the competing objectives at He steadfastly opposed clientelism, and “for the play—delivering high-visibility versus high-impact rst time, councilmen had to seriously consider the urban interventions. e international attention consequences of opposing a popular mayor” (ibid., that social urbanism has garnered threatens to 4). Fajardo “budget[ed] based on results,” obscure improvements that remain to be made.
13. In July 2010, Fajardo joined the Green Party (León, 2010).
CASE STUDY: MEDELLÍN, COLOMBIA | 29
CONCLUSIONS 4 PROSPECTS FOR MEDELLÍN & SOCIAL URBANISM
4.1 DISTINCT GOVERNANCE EXPERIENCES
Each of three periods in Medellín’s recent history represents a distinct governance experience. Historical circumstances, and resulting interplays of structure and agency, produced in each era a particular blend of effectiveness, agency, rules and resource distribution, and interdependence, and consequently, disparate success in addressing the city’s historic poverty and inequality.
Illicit Governance: Stagnation and Survival stalemate de ed the potential of structures to be At mid-century, the city was unprepared for recursively organized. Indeed, the actions of people extensive in-migration and unable to meet housing overwhelmed by the threat of violence served largely and economic needs. Violence destabilized to instantiate that hegemony and reinforce the Medellín, which was governed by the illicit structures that dominated their daily lives. rationality of narcotra ckers, paramilitaries and guerrillas. e hegemony of armed agents PRIMED: Aspiration versus Achievement created powerful structures of domination, in By the mid-1990s, structures of legitimation— which ordinary citizens’ actions were reduced to laws and norms—were changing in Medellín as survivalism. Some forms of social organization decentralization policies and a new constitution took root, but did so without meaningful voice or strengthened local agency and participatory legitimation in a weak and clientelistic political democracy. PRIMED was a manifestation of the system. With the state bargaining with thugs, era’s optimism, as well as inexperience, in good drug lords relying on mercurial loyalties, and governance. ough biased toward the resource narcotra ckers buying community allegiance improvements o cials desired, PRIMED e ectively through resource distribution, the prospects of revitalized part of the urban infrastructure. Street genuine interdependence or a change in the city’s and housing upgrades were not, however, linked to treatment of the poor appeared distant. administrative overhauls. PRIMED ine ectively managed its partnerships, o ered tokenistic Although innate, agencies “vary dramatically from opportunities for community agency and failed one social world to another depending on the to coalesce diverse political interests around its nature of the particular structures that inform those progressive objectives. social worlds” (Sewell, 1992, 20-21). e extreme realities of this “positioning” are evident in this e era proved to be a moment of transition for period of Medellín’s history. Medellín’s negative Medellín, one in which a belief that structures could FIGURE 4.1: PROGRESSION OF GOVERNANCE IN MEDELLÍN Source: Author’s Analysis Exemplary Good Poor QUALITY OF GOVERNANCE Violence and PRIMED Social Urbanism Narcotra cking HISTORICAL PERIOD
KEY | Distributing Rules and Resources Achieving E ectiveness Enabling Agency Embedding Interdependence
be recursively organized was rekindled. Yet, “agency and through his progressive leadership, the city is not intentions, but capacities” (Giddens, 1984, underwent a “rebirth [that] is nothing short of 9). Without fully addressing ongoing violence; astonishing” (Fukuyama and Colby, 2011). More without widespread civic participation or long- than a decade of intellectual formation—no doubt term social organization; without safeguarding legal informed by the aspirations and shortcomings of changes with authoritative resources; and without PRIMED—unleashed social urbanism. Shared embedding interdependence through its ideals, ideals on the objective of and mechanisms PRIMED could not e ect lasting changes and was for poverty alleviation were the basis of good abandoned. PRIMED’s ultimate contribution, governance. ough projects were implicitly therefore, was to inspire a shi in structures of linked to the interests of the city’s managerial class, signi cation and legitimation; empathetic modes of Mayors Fajardo and Salazar have actualized their discourse and laws emerged to challenge exclusion commitment to e ective management, political and confront the illegitimacy of a culture of devolution and agency enablement. ine ciency, corruption and violence. Social urbanism is, in some ways, validation of Social Urbanism: Achievement versus structuration theory. Social urbanism represents Acknowledgement the fruition of the city’s rekindled faith in the Violence subsided during Mayor Fajardo’s term, recursive organization of structures—that structures
32 | VEYOM BAHL can, indeed, be changed. Medellín’s leadership, ine ciencies constrained the program’s potential. furthermore, believed that they, as political agents, Social urbanism was developed through intellectual could enact those changes; by building a progressive partnerships outside the state. However, those discourse, they could instantiate new structures of intellectuals’ ascension to the mayor’s o ce—where signi cation, domination and legitimation. Finally, they commanded political capital, authority and attaching both authoritative and allocative resources municipal nances—moved social urbanism from to their progressive visions allowed for structural philosophy to practice. changes that are producing meaningful impacts in the lives of the urban poor. Erik Swyngedouw has raised important criticisms of governance theory, particularly questioning how What remains to be seen, however, is: the extent representativeness, legitimacy and accountability to which social urbanism is packaged for captive are assured when the state devolves responsibility audiences without reference to context; the manner (2005). Medellín demonstrates, however, that in which social urbanism is executed moving state leadership need not be lost in the practice forward, as Medellín capitalizes on a boost in its of governance, but rather a decentralized, international brand; and, by contrast, the extent participatory and e ectively managed state is to which Medellín allows social urbanism to capable of upholding democratic principles through evolve to continue addressing its poverty. Social governance. e state is neither always powerful urbanism is approaching maturity—and receiving nor always the arbiter of good governance. Indeed, attention comparable to PRIMED in 1996. e much of why social urbanism has succeeded is city’s decisions now will determine whether, unlike that its leaders injected new life into a weak and PRIMED, this era meets its potential. unresponsive state. Nonetheless, progressive change—certainly of the magnitude that has been seen in Medellín—necessitates that the state be 4.2 LESSONS FROM A BROADER actively engaged in, if not leading, the e ort. PERSPECTIVE Viewing the three eras from a wider historical Second, Medellín’s trajectory highlights that perspective provides additional, broader insights interdependence is a critical component for into the nature of governance success and achieving good governance. While e ciency, Margaret Archer’s question on when structural agency and rule and resource distribution are, properties “throw their weight” behind constitution undoubtedly, important means and outcomes, the or reconstitution of society (1990, 83). ree level of interdependence fostered strongly inuences overarching conclusions emerge: the state is the strength of partnerships, the longevity of good a critical player, interdependence is a critical governance practice and the durability of its impact component and time is a critical factor for achieving in those other realms. Narcotra ckers battled good governance. distrust, and PRIMED struggled against political torpor. Social urbanism has succeeded, by contrast, First, the state has, undeniably, been the principal in large part, because it was implemented not just player in Medellín’s remarkable transformation. through policy, but through a political movement. Under the narcotra cking hegemony, emboldened Sergio Fajardo le o ce with a near-90 percent by neoliberal cutbacks of state authority, Medellín approval rating (Devlin, 2010, 1), having “managed demonstrated that “[w]hen the state exits the stage, to elicit a conceptual mental change” in Medellín so do responsive government and democracy” (Sergio Fajardo, quoted in Dávila, 2009, 53). (Pierre and Peters, 2000, 13). A weak state neither addressed the needs of its expanding urban e four analytical drivers of good governance do, population, nor pursued reforms to strengthen however, feed upon one another. Interdependence agency. PRIMED demonstrates, however, that state seeks to build trust and collaboration, including e ectiveness “is oen the outcome of the tug-of- with ordinary citizens. Genuine participation war between the role the state wants to play and and rule and resource distribution strengthen the role which the external environment allows interdependence, by instilling faith in the political it to play” (ibid., 26). ough democratic ideals process. E ective interventions, particularly emerged in PRIMED, clientelism and political those derived from people’s agency, similarly build
CONCLUSIONS | 33 trust. Good governance, in other words, breeds First, for social urbanism to e ectively represent good governance by setting in motion progressive needs, it must expand from its initial mandate for practices and con dence that rhetoric is backed with high-pro le infrastructure to all manner of projects meaningful action. that can e ect positive change in the lives of the urban poor. If participatory processes result in Finally, Medellín’s long, sometimes lethargic, communities envisioning improved health facilities, transformation is evidence that time is a critical for example, then social urbanism must be able to factor in achieving good governance. Part of why channel city resources to those ends, without relying PRIMED failed was that, following decades of exclusively on participatory budgeting. Expanding survivalist lifestyles, community agency simply the remit of social urbanism can also serve as an had not matured. With time, citizenship capacities essential check on those who may seek to capitalize have grown, and, by consequence, social urbanism on its visibility for city marketing ends. shows far greater potential for lasting change than its antecedent. e same can be said of the city’s Second, and closely related, social urbanism must capacity to deal with violence. Current escalations continue growing its community engagement and aside, with time, the city experimented, failed and participatory design practices. e imagining grew an understanding of how best to deal with workshops are an instrumental mechanism to and reintegrate insurgent actors. Suggesting that ensure agency, accountability and e ectiveness. time is necessary is not advocating for complacency. at participation in the planning stage is seen as Rather, the city’s long-term struggle has built a “consultative” rather than as “shared control” o ers transformation that, quite simply, could not have an obvious area for improvement. been achieved in a matter of months. ird, though social urbanism has instilled Time also o ers the city a repository of perspective. profound interdependence around political e historical realities of narcotra cking hegemony narratives, it must continue to grow its private are still present in the city’s psyche and inuence sector collaborations. e Overseas Development how people interact and how social urbanism Institute rightly highlights the need for stronger leaders conduct their a airs. In a 2008 campaign consumer demand and greater support for Cultura by the Love for Medellín Foundation (Fundación E to generate more sustainable economic impacts Amor Por Medellín), a man sings, “ e place where (Bateman, et al., 2011). I was born, and where I grew up with friends. e city for my children, where I live and work. Fourth, social urbanism owes its success, in part, Medellín, I grew with you. Your progress is for all” to a containment of violence between 2002 and (Fundación Amor Por Medellín, 2008). e sense of 2007. Since then, however, violence has escalated, history, of shared growth, serves as a rallying call for and Medellín is again the fourth most violent city Medellinenses to resist abandoning what has been in the world (Corrales, 2010). ough homicides built. With the bene t of hindsight, the current are still far below their 1991 high, current violence challenge is to anticipate future shortcomings and has diminished the use of public space, debilitated begin addressing them in their infancy. the social fabric and jeopardized community organization (Convivamos, 2010). Yet, the national and local states’ responses have been “erratic” 4.3 PROSPECTS FOR MEDELLÍN AND (Corrales, 2010). Both the physical security of SOCIAL URBANISM Medellinenses and the hard-earned social and Medellín is “one of those cities that…leaped from political improvements of social urbanism depend infancy to decadence without ever having gone on a more concerted re-engagement by state through maturity” (Melguizo and Cronshaw, 2001, authorities. 113). While Medellín’s historical prominence gives the city a culture of con dence, it has had to Finally, social urbanism began as an “intellectual link its relatively immature capacities to its bold project” (Sergio Fajardo, quoted in Dávila, 2009, aspirations. From what is already understood of the 49). e intellectual exploration that initiated this philosophy and practice of social urbanism, at least transformation should not be lost as the movement ve strategies for improvement are clear: reaches maturity. Social urbanists must continue
34 | VEYOM BAHL to explore potential for new interventions and new partnerships in poor communities while building on the successes of those already implemented. Furthermore, with seven years of practice behind it, research is desperately needed on social urbanism’s wider impacts. How has housing infrastructure improved health and safety? How has civic infrastructure improved learning? How has transportation infrastructure improved economic opportunity? ese analyses should be carried out with sensitivity to the diversity of the city’s inhabitants, studying impacts on women and men, the elderly and young, the native and the migrant. Whether Medellín can nally close its chapters of illicit and unsuccessfully aspirational governance depends on these ndings.
CONCLUSIONS | 35
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