Introduction

Today we see trends of urbanisation across the globe with predictions that by the year 2050 more than two thirds of the world’s population will live in urban areas (Ritchie. H & Roser. M, 2019). This is particularly the case in developing countries such as Colombia and is driven by factors such as increasing economic opportunity, access to healthcare and better education. In 2000 the population of Medellín was 2,733,00 by 2018 it had grown to 3,934,00 an increase of 1.2 million under 20 years. (macrotrends, 2019) This trend is set to continue with projections of 4,488,0000 by the year 2035 (macrotrends, 2019) which will only further increase the pressure to provide sufficient infrastructure to accommodate the population.

Located in the Aburra Valley, a central region of the Andes mountains, Medellín is the second largest city in Colombia after Bogota, with nearly 4 million inhabitants. (Population Stat, 2019.) The city is situated in the north of the Los Andes mountain ridge, one of the most topographically broken places in Colombia. The city centre is in the valley, with a number of barrios on the hills that surround it (Centre for Public Impact (CPI), 2016).

Medellín is a growing city experiencing rapid urbanization. The huge influx of people meant that the government was not able to create suitable housing for the vast amount of people migrating to the city (Blanco, 2009). This caused people to live in unsuitable housing on the outskirts of Medellín, because they could simply not afford to move to the city centre.

Figure2: Diagram of Medellin. Author.

Informal settlements City centre River (Cauca) Medellin outline

Figure3 : Medellin in the 1970 less dense outskirts. (universidad nacional de colmbia, 2011)

Figure4 : Medellin in 2005 densely populated outskirts. (universidad nacional de colmbia, 2011)

The growth of the city

This is evident when comparing historic maps of Medellín to current maps of the city. Figures 3 & 4 depict the evolution of Medellín between the years of 1970 to 2005. The maps describe the growth that the city experienced, and the dense regions formed around the city’s edges due to the swelling population.

The topography of Medellín made it challenging to integrate the new migrants into the thriving city centre, making them increasingly isolated from jobs and educational opportunities. This created wider problems for the city that became ever more violent. The people that once came to Medellín hoping for a better life often found; tight housing with no sanitations, unsafe landscape, no connections to electricity or waste disposals and even less employment and schools nearby (Blanco, 2009). A further issue in Medellín is criminality. Theft, violence, drug trafficking and murder are omnipresent and are especially common in urban areas. Apart from poverty and criminality, Medellín also struggles from major environmental challenges such as air pollution caused by emissions from their current modes of transport for example old cars and buses.

The implementation of the MetroCable was the governments solution to the crisis the city was facing. The project phased in new metrocable lines, (Davila. J. D, 2014) followed by the development of park libraries and other local transport systems. The projects were focussed in the outer regions of the city (Davila. J. D, 2014) that had been deprived and left unattended by the government. The most dangerous neighbourhoods have been developed to improve safety and rejuvenate the sense of community. These developments were also directed around the better education and improvement of job opportunities. By implementing such a number of developments around the city, the whole socioeconomic stance of Medellín has improved (Davila. J. D, 2014).