Development of cities, the right to the city, and governance, as exemplified by Villavicencio, Colombia
Development of cities, the right to the city, and governance, as exemplified by Villavicencio, Colombia

Author(s): Mirosława Czerny
Subject(s): Environmental Geography, Human Ecology, Environmental interactions
Published by: Wydawnictwa Uniwersytetu Warszawskiego
Keywords: governance; marginalised districts and quarters of cities; Villavicencio; Colombia; spatial planning; physical development; rights of ownership of plots in cities; legal title
Summary/Abstract: In the fragmented, socially and spatially polarised cities of Latin America, there is an expectation that local authorities will engage in good governance – and appropriately distribute public services – and consequently improve the living conditions of all inhabitants, especially those in the poorest social strata. But it is the poor, marginalised districts marred by chronic underinvestment that in fact dominate urban space, which results in tangible disparities in levels of access to municipal services in certain areas. Equally, institutions responsible for planning had long failed to take account of the needs of inhabitants in poor districts, focusing their efforts rather on large new developments involving roads and power supply. This state of affairs was maintained and even entrenched by weak public participation. It only started to change for the better in the 2010s, as bottom-up initiatives began to emerge to promote change in large housing estates. Villavicencio, Colombia, can be taken as an example of cities in which influxes of migrants have engendered a rapid increase in population, to the point at which inadequate development of infrastructure started to generate many major problems. That said, the inclusion of local communities in the governance process can now be obeserved to be yielding steady improvements in the situation at hand.

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