Latin America & Caribbean » Colombia
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Presentacion Atlas Urbano Colombia |
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| Un análisis realizado por Solly Angel, Nicolas Galarza et al. (New York University) de la estructura urban de 109 municipios de Colombia de los 1100 existentes, y comparando los resultados con el Atlas urbano mundial realizado para 200 de los 4230 existentes con mas de 100.000 habitantes.
Los aspectos analizados son Población, Huella urbana, Densidad, Saturación, Compacidad y Morfología viaria. |
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Bogota and Cundinamarca integration UNCRD RDD Vol 34 |
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| As the author does state Bogota and its metropolitan region, the Sabana, is one of the five most important metropolises in Latin America. The economies of Brazil and Mexico or Argentina are in the range of 8 to 4 times larger respectively than that Colombia. That makes Sao Paolo/Rio, DF and Buenos Aires the four most important cities. Benefiting from a location advantage Bogota has a good strategic position to serve as a hub for the South American continent from USA and Europe, albeit the sea level’s height being a burden for aviation.
Its strategic continental position makes of Bogota a potentially thriving metropolis. Governance and social consensus have made difficult to implement the right policies to achieve competiveness, equity and sustainability. Governance and coordination between un-hierarchical local and regional Governments, Bogotá and Cundinamarca, is the challenge Bogota has been struggling with for at least the last 15 years. |
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Buenaventura gatekeeper of the Pacific Rim |
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| Buenaventura is the gateway of Colombia to the Pacific Rim. All shipping goods between Colombia and the USA west coast, or China, Japan, Chile, Peru and Central America go through Buenaventura Port.
The problem is that they just go through. No added value is provided by Buenaventura. It is not enough to be the Logistic gateway. The city cannot live only on the benefits of the Port, when port activities have a tendency to substitute labor by capital and heavy automated machinery. The Port is not any more, as it has been in the past the ‘cow’ on which Buenaventura could live out of milk, cheese and meat. The port is a ‘horse’ Buenaventura has to use for its benefit to bear the goods they are able to produce to those Pacific Rim markets… and beyond. Buenaventura has to build up on the added value chains of those products that go by and be able to pin down and root as many of those added value industrial processes that now take place elsewhere because of lack of entrepreneurial and technical skills from Buenaventura Social Capital. Social Capital and Human Resources is a major (software) task for the future. Infrastructures (hardware) can help but cannot substitute. A second strategy is to coordinate with the Cauca Valley and Medellin as the 4 million inhabitants of that area can add up to the international economic presence of the 300.000 population weight of Buenaventura. Multiplying by ten the population/production capacity is to the benefit of both, but mainly for Buenaventura, if they know how to make the best of the gatekeeper role they can play. |
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Hoja de ruta 2020-24 para Cuúcuta. |
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| Será Cúcuta capaz?
Los mandatos políticos en Colombia son muy cortos y no se pueden repetir consecutivamente. En consecuencia, la acción política tiene que ser inmediata para poder realizar proyectos estructurantes en la metrópolis, en la ciudad y en el Departamento. (Madrid fie capaz de realizar 100 kilómetros de metro subterráneo en 8 años porque se empezó a cavar desde el segundo mes de mandato con proyectos realizados por mandatos anteriores, que si no idóneos, eran realizables y moderadamente razonables.) Las administraciones entrantes no pueden esperar seis meses para implementar proyectos. Llevan uno y medio a fecha de este informe. Los proyectos deben estar integrados en unas visiones de conjunto que son las que los legitiman y muestran sus efectos estructurantes, sus sinergias entre ellos y los efectos multiplicadores sobre otros sectores económicos y sobre todo sobre el sector privado empresarial y familiar que son los que los necesitan y se benefician de ellos. Deben ser proyectos derivados de la Gobernanza (colaboración entre los sectores publico y privado) y de la racionalidad (versus clientelismos inmediatos). Para alcanzar esta coherencia nte visión y acción son necesarios planes participados entre todos los actores. Eso incrementa la inteligencia colectiva y las posibilidades de éxito en la implementación y generación del desarrollo subsecuente. |
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El Pacífico Colombiano: La Ecozonía |
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| La costa del Pacifico Colombiano corresponde a la falla tectónica del choque de los subcontinentes sur y norte del Continente Americano. Dicha característica geológica única ha producido un sistema fluvial paralelo a la costa y a la cordillera en lugar de la hidrología natural de ríos perpendiculares entre la línea de montan1a y de mar.
La conexión de los ríos Atrato y San Juan mediante un corto canal navegable de 30 km conectaría por vía fluvial el Atlántico y el Pacifico. Sueño de Ferdinand de Lesseps, si bien con menor capacidad de carga, pero a un coste infinitamente menor. La doble accesibilidad oceánica dota a esta región de un enorme potencial de cara a la comercialización de sus productos. El enorme valor ecológico de la zona requiere un tipo de producción que explote sin dañar esos recursos. Las investigaciones biotecnológicas que se están desarrollando en el entorno climático-ambiental de la Amazonía pueden tener un caldo de cultivo y una explotación científico-comercial en la ‘Ecozonía’: El Pacifico Colombiano y el Chocó. En cualquier caso la economía sumergida y la gobernanza sumergida (mafias) aparece cuando el Gobierno no sabe cumplir sus funciones. Es entonces cuando la sociedad busca alternativas. Con la firma del tratado de paz en el 2016 Colombia emprende un nuevo inicio. Si en el plazo de una año el Gobierno no ha tomado iniciativas, veremos resurgir la Gobernanza en la sombra. Y Chocó, incapaz de controlar su sombra, volverá al síndrome de Peter Pan y a la incapacidad de desarrollarse. |
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Síntesis Metrópolis Atlántico |
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| Integración de las propuestas Municipales
Los planos presentados en este documento son la integración de las aportaciones realizadas por los participantes en el taller de Inteligencia Estructural de la Metrópolis de Atlántico-Barranquilla, en el Caribe Colombiano. Los resultados no son estratégicos, son estructurales. Es decir, no establecen parámetros económicos sociales o institucionales a realizar por la metrópolis para posicionarse entre las grandes metrópolis del mundo. No era este el objetivo del organismo responsable. Lo que hace es, asumir que dichas estrategias ya han sido establecidas por un proceso de Inteligencia colectiva anterior y ahora lo que se hace es estructurar el territorio localizando las funciones en el territorio en la proporción y volumen establecidos por el proceso anterior. La resultante es un Plan Estructural Metropolitano de Ordenación Territorial realizado en una semana de taller por los diferentes responsables, representando los municipios que integran el Área. De esta forma se asegura una coordinación dialogada con los municipios que realizarán posteriormente sus Planes de Ordenación Territorial municipales (POT’s). Las instituciones regionales colombianas pueden tomar ejemplo de este proceso de integración Metropolitana en términos de resultados, tiempos y costes. Agradecemos a los participantes al taller su profesionalidad, esfuerzo, iniciativas, e inteligentes aportaciones. Esperamos que se apropien de estos resultados. |
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Santa Marta Metro-Matrix Snake |
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| Santa Marta is squeezed between a tropical glacier and the Sea of the Caraibes. The structure of the city fills up a foothill valley, but the urban expansion requires a different spatial approach to territorial management.
This is where the Metro-Matrix approach can provide a value-added that will move Santa Marta from the actual dead end to a new dimension of Caribean region integration and thus to an optimized position in an international economy both in the tourist services sector as the transformation industry. |
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Las enseñanzas del Atlas de Expansion Urbana |
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| El nuevo Atlas de Expansión Urbana de New York University (2016) cuyo autor es el Profesor Solly Angel, refuerzan palabra por palabra los análisis planteamientos y respuestas del Plan Metropolitano de Madrid de 1996, hace 20 años.
Veinte años después, pero con el respaldo de la cultura urbanística mundial que se escribe en Ingles, y no en español, el Plan de Madrid queda ratificado y muestra su utilidad para otros Planes que se estén realizando, o se vayan a realizar. Esta presentación en Colombia muestra estos resultados y enseñanzas The new Atlas of Urban Expansion produced by New York University (2016), authored by Professor Solly Angel, reinforces word for word the analyzes and responses of 1996 Madrid Metropolitan Plan, 20 years ago. Twenty years later, but with the support of the world’s urban culture that is written in English, not in Spanish, Madrid’s Plan is ratified and shows its usefulness to other Plans that are being carried out, or are going to be. This presentation in Colombia shows these results and lessons. |
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Estrategia de desarrollo territorial del Atlantico EDTA |
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| The Atlantic Department is the ocean gate of Colombia. Barranquilla, the capital of the department, is the intermodal (river-sea) port for export-import of goods for the country. This strategic position provided by its logistical assets allows for a backcountry development, which is currently greatly underused. The strategy for territorial development coordinates both the economic and social potential in a framework of infrastructure investments, accessibility and environmental protection and improvement. | |
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Metropolis Atlantico |
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| Barranquilla is growing fast. 10% of Labour force Commuting takes place all over the whole Atlantico Departement. The Atlantico Departement has become the Metropolis.
Atlantico has 3 very distinctive areas beyond the actual conurbated urban metastasis: The Sea Coastal area, The River Coastal area, and the Agricultural center/south. The three parallel areas have t transversally connected. The 2 orbital roads have been the result of professional inexpertise in the decision makers. Hopefully, the mistakes can be amended. The metropolitan expansion area has to be served by a commuting rail, urban centralities (TOD) and a residential plus productive development according to growth expectations and requirements for the next 30 years. This is the target of the Metropolitan Intelligence Workshop: The structural development, not strategic, of the immediately affected development area for the next 30 years. 400.000 dwellings and 250.000 industrial jobs must be compatible with the protection of the Green Infrastructure and the development of the Gray development and service provision. Here is the integrated framework. |
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Una posible vision de Pereira |
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| Pereira is an enclave city in a geographically tight but centrally located position. It has to make the best of the latter and be able to overcome the former. Pereira is locked into a narrow valley to the west of the Nevado peak and the cordillera, with difficult communications both north and south to its neighboring ‘sister’ cities of Manizales and Armenia. But with gentle slope access to the Cauca valley and the ‘Eje Cafetero’, the coffee axe. Pereira is, in the other hand, in a strategic position in the middle of the ‘Golden Triangle’ of Colombia between Bogota, Medellin and Cali. This is the epicenter of Colombian coffee production, the country’s main quality export good.
Pereira needs an ‘unlocking’ urban strategy, as presented in the paper, that will trigger the potentiality of the city towards the strategic valley of the Cauca, with full access to the national network system of the Bogota-Medellin-Cali highways. |
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UNCRD – INTA Panel report on the strategy for Caribe |
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| The need for a strategic approach to Caribbean Colombian development was addressed by the UNCRD and INTA in a common effort to produce a Panel and subsequent report in June 2010. The methodology of the Panel — with 80 interviews of relevant stakeholders and the coordinated synthesis of international experts — brought about the result of a report which provides a vision of needs and possibilities that have to be prioritized for the Caribbean socioeconomic future Development. | |
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Bogota, mas allá: Iconografía Territorial |
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| Bogota is exploding beyond its boundaries. The metropolitan phenomena has reached and affected the whole Cundinamarca Sabana. Both departmental administrations, Bogota and Cundinamarca, are looking for ways to coordinate each other. Inter-administrative coordination is difficult and often-conflicting competences are unresolved for years. As mentioned, and presented in another paper of this page, we must look at the institutional framework (1991 Constitution) as a potential instigator of these conflicts.
Bogota and Cundinamarca under the umbrella of the new ‘Regalías’ framework have decided to set up together the white paper upon which start a discussion: the precise knowledge of territorial phenomena to reduce the ideological confrontation and foster a rational discussion framework: The ODUR (Observatorio de la Dinámica Urbano-Regional) The ODUR coordinates and homogenizes the territorial data and information. It is a very important job that will provide the basis not only for Governmental decision-making but as well for the private sector to operate with a sound and comprehensive information for investments and entrepreneurial decisions. This relevant data needs means of communication not only to be available for territorial decision making of the Government specialist but for the public at large. Government will be serving the General Interest. These means of communication, when dealing with a territory are Analogical Maps, Diagrams and Schemes. This paper explores these potential alternatives looking at other world-class metropolises and approaching the need for a conceptual diagram and scheme for Bogota and Cundinamarca. |
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Reporte Panel Región Capital UNCRD-INTA |
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| In August 2010 a set of experts under the direction of UNCRD (United Nations Center for Regional Development) and INTA (International Urban Development Association) had a general look at Bogota and Cundinamarca general relationship and made some strategic proposals on how to set forward a metropolitan structure.
This is the comprehensive report that could have set up the basic structure to follow up by the Institutions. It is still time. |
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La Carta Para Región Capital |
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| The Balanced Urban Unit (BUD) is the basic urban unit* that compose the metropolitan structure. It is a template for the adequate location of urban functions within an urban structure. Centrality, residential, productive activities, social facilities, transport infrastructure and environmental networks are combined in an archetype to form a consistent and integrated ensemble.
The BUD is only the archetype. It has to be understood and adapted to each of the circumstances that determine the specificity of every particular urban unit. The flexibility of the system allows for that adaptation as it has been experienced in more than 50 cases. The BUD is the urban unit, the ‘tactic’ element (the brick) that has to be combined into the metropolitan ‘strategy’ (the architecture). To see how both should be articulated see the CT Methodology. * The BUD has its origin in the UDE (Unidad de Desarrollo Equilibrado) of Madrid Regional Plan of 1996. The straightforward application to more than 30 urban units in Madrid has, and still is, determining almost every one of the 90 Master Plans which have been approved in Madrid in the last 15 years. |
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Medellin en la cuerda floja |
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| Medellin has a very dramatic location. Enclosed in a north/south narrow valley the urban structure is clearly linear and has developed into a conurbation that extends to the consecutive valley municipalities and climbs high to the valley steep slopes beyond any rational pattern into a metastatic slum structure. Medellin has nevertheless adopted adequate urban policies and innovative approaches due to its very specific location and topography. Those solutions as TOD’s at the end of public cable cars lines are reference all over the world. Innovation continues in Medellin and collective intelligence (Governance social resources) is able to detect and implement outstanding proposals. Such as, four years ago, with the 3 Valley proposal included in this same webpage, introduced in the POT (Plan de Ordenación Territorial-Master Plan)
Surrounded by high mountains the metropolis takes place in three valleys. The Medellin one at 1.500 altitude, the Rio Negro, 20 km away, at 2.100 and the Santa Fe, 70 km, 550 high. Four years ago we proposed Medellin should look larger and expand beyond its enclosed valley. We proposed the 3Valleys Metropolitan project linking these valleys with a strong mass transport infrastructure: A commuter train. The municipality realized straight away the validity of the proposal and has incorporated it to the POT. This time the requirement was to look larger. To try to solve the extremely difficult supra-metropolitan topography and providing solutions to the single valley collapsed backbone of the river thoroughfare. The standard engineering ring road proposal failed, as the parallel sierra linearities would not allow. The bypass to the Northwest (Urabá port and the Atlantic/Pacific link) was quite clear along the Cauca Valley. The Northwest Passage from Cali, parallel to the Medellin Valley, was a difficult solution. It requires First world infrastructures. Highways with tunnels and viaducts as Latin America is not used, though long implemented in Europe and the USA. It is time for Medellin to leap ahead and enter the developed world showing the way to the continent. The link between La Pintada and Hatillo across the Rio Negro Valley plays the role of the string in the bow, in the Crossbow. The metropolitan bow is Medellin. The arrow is the Commuter train between Rio Negro and Santa Fe thorough the metropolitan enter. A bicephalous, or tricephalous, arrow pointed to the high demand markets of the USA, Europe and soon China. But any bow needs a bowstring. It doesn’t work without it. The bowstring is the Rio Negro Metropolitan Corridor between La Pintada and Hatillo. Economic developments, logistic and industrial, airport related as the Airport city would, will be promoted and fostered. Medellin will take a leap ahead into the next century, headfirst, in the finishing line. |
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Ordenacion Reticular del Territorio, Bogota 1998 - 2028 |
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| Bogota is located on a high plateau and benefits from a mild climate and an abundance of water provision. The linear structure of the cordillera against which Bogota is situated provides the main development axis of the metropolitan structure. The urban structure of Bogota has developed along this 30-degree north-south axis. The perpendicular axis gives directionality for the expansion of the metropolis towards its natural plateau plain.
The metropolitan region of Bogota expands along the Sabana Plateau, which is 40 km wide and 100 km long. The linear, though meandering, layout of the Bogota River, and the double ridge of hilly cordilleras in the plateau provide strong geographical features that have conditioned a reticular location of the urban settlements. The main developments of Bogota are following these features. The Metro proposal, the commuter train project along the historical lines which serve the main urban centers, the need for a future new airport and the development of a metropolitan highway system all follow this analysis made under the Ordenacion Reticular del Territorio (CT Method) approach in 1998. |
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Cundinamarca, a donde vamos? |
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| The Bogota-Cundinamarca metropolis does not have a deficit of strategic development direction. For 18 years already it knows what has to be done. The UNCRD project on the Mesa de Planificación, as other sources like the INTA/UNCRD report and diverse professional expertise (Pedro B. Ortiz 1998) have provided the direction for that development.
Now, 18 years later, 25 years after the 1991 Constitution, we can introduce a SIXTH one: The Institutional revision. As we have seen it is not the strategic vision and/or direction which is lacking in Bogota. It is the capacity of the Institutional framework to carry on those projects. For 18 years Bogotá-Cundinamarca have been struggling to develop these projects and little has been done. |
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Análisis Propositivo y Síntesis Operativa para el PEMOT |
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| El siguiente documento sintetiza el conjunto de discusiones mantenidas en los grupos de trabajo de análisis propositivo de la fase previa del PEMOT de Bucaramanga.
Hay que decir que en ningún caso es el PEMOT, puesto que las aportaciones aquí realizadas no tienen la contrastación y la consistencia suficiente para poder asumidas sin los análisis imprescindibles que las refrenden, tanto en su conjunto como en su especificidad. El PEMOT requiere un proceso técnico sectorial y territorial como se ha indicado en los informes metodológicos que son necesarios para desarrollar la estrategia |
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D4D Caribe Propositive Analysis |
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| The three main cities of Caribbean Colombia, Cartagena (1.4 m people), Barranquilla (1.8 m) and Santa Marta (1.2 m), 90 kilometers apart, have a development potential in achieving a coordination of the three economies into a single regional network. To that end, the regional commuter train proposed by the 2010 INTA Panel would serve both regional and urban objectives.
In local terms, the urban layout will provide the backbone of urban centralities connected through a mass public transport system for each of the cities that have reached the urban size that requires this type of service. In regional terms, the speedy link between the three cities would unify both the productive and labor markets, fostering an immediate growth of the regional GDP. The complementarity of the tourist supply and the common provision of services like airport provision will introduce Caribbean Colombia to a higher rank of the international market directly linked to North American and European demand. |
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Escalar Medellin |
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| Medellin is the second largest metropolis of Colombia and the main historical industrial city. Medellin is in a narrow valley, which has conditioned and limited capacity for expansion. The metropolitan growth of Medellin has taken place in the steep hills, providing inadequate conditions for the expanding, uncontrolled housing metastasis.
Medellin has to coordinate its territorial scales. It has to zoom out from the urban focus to the metropolitan one. This means producing an integrative policy beyond the Valley of Aburra into the neighboring valleys of Santa Fe and San Jeronimo, as well as Rio Negro. All such planning must take place in view of a Regional Antioquia strategy within the National Colombian context. The integration of the different scales of Medellin will allow it to expand the metropolitan structure beyond the current congestive framework and to unleash all the social and economic potential of Medellin’s entrepreneurial capacities. |
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Cartografia de Ordenacion Reticular del Territorio, Bogota 1998 - 2028 |
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| Cartography for Ordenacion Reticular del Territorio, Bogota 1998 - 2028 | |
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Cundinamarca, quo vadis? |
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| Cundinamarca Department in Colombia contains the metropolitan area of Bogota, though Bogota is not within the Department. This dual administrative structure has created many political difficulties since it was set up by the 1991 constitution. The metropolis, due to the limited competences of the Departments in Colombia upon municipalities, cannot respond with integrated policies to the needs of Bogota. Metastatic growth is the result.
Cundinamarca needs a metropolitan vision and a set of strategic projects that would make a difference and vertebrate its future achieving efficiency, equity and sustainability in a governance framework. This presentation provides both for the model as for the 6 main strategic projects required. Implementation is the critical path as these projects were obvious since 1997, 18 years ago, but 5 Administrative mandates, with 5 Governor, have been unable to start any of them. |
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Quo Vadis Bucaramanga |
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| El Área Metropolitana de Bucaramanga tiene ante sí retos importantes: Crecimientos explosivos, invasiones de terrenos inadecuados, congestión viaria, desequilibrios sociales en la accesibilidad a los equipamientos sociales y al mercado laboral, daños insostenibles al patrimonio medioambiental, entro otros muchos.
Estos retos, así como la necesidad de plantearse una estrategia económica de futuro que la posicione nacional e internacionalmente, son el objeto del Plan Integral de Desarrollo Metropolitano. Su traducción al territorio tangible será el Plan Metropolitano de Ordenación Territorial. Bucaramanga ha realizado ya el PIDM. Le falta por realizar el PMOT. Las opciones que tiene Bucaramanga son muchas. Unas buenas, otras malas. La peor es no hacer nada, retrasar indefinidamente la redacción del PMOT y dejar que el territorio sea invadido de una manera progresiva y anárquica, generando daños cuya reparación tienen un coste de 3 a 9 veces superior a los de una realización adecuada desde el comienzo. Este documento ha intentado marcar las direcciones que entiende correctas para la resolución de los retos, y la maximización de los beneficios sociales, económicos y medio ambientales. No es sino una aproximación estratégica que intenta establecer el marco de conjunto y algunos parámetros básicos. Estos tienen que ser refrendados por un análisis pormenorizado de mayor solidez. Sea cual sea esta pormenorización estamos convencidos que lo que hará es perfilar y calibrar con mayor precisión las direcciones estratégicas apuntadas. Esperamos y deseamos que este documento sea de utilidad a los planteamientos primigenios que realice el PMOT. En este espíritu ha sido redactado y en este espíritu de dialogo constructivo estamos también dispuestos a discutir cualquiera de sus planteamientos, y a matizarlos en el sentido más adecuado para el futuro de Bucaramanga. |
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Acupuntura Metropolitana en Colombia |
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| Presentation draft on Metropolitan acupuncture applied to Colombian metropolises: Bogota, Cundinamarca, Medellin, Antioquia, Caribe, Pereira, etc, etc, y Cauca y Cali.
Metropolitan structuring proposals , strategic projects as well as the Metropolitan Discipline elements that back them: Acupuncture, Governance, Components, Sectors, etc. |
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El territorio de la economia: Medellin |
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| Medellin must address growth needs beyond the Aburra Valley. It's the territory of the economy of Medellin that has to take a Metropolitan scale. The Aburra valley is not enough. The unsustainable metastasis growth of the slums climbing up the ridges of the Valley claims for that need.
The report, as an initiative of the legitimate concern of the Chamber of Commerce of Medellin, provides for a strategic vision of how the southern Valley of Rionegro and the northern one of Santa Fe and San Jeronimo should be integrated in a Metropolitan structure linked by mass public transport as a commuter train. It will reinforce the economic potential of Medellin as well as Antioquia and the valleys benefited. |
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