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作者

John J. Betancur Peter Brand

来源

URBAN AFFAIRS REVIEW,Vol.59,Issue1,P.

语言

英文

关键字

作者单位

摘要

IntroductionIn the mid-1980s the activities of Pablo Escobar and the Medellin Cartel led to the city of Medellin, Colombia being branded the “cocaine and murder capital of the world” (Borrell 1988). Just two decades later, the 2008 General Assembly of the Organization of American States was held in Medellin in recognition of the city's recovery and set up an observatory to monitor and promote internationally what it called the “Medellin model” (Alcaldía de Medellín/BID 2009; Echeverri and Orsini 2010; Architectural Review 2011). Named in 2013 the World's Most Innovative City (BBC 2013) and selected as host for the World Urban Forum in 2014, Medellin's transformation was portrayed by the Urban Land Institute as “one of the most remarkable turnarounds in modern history” and by Next City, Inspiring Better Cities as “Latin America's new superstar” (Scruggs 2014).At the core of this shift was an award-winning paradigm of “good governance” implemented by two successive administrations over the period 2004–2011. Their formal platform called for transparency, fiscal discipline and citizen participation with a substantive emphasis adapted to the city's particular challenges relating to education, culture, entrepreneurship, inclusion, and peaceful coexistence. However, its most celebrated program, “social urbanism,” consisted of a set of strategic and highly publicized interventions in the poorest sectors of the city, including a cable-car system, park-libraries designed by prominent architects, “integral urban projects” (PUIs) consisting of multiple, simultaneous programs of transport, landscaping, street lighting, environmentally friendly interventions, cultural centers, new schools and a low-income electric stairway. Publicized as a new “social contract” between the city and its low-income communities (Alcaldía de Medellin/BID op. cit.; Urbam 2015) social urbanism received the full attention of the international media covering repeatedly “Medellin's miracle.” Although widely praised and honored, some critics referred to it as “half a miracle” (Fukuyama and Colby 2011) and a façade for the city's financialized narco-capitalism (Hylton 2010; Franz 2017) while others pointed to its limited transformative effects, a mere case of successful city branding (Maclean 2015) or the absorption of the city in the global circles of capital.Now that the dust has settled and global attention has turned to other matters, we decided to revisit the city's governance practices. Medellin's now waning celebrity status coincides with a wider recognition of the limits of conventional “good governance” to resolve underlying social problems of cities and the legitimacy crisis of local government. Crucially, our case study approach enabled us to go beyond the procedural dimension of governance and focus on the question of context, or the particular conditions within which a celebrated governance project emerged; and thereby to incorporate key actors usually excluded from governance analysis due to their illegitimate status (such as, militias and paramilitary groups, drug mafias and other criminal organizations). Along these lines, this research suggests that Medellin's governance arrangement rested on the often-tense coexistence of highly unequal forces and questionable partnerships and coalitions. We could address the conflicts and tactics behind temporary alliances as opposed to lasting consensus and trace the co-existence and variable fortunes of contending forces behind the spectacle of signature programs and city branding - all of which resulted in the cooptation of civil society, “institutionalized violence,” a reinvigorated neoliberal agenda and the consolidation of corporate power. Although it adopted the language of white papers rather than a socially engineered miracle, Medellin's governance arrangement was shaped by the actors and circumstances of the times and facilitated by the agreement of criminal forces in cahoots with national government to “pacify” the city.Starting with a discussion of the polysemic nature of the term governance, this paper goes on to review both the rhetoric and practice of governance and describe our method of inquiry. Next, it develops a brief outline of the structural and historical context of the Medellin experience and discusses each of the major components of the governance arrangement, to conclude with general findings and wider connotations/implications.