The Case of Medellin: How to start comprehensive urban projects

Comprehensive urban projects (CUP) seek improvements in the life conditions of the inhabitants of informal settlements. These plans simultaneously incorporate all the elements of development through infrastructure works with the highest quality standards, and with an essential ingredient to guarantee their sustainability: community participation.  

The study Inclusion de habitantes en la ciudadania plena. Experiencias de desarrollo urbano e inclusion social en America Latina (CAF, 2013) (Inclusion of inhabitants into full citizenship. Experiences in urban development and social inclusion in Latin America), highlights that the CUP is an unprecedented intervention model for urban transformation processes that were first implemented in the Northeastern area of the city of Medellin, in Colombia, in 2004.  From this premise, the continuity of the CUP Commune 13 was established, jointly with the execution of the East-Center and Northwestern CUPs to cover the most vulnerable areas of Medellin, according to the studies of the Human Development Index. The goal was to benefit 632,981 individuals. 

The project was implemented under three guidelines or axis described below, that go through the whole process: 

Physical intervention: adapt the public space through the improvement of streets and construction of parks and squares, public libraries, bus warehouses, police stations, educational centers, school cafeterias, health centers, and sports facilities. Promote pedestrian mobility with pedestrian and vehicular bridges. Mitigate the erosion of the environment, construct systems for the collection and treatment of residual waters, and relocate housing located in areas of high hydrological risk.

Inter-institutional coordination: promote adequate State interventions, starting with a municipal executive committee, working tables with public, private, and academic entities, and management for the participation of national entities and international cooperation agents. 

Social management: Strengthen community organizations through training for leaders and project monitoring and evaluation. Promote housing programs through the regularization, legalization, improvement, and construction of mixed buildings, border housing, and housing within city blocks and on terraces.