El papel de la cultura y el urbanismo social en la transformación urbano-social de Medellínsu festival internacional de poesía

Abstract

Colombia is a country that opens to the world with a renewed, positive reality after decades of having suffered from political-armed conflicts and violence from criminal groups. Even before the country’s transformation, other intermediate territories —cities and regions— had already taken significant steps towards territorial change and marketing. Medellin is a Colombian city that has experimented a remarkable urban and social transformation in terms of management and promotion during the last decade, investing in culture, education, social infrastructures and transport as drivers to improve its image. During the 1980s and early 1990s, the violence of the Medellín Cartel wreaked havoc on Colombia’s second city. However, at the beginning of the present century, the public local government city council and the state of Antioquia, and private stakeholders such as leading business grups, and also small local civic society associations embarked on a strategy to transform the city that a decade later has borne fruit, repositioning the image of Medellín very positively. Along with Cali, the capitals of the states of Antioch and of the Cauca Valley respectively, they suffered from the violence of drug trafficking with signs that showed the names of each city, negatively affecting their reality and image for a long time. Although the reality of Medellin had already changed during the mid-90’s, the image of the city was still dragged along with the negative image of violence. Because of this, integral governance and branding was key in helping the exterior perception evolve toward a more positive image. Due to this transformation, in 2016, Medellin received the Lee Kuan Yew Award, an award that is considered to be the Nobel Prize of Urbanism, which is awarded biannually by the Urban Redevelopment Authority Singapore and the Centre for Liveable Cities to promote urban innovation and sustainable development. «The key for its transformation is a daring and visionary leadership, as well as social and urban innovation. The chosen leaders showed strong political will and commitment to good government, citizen participation and equal opportunities for all citizens. Despite having limited resources, they creative and unconventional approaches were taken to deal with difficult problems. Medellin focused on education and culture to achieve changes on a smaller, but efficient, scale; with high impact urban projects that have transformed their communities and the city in a short space of time». At present, the city is witnessing a wave of new cultural revitalization, and literature events such the annual Medellin Poetry Festival, which debates and divulges poetic and expressive tendencies, of international scope with several world languages, and is carried out in theatres and auditoriums, some of these open air, and several parks in neighborhoods of the metropolitan areas around the city. The festival has also won a Spanish literary award for its contribution to peace.