An inside look at Bogotá’s urban renewal from broad urban stories to everyday tales

Abstract

The Colombian capital has become recently a model of urban development thanks to a successful process of urban renewal that fostered the insertion of the city in the international scene. In order to understand the complexity of Bogotá’s transformation, it is essential to examine the objective causes that have determined the changes and the discourses that have shaped it. An analysis of the most important facts of Bogotá’s transformation, of the image of the city promoted by the discourses of the experts and of the narratives created by the residents, permits to better understand the process globally. In addition, confronted with the observation of new emerging dynamics in renovated areas, this body of knowledge permits to recognize situated controversies and bring out certain lessons about urban project management that can be learned from the case of Bogotá.