From open city to closed city? Socio-spatial configurations in the neighborhood of ‘El Poblado’, Medellín

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to contribute to the academic discussion about the reconfiguration of the borders and spatial distances in Medellin and its effects in the city’s social order, based on the study carried out in the area of El Poblado. On the one hand, we will approach to middle and high-class inhabitants’ discourse, in order to understand the symbolic construction of urban space and the city images that are currently emerging in this part of the city. On the other hand, we will study the impact of urban construction projects’ publicity and its implicit idea of “city”, which promote a very specific relation between the inhabitants of this area with the other places of the city, entailing different ways of life and social relationships. We are interested in understand how the idea and development of El Poblado as a new –or alternative– centrality and of housing development as the predominant type of housing, reinforce and codify the sense of social distinction that brings about spatial segregation towards those considered “the others”, external to the environment.