Marketing urbano, forma de gobierno neoliberal en la ciudad de Medellín

Abstract

The current social, economic, cultural and environmental crisis, made possible by the implementation of the neoliberal economic model, modifies the Government operational forms of action: from the welfare State to the managerial State. Given that the Government is the main player in the transformation of the socio-spatial dynamics of the territories, it is essential to reveal the nature, mechanisms and tools of the Government. Colombian cities are not alien to this global process, and under the neoliberal logic, the managerial State establishes governmental mechanisms such as the urban marketing, the profitability of the city through its image, the beautification, and the hyper-reality. During the years of application of the social urbanism policy and with the construction of the Medellin model – a concept taken from the Barcelona model as its main theoretical-practical referent–, urban marketing in Medellin has been used as a form of government, one that focuses its public investment on the transformation and creation of capitalizable values of the city, with the purpose of building a city image and a change in the collective consciousness in order to compete in the global cities market.