A construção estratégica e participativa do direito à cidade - desenvolvimento urbano e gestão do risco em Medellín e o Vale de Aburrá

Abstract

At the end of the decade from 2010 to 2020, the accumulation in the air of dangerous particulate matter (PM) in the Aburrá valley has become a problem for the environment, the built-up area and the public health of the inhabitants of this metropolitan area. In this sense, the object of this doctoral thesis is to study the environmental threat posed by the increase in air pollution in the Aburrá valley, especially in the city of Medellín at the end of this decade. Thus, the analysis begins with the construction of the fundamental category that allows establishing the theoretical framework, that is, the right to the city, considering concepts such as urban space, citizenship rights, public policies, as well as the notion of risk, from which the Aburrá valley is defined as an urban risk society. On this basis, two processes that were developed almost simultaneously in the directly related territories are analyzed. The first hypothesis is that the city of Medellín began a two-stage urban development process: The first being the strategic and participatory planning during the 1990s; the second being the strategic and participatory management between 2001 and 2015. Thus, the second hypothesis is that a risk management process related to air pollution was simultaneously developed in the Aburrá valley and it was divided into two stages, too. The strategic air quality management from 1994 to 2011, and the strategic and participatory air quality management in the decade from 2010 to 2020. Data analysis was done through materialistic dialectics based on the definition of three periods: 1990-2000, 2001-2015 and the end of the decade from 2010-2020. Different methodologies were used, such as documentary analysis in each period of the thematic oral history, developed by means of interviews with subjects that were part of the State or of the organized society; and bibliographical analysis to construct the context of the research locus, as well as the theoretical framework. The main results point to the relationship between the two processes studied: The production process of public policies in the urban development of Medellín and the risk management of the Aburrá valley; and the construction of the right to the city from strategic and participatory perspectives. Through the strengthening of the different State institutions, this relationship is expressed as a transformation of the political culture of the inhabitants of the metropolitan area.