Medellín: A city of Crossroads. Poverty, City Model and Social Change in the Green Belt Project

Medellín has been carrying for years a set of problems that have prevented it from drawing a clear vision of the future, a vision that would allow it to appear in the world for more than drug trafficking and prostitution. However, the actions of Medellín and many of its inhabitants have been directed at present to obtain better material conditions that facilitate the lives of its inhabitants, which continue to be subjected to scandalous rates of poverty, marginality and violence, due to the weakness of the state in broad territorial zones. Despite this difficult panorama, the city has made profound efforts that, although limited, have improved the perspective with which Medellín has been observed, today it is thus considered an example of urban and social transformation within Latin America. In this way, megaprojects such as the Green Belt, the Circumvallation Garden, among others, serve to begin to overcome those years of extreme violence and delegitimization
of the state that have allowed the expansion of the city towards areas of high risk for human life and environment.