Socially Mindful Urban Development in Medellín

This morning at the UPB's Political Science faculty, I attended a fascinating presentation by Christopher Hale, Regional Coordinator at the Organization of American States' regional office in Medellín, and a graduate of none other than--you guessed it--my number one grad program choice, the Foreign Service School and Center for Latin American Studies at Georgetown. I am so happy to have met another likeminded resource and potential adviser. Because two of Christopher's specialization areas are in urban renewal and tracking violent crime in Colombia, I asked him if he might advise my supplementary research project on urban development in Medellín. The result? He's tipped me off about what might just become the most useful document I read during all of my time in Colombia, "Medellín: Transformation of a City." The paper is authored by Christopher's thesis adviser, dutchman Gerard Martin, Georgetown professor and Inter-American Development Bank consultant. What on earth could be a more perfect Monday morning discovery for Sol?

For those of you who read Spanish, the free download for this wonderful report, available as a PDF, can be located here: http://aprendiendo.igc.org.ar/urbanismo-social.pdf

The official IDB-sponsored page for the work can be viewed here: http://www.laboratoriomedellin.com/

I am pumped and hope this will pave the way for some productive findings, relevant for my work in Latin American development, ahead. I hope you, too, enjoy learning more about Medellín's urban revival efforts!