Medellín once made headlines for its civil wars, rampant poverty, and unmitigated violence. Now it’s an exemplar of Smart Cities, and the recipient of many recognitions and awards.
“The most violent city in the world.” It’s an epithet that no metropolis wants, yet Medellín, Columbia—the country’s second largest city, situated next to the beautiful Andes Mountains—had every reason to be given that title in its recent past. In 1993, the city saw over five thousand homicides. (To put that number into some kind of perspective, the city of Chicago, which witnessed a particularly violent year in 2021, recorded 797.)
But those days are no more. Medellín’s homicide rates have fallen precipitously; in 2015 there were 173. It’s a drastic contrast from the grizzly, blood-soaked streets of the 1980s and 90s, when violence was practically imbued in the city’s DNA and Pablo Escobar ran his international drug cartel. The astounding drop in homicides is part of a larger transformation of the city, including transportation, access to services, and more.
How did this spectacular turnaround happen? And what can other cities, governments, and even everyday citizens take away from it?
These and related questions have received much attention in recent years, not just from urban researchers and those working in the smart city arena, but also from popular news publications. The stunning metamorphosis of this Latin American city —frequently described as “the Medellín Miracle”—is too hard to ignore.
Though Medellín’s revamp into a smart city offers some specific lessons, it also serves a relevant and seemingly much needed (at least for some) reminder about the true purpose of smart cities. The core idea behind smart cities is to leverage data and technology to make urban environments more efficient, safer, and conducive to a high quality of life for all its inhabitants.
It’s bewildering, then, to see the kinds of results that can sometimes happen from supposedly going after these laudable aims.
Hudson Yards, for example, has been described as a “billionaire’s playground,” a place designed for the richest of the rich. One prominent architecture critic put it bluntly: “It is, at heart, a supersized suburban-style office park, with a shopping mall and a quasi-gated condo community targeted at the 0.1 percent.”
So while some of the world’s most well off people may derive some enjoyment from it, what purpose does it actually serve? Does an average person living in the vicinity benefit from its existence in any meaningful way? One billionaire involved in the development of Hudson Yards has tried to argue that it does, though unconvincingly. (Contrary to Mr. Ross seems to think, however, the presence of a Shake Shack amidst Michellen Star restaurants and high-end boutiques does little )
Medellín is different. From the beginning, the people behind the city’s quest to reinvent itself were laser-focused on actually improving the lives of people—especially those living in the most dire conditions. It was people who came first; not technology, ideology, or glitz, and not the needs and desires of the upper crust, either.
A Newsweek article describes the characters behind the genesis of Medellín’s turnaround: “They were ordinary local residents invited by a coalition of government leaders, academic experts, civic organizers and corporate executives…The idea was to read, sit around and relax, and, most important, talk. The main topic of conversation: how to fix Medellín.”
At a time when Medellín was an absolute hotbed of chaos and violence, part of the Medellín miracle is surely the fact that this even happened. Even in the best of times, it’s quite rare for a diverse group of people to come together and participate in thoughtful, well-intended discussions that are genuinely centered around the common good.
Yet that’s exactly what happened, and the result is 21st century Medellín. It’s a city still weighed down by many problems (including poverty), but a city that has nonetheless significantly untethered itself from its wildly tumultuous past.
A Sampling of Medellín’s Success
Innovations in Transportion
A key staple to any smart city is safer, more efficient, and more accessible transportation. For Medellín, the introduction of the Metrocable changed everything. For thousands of people living in slums on the hillsides, this changed things in profound ways. Though the distance into the city is only not very far, getting there in the past was unsafe and time-consuming. Now, however, some of the most disadvantaged people can conveniently gain access to the city, all thanks to the gondola.
On the ground, major transformations have also taken place. Medellín’s Smart Mobility System (SIMM) manages a wide variety of operations: monitoring traffic and pollution, sending out emergency services in accidents, There are also hundreds of cameras to help combat and prevent crime.
A Library for the Downtrodden
Another component of the city’s impressive transformation has little to do with technology but instead a bold idea and the perseverance to make it happen. The result of that perseverance is the Spanish Library Park, which opened in 2007. An impressive area featuring three interconnected buildings, it offers all the services of a library as well as other amenities. What’s particularly notable about the library is its location in Santo Domingo Savio—historically one of the most violent and poorest areas of Medellín.
Why that location? Sergio Fajardo, one of the key figures behind the project, wanted to instill a sense of pride and dignity into the hearts and minds of people who had only ever experienced pain, poverty, and violence. As one article puts it, “The Parque Biblioteca España is a shining example of Fajardo’s progressive and idealistic approach to raising the quality of life in Medellín’s most troubled neighborhoods and is an essential part of his master plan for social development.”
Despite being a smart city, Medellín has been incredibly wise to remember that not all problems can be solved by technology (and even when a problem can be, it doesn’t mean it’s the best route). The ability to radically change people’s lives can just as easily come from the construction of a library in an underprivileged area than from a sophisticated smartphone app. The shiny bells and whistles of technology must not distract leaders, politicians, city planners, and others from carrying out the true purpose of smart cities: actually improving lives.
Robust Citizen Particpation
Another example of the city’s commitment to its citizens is MiMedellín, an online platform that fosters open and active participation from citizens. Ultimately, it provides a kind of empowerment, a way for people to voice concerns, have access to data and government accountability, and, in general, proactively participate in creating a better city.
Being Smart about “Smart Cities”
As with cities, we can collect an enormous amount of data about our individual health: the quality of our sleep, foot steps taken and calories burned. We can track and monitor a huge number of important things, and often with great precision.
But those same technological tools can also distract us and overwhelm us, and fail to produce meaningful changes. We have data and devices aplenty, yet the obesity rate in the United States has increased considerably over the last decade. This alarming trend hardly disproves the value of health and fitness apps, but it should serve as a sharp reminder that tech is not a be-all and end-all. As obvious as that may sound, the allure of new innovations can be incredibly strong. An abundance of caution is appropriate.
Indeed, smart cities are still largely in their infancy, especially in North America. We’ve seen some of the results. It’d be a shame if in the decades to come smart cities tended to look more like the vapid and ostentatious Hudson Yards than ones that actually produce meaningful changes in peoples’ lives.
To prevent smart cities becoming the vanity projects of the uber rich and powerful—among other undesirable outcomes—a high level of engagement and inquisitiveness is imperative. When the stirrings of a smart city project occur, the citizens must pose questions and demand transparency. This is especially the case when a powerful tech company offers a city its services, as with Google’s SideWalk Labs in Toronto, or Sprint in Kansas City. Many questions should be asked, and a high level of transparency should be demanded.
Smart cities have the potential to do both wonderful and horrible things. The way to increase the odds that the former happens far more often than the latter is for all citizens to be as active as possible. A relative few should not guide the evolution of these tech-infused phenomena that will influence millions of lives.
Cities are, and always should be, for everyone.
Spectatio 
You must be logged in to post a comment.