ABSTRACT

This chapter examines the dual role of colonialism and globalization in shaping the fortunes of Medellin and Bogota, the two leading cities in Colombia. It provides an historical approach to developments, connecting the rebirth of Medellin and Bogota to the history of drug trafficking in the 1980s, and also to earlier developments in the colonial era. The Cauca has three of the largest urban centers in Colombia, and two of the wealthiest cities in the country: Cali, Medellin and Barranquilla, close to Santa Marta, a port city that had been a fort built to defend the gold shipping industry to Spain. The Spanish conquistadores and the Crown came to see their empire in Latin America as a network of cities, cities that were both political acts and nodes in a network through which alone power circulated. While the cities enjoyed peace and growth, especially Medellin and Bogota, the rest of the country suffered a violent process of re-structuring.