ABSTRACT
Capitalism produces uneven geographies within and between cities, countries and regions, generating environments of instability that require continuous interventions to keep them under control. This chapter provides Medellin’s crisis, bringing the forces of disassembling to the fore, and examines its apparent reassemblage. It discusses cities throughout the world, but particularly in the South, have the form of a collage of fragments in continuous re-composition held together by a combination of sheer force and image/hegemony. The chapter presents the dynamics of assemblage and disassemblage in the City of Medellin, Colombia, through the narratives of hegemonic and counter-hegemonic groups. Capitalism is a system of huge contradictions and value extraction that translate into ever growing levels of inequality and social conflict. The social alternative urban forum proclamation sets up an agenda to challenge the disruptions of capitalist urban development. While acknowledging the sources of ongoing disassemblage, their efforts at reassemblage include more bullets and symbols than actual efforts at redistribution and opportunity.
