ABSTRACT
For the past twenty-five years, the city of Bogotá, Colombia, has labored to overcome its dystopian image as the world drug capital. Prior to this effort, the city environment was so hostile that residents were used to negotiating life only in their own self-interest. Throughout the 1990s and 2000s the city combatted this individualism by re-imagining public space as an educational ground for citizen interaction and learning. Civic administrations sought to integrate dispersed territories within the city, humanize public space and encourage socio-economic integration. Establishing orderly spaces was paramount to the success of these strategies to reinvent public space and citizenship. In support of this effort, citizens’ right to public space was codified into the 1991 Colombian Constitution, and urban interventions in Bogotá’s public spaces focused on improving equity of access. While officials focused diligently on expanding access to the city, they also created programs to scrutinize and direct behavior in public spaces.
