The Right to the City: The Formation of Resistance against Resettlement Policies in the Ecobarrio of Manantial and Triángulo Alto in Bogotá, Colombia

This paper explores grassroots movements’ claims to the right to the city in the Ecobarrio of Manantial and Triángulo Alto in southeast Bogotá, Colombia, through the lens of global history. Since the early twentieth century, Bogotá’s urban growth has been driven by private rights and profits through land speculation rather than centralized planning for urbanization. Together with vulnerabilities created by violent conflicts, shanty towns—neighborhoods with neither public services nor basic urban infrastructure—were built in areas of high risk of landslides and flooding. The Colombian government has acted upon this issue through resettlement policies, which have used risk as a principal technique of urban governance. The community in the Ecobarrio challenged these policies by reshaping the institutional program of an Ecobarrio so that it could contribute to mitigate risk for long-term habitability. This paper highlights the importance of grassroots movements in shaping urban development and challenging traditional forms of governance.