The pedagogical city: How Bogota, Colombia, is reshaping the role of public space

Since 1988, when the mayoral office of Bogota, Colombia, changed from an appointed to an elected position, the city and its politicians have gained new impetus and greater responsibility for meeting the demands of a growing population hungry for a better city. In this time, Bogota has undergone a physical and social transformation, becoming an internationally recognized model of city redevelopment.This study hypothesized that connections in Bogota between the physical (re)making of the city and desired social changes were leading to a revalorization of public space. The line of reasoning proposed by City Hall during the period studied (1995--2003) suggested two different focal points on public space. The first was that hostile interactions between residents needed to be fundamentally transformed for Bogota and its citizens to survive and come together as a civil society these interactions were seen as occurring in public space. The second was that public space was the ideal site to increase equality among Bogota's highly stratified socioeconomic classes.Accordingly, the methodology of the study came to be concerned with investigating three questions. First, how public space is defined in Bogota and why was it chosen as the site, or crucible, for where Bogota's desires for change should play out. Second, how public space transformed and to what effect. Third, how public space could influence the remaking of social and cultural norms. The investigation utilized multiple sources of information, including physical observation, content analysis, interviews with the mayors and city officials, and a survey with users of the public spaces from all social strata.The study found that in Bogota, where recent mayors have run independently and successfully of political parties, the need to demonstrate credibility locally and globally lent power to planning and especially to visible projects. These projects depended on borrowed models of development and design. As local experts deployed global best practices, they moved from a "borrowed urbanism" to a "transformative urbanism." Through this, a new typology of public space has emerged in Bogota that responds to mayoral goals.Public spaces in Bogota serve as direct expressions of social power because they are extremely visible, communicative vehicles of local government power, and because they are used as the exclusive sites for (re)shaping citizen relations and expectations. Bogota has become the "pedagogical city" because the primary methods for reaching citizens in order to change them have occurred through the city's public spaces. Educational programs and public spaces designed for educational citizen encounters have gone hand-in-hand to (re)create the city. This study provides a first-ever account of Bogota's transformation via public space.