City Development, Natural Resources and Human Impact: The Case of Medellin, Colombia
- 1 Department of Geology, Universidad EAFIT, Medellin, Colombia
Abstract
Medellin is a 3.5 M inhabitant city located in an Andean valley in northwestern Colombia. Its initial prosperity was due to agriculture and cattle - raising carried out in the valley itself and sold to the surrounding gold mining fields. The investment of these monies in coffee plantations and industry boosted the city development , accelerated urban growth , and since the middle of twentieth century , relegated food production to surrounding regions, which are also responsible for almost the totality of natural resource supply: water, electricity, food, building and industrial raw materials. Among the problems which will have to be solved in order to reach a sustainable development are relocation of population living in areas exposed to natural risks, improvement of road communications with surrounding regions and of internal public transportation and pollution control.
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