Grassroots Places in Informal Communities in Medellin-Colombia, a Place-based Model

Following a catastrophic landslide in 1987, Colombia’s informal community Villatina (Medellin) has undergone severe changes, in which inhabitants have reshaped its built-environment through ‘bottom-up’ processes of reconstruction. This has led to the creation of several grassroots places that have formed the urban spaces centred within the community. However, the introduction of a new ‘top-down’ model of development (social urbanism) applied in urban slums by the local government, has halted community actions and the development of future grassroots places. In an initial study with local leaders and community members, self-assessed surveys, focus groups and interviews were used to identify and categorize, six ‘bottom-up’ places derived from grassroots actions and six ‘top-down’ developments driven by governmental interventions, which were characterised by their general levels of importance in the community. To understand the differences in place attachment and social experience between ‘bottom-up’ and ‘top-down’ places, a questionnaire featuring several items relating to these aspects were distributed to 150 members of the community. Evaluations for each item were repeated for each of the two place categories and statistical analysis was performed using a variant model of the principal component analysis (e.g., the repertory-grid technique). When comparing the results for places derived from ‘bottom-up’ and ‘top-down’ developments, it was found that, the underlying factors identified in grassroots places were strongly aligned with territory protection, community action and place attachment, which were absent for government places. This suggests that, ‘top-down’ developments may need to review the interventions used in urban slums to avoid disrupting grassroots actions