Form and function in ecologizing spatial planning: learnings from Bogotá, Colombia

Abstract

We explore the emergence of ecological concerns in urban planning in Bogotá, Colombia. Although ecologizing urban planning practices has been a recurrent theme in Bogotá for around three decades, the sustainability problems the city is facing remain addressed in a rather abstract way. We analyze urban and spatial planning by triangulating data from interviews with local stakeholders, a close reading of policy documents, and participant observations. Our examination of the evolving idea of urban nature revealed how ecological considerations circulating in the urban planning processes form the core of the idea of nature in the city. However, this approach has been more focused on form than content, subordinating social-ecological processes and ecosystem functions to the profit-driven and spatially discrete development of urban space. Moving beyond the implementation-failure approach, a more radical rethinking and reworking of planning is needed, incorporating new democratic practices in which the history and paths of situated urban ecologies can be traced, identified, and even mapped.