Territorios Emergentes
Pathways for community-based urban planning strategies in Cali, Colombia
I. Jaramillo Diaz (TU Delft - Architecture and the Built Environment)
C.E.L. Newton – Mentor (TU Delft - Spatial Planning and Strategy)
J. Subendran – Mentor (TU Delft - Urban Design)
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Abstract
In Colombia, the expansion of self-built neighbourhoods is driven by displacement, rapid urbanization, and entrenched structural inequality. In cities like Cali, self-built neighborhoods have become a critical response to the failure of formal housing systems, offering shelter to displaced communities, migrants, and the urban poor. Despite their longevity and contribution to the city’s social fabric, these neighborhoods remain largely excluded from urban policies, which favors a limited set of communities based on legal and technical criteria. This exclusion reflects a broader capitalist planning paradigm that prioritizes economic interests over social and territorial justice.
Yet in the absence of institutional support, residents of self-built neighborhoods continue to construct and care for their territories through collective organization, resilience, and shared values. Practices rooted in solidarity, care, and autonomy give rise to alternative forms of urban life that challenge dominant planning models. This research analyzes the trajectories of self-built neighborhoods in Cali to identify both the structural barriers that must be transformed and the territorial values that can guide more just, community-driven forms of urban planning. It argues for a redefinition of planning and design practices grounded in the social production of habitat and the right to the city, from below and with dignity.