The Rules of the Game and How to Change Them: Urban Planning Between Formal and Informal Practices. A Colombian Case Study

During the last several years a dynamic transformation has been taking place at the northern city fringe of Barranquilla, Colombia: shopping malls, gated communities and gated tower buildings have been built -- a process very similar to other Latin American cities. The aim of this article is to reveal the underlying planning approaches and explain the role and influence of the private and public actors involved. This work contributes to the discussion on formal and informal practices of urban development in the global South and shows the blurring borders between the 'formal' and the 'informal'. The main finding of the analysis is the coherence between the interests of the landowning company, the official land-use plan and the actually implemented projects. This coherence was achieved through the massive influence of private interests in public planning and a multitude of informal arrangements between the landowner and the public authorities. This form of urban planning is described as 'arranged urbanism' and stands in a tradition of similar forms of spatial development in Latin America. Nevertheless, forms of 'arranged urbanism' can also be found outside of the Latin American context.