Who is against who in the eastern hills of Bogotá? The local perspective from the neighborhood of la Cecilia

Abstract

This paper addresses the environmental, legal and housing disputes that converge in the environmental reserve located at the Cerros Orientales (eastern hills) of Bogota. The socio-urban logic of the city -linked to pirate developments and invasion-, the migration flows -emphasized by the armed conflict- and the lack of definition of a clear public policy for the last 30 years, has led to a conflict between residents, civil environmental protection organizations, private companies and public institutions in which almost only specific judgments have interceded. This paper duly reflects -through secondary sources- those considered main government initiatives and actions implemented with a top-down approach and it investigates -through primary sources collected in the neighborhood La Cecilia- the bottom-up community action initiatives and territorial perceptions, looking into the sterile dialogue processes between these two ways of making a city.