The insostenibility of the urban development: the case of Santa Marta - Colombia

Abstract

Abstract With the current concept about Sustainable Urban Development, in which four kinds of sustainability (environmental, social, economical and urban-territorial) are integrated, is done an extensive revision to explain, why Santa Marta, Colombia, is an unsustainable city. Based on the secondary information and some primary sources, all the signs of unsustainable development are shown, in order to search their relations. Consequently, the systems with high non-sustainability signs, e.g. social or urban-planning, affecting the city development, are considered. The environmental part is studied deeper, due to the natural richness of its surrounding areas and the low integration of this richness in the development process. The last part outline three proposals to get in Santa Marta the sustainability conditions: improve its institutional capacity, increase the public participation process and strengthen the city-planning in the long term period.