"Threads and Levels”. Historical process of the institutionalization of urban land management in Pereira 1871-1946

Abstract

This paper delves into the institutional history of the public administration of Pereira, an intermediate Colombian city, by following the creation of institutions related to regulation and control in its expansion process. To fulfill this purpose, a descriptive methodology was applied to documentation from the Municipal Historical Archive of Pereira (AHMP), especially that which corresponds to the "Old Municipal Council Fund" and the series of "Sanctioned Agreements", thus rescuing historical sources that are relevant to understand the strategies implemented to control the urban expansion process. As a result, it was possible to identify that the urban institutional evolution of Pereira went from inspection processes to territorial intervention processes. In this sense, officials in the 19th century performed "inspection" functions, but from the second decade of the 20th century, municipal officials intervened directly in the territory through public works and expansion planning with the application of technical instruments such as statistical surveys and plans. The periodization of time was established between the first institutionalization processes that took place in 1871, until the creation of the Secretariat of Public Works in 1946, prior to the application of more sophisticated planning exercises such as the office of the Regulatory Plan that had as its objective the application of a "Pilot Plan" for Pereira. Finally, the paper is considered a contribution to the urban history of Pereira because the historiography of the city had not used this type of sources, thus opening a vein of work for other research on the city and its history. Likewise, it serves as a reference for studies of other intermediate Colombian and Latin American cities that have similar documentary sources.