The mercantile expansion of the Medellín project: territorial implications for the San Nicolás Valley and Middle Cauca (Colombia)

Abstract

This article discusses the processes of territorial reconfiguration of areas near the Aburrá Valley as an effect of the expansion of the political-economic project centered in the city of Medellín. This city was configured as a center of gravity that altered the local trajectories of adjacent places, both because of the strength of the economic processes forged there, and because of the planning and in­tervention initiatives deployed to consolidate them. The result of the article is that a specific function­ality is implanted in each of the areas analyzed. The San Nicolás Valley is configured as a recipient of industry, supporting the expansion of Medellín’s production space. The Middle Cauca consolidates as a place of rest and a space for the construction of country houses. It is concluded that the effect of these forms of relationship is a dependent territorial configuration, where local dynamics persist in these two zones, but are moldable by the expansion-contraction of the Medellín project.