PRESENTER: Saúl Pineda

BIO: Urban Economist. He is currently a visiting scholar at the Department of City and Regional Planning, UC Berkeley. He has worked in local development programs for the UN. As the Economic Advisor for Medellin's Mayor Office he was responsible for the development of the Medellin Strategic Plan. He participated in the elaboration of the Bogota 2000 Strategic Plan. He has also worked as principal professor of economics at the Universidad Colegio Mayor de Nuestra Señora del Rosario, Bogota, and Universidad de Medellín, Colombia.

TITLE: Medellin and its metropolitan area: From narco-traffic crisis to intelligent city

ABSTRACT: The research evaluates the challenges and opportunities for medium size metropolitan areas of Latin America in the context of informational capitalism, based on questions raised by Professor Manuel Castells in his book, "The Information Age: Economy, Society and Culture". This work in progress underlines the experience of Medellin in Colombia as an example of a metropolitan region that overcomes its difficulties, associated in the recent past to a strategy of linkage with the global criminal economy. In a comparative approach, this city presents an interesting (social and economic) condition in which to redefine its global and regional specialization, (building upon the learned experiences of its social polarization and on the evident strengths derived from its competitive urban platform.)