The “Escaleras” of the neighborhood “Comuna 13” in Medellin are well known among tourists. Comuna 13 itself used to be notorious about the violence between gangs, FARC and other groups. In 2002 the government started operation “Orion”. The army, with help from Paramilitary, cleaned the area just like in Brasil some Favelas are treated. Atrocities took place and it did not stop the violence. How the violent situation in Medellin changed and the healing process could start is explained by an interesting article of CitiScope.org (4 chapters) The neighborhood had developed over many years from houses build of wooden poles, plastic, cardboard and roofs of corrugated sheets against a steep slope into an area packed with brick houses against the same steep slope and a much higher density of population. Look at the images and imagine that the roads used to be rough sandy/ partly concrete tracks which the people had to conquer up and down to go to work and do shoppings, too in the rainy season.
And take in account that the money for each stone in this sea of houses is saved with great effort and the majority of houses are build by the owner and his family. Architects are seldom involved. This neighbourhood is build on sweat and human power. Every bag of cement has been carried from the bottom of the neigbourhood. Still, when one wants to extend the bathroom, one has to carry all the materials many stairs up. The construction warehouse Homecentre will not deliver a fridge at the door and into the kitchen in this type of neighbourhoods.
The city Council build the "Escaleras Electricas" from 2011 to 2014 in a project to develop this area (and many other areas) in a way that the inhabitants can feel proud off their neighbourhood and start community building. At this moment a truce between the gangs has stopped the fighting and a normal life can develop. However this development does not stop poverty. When I walked in certain parts of the neighborhood I felt comfortable, at least at daytime.
7 escalators which span a height of around 120m.
The city Council build the "Escaleras Electricas" from 2011 to 2014 in a project to develop this area (and many other areas) in a way that the inhabitants can feel proud on their neighbourhood and start community building. At this moment a truce between the gangs has stopped the fighting and a normal life can develop. However this development does not stop poverty. When I walked in certain parts of the neighborhood I felt comfortable, at least at daytime.
Most publications state that the escalators opened up the neighborhood by making the inhabitants much easier to reach public transport to the city. However once at the top, one has to go horizontal or more vertical up to ones house. The neighborhood is much bigger than the escalator can reach. The city council has done much more. On the pictures can be seen that at all levels there are more or less horizontal well maintained concrete sidewalks constructed against the hills and houses, most of them supported by columns while there is no horizontal space left between the buildings. And on all places I encountered nice, correctly sized concrete steps. I expect that this helped the inhabitants physically the most. (CitiScope.org)
I met mostly tourists when I used the escalators but I enjoyed the visit. The view of this sea of non planned housing and the huge size of Medellin is impressing. I will write more in the future about what it means to run 2.3 million people in a small valley.