MARKET AND POWER GAMES IN THE URBANIZATION OF YOPAL

The Extended and Unoccupied City

Abstract

The urban growth of the city of Yopal, in Casanare (Colombia), is addressed from a quantitative point of view, a model of irregular and excessive territorial occupation for its population of 200,000 inhabitants, since the urban perimeter of 1900 hectares is de facto incorporated (partial plans and legalizations of informal settlements), which, for the most part, without having public services and without being inhabited,  They have planning licenses and individual lots, , meanwhile, urbanization pressure on rural and sprawling areas continues. It is proposed that this model, which contradicts the logics of necessity, State and market enunciated by Abramo (2014), can be associated with entrepreneurship, neoliberal urbanism and the speculative secondary market enunciated by Harvey (1998), in a co-opted city that, acting as a growth machine (Logan and Molotch 2015), legally or illegally incorporates land into the speculative market,  while the social imaginary validates it in what we call "legitimized illegality".