A Tale of Two Cities:

By: Boyd Cohen, PhD, Urban and Climate Strategist

News and social media from the recently concluded World Urban Forum in Medelln, Colombia
compelled me to reconsider the future of our cities. The rapid transformation of a few select
cities around the globe should compel urbanists to reflect on how some cities are able to rapidly
transform themselves while others struggle.
It seems worthwhile to compare two very different transformations in different regions of the
world in order to begin to begin to gain generalizable insights. Medelln, Colombia, and
Singapore provide the perfect opportunity to begin such a process.
By the late 1960s, Singapore had gained its independence from British rule, and emerged from
a brief stint in a federation with Malaysia. It was a city-state with few natural resources, low
productivity, and minimum economic development.
From the 1960s through the 1990s, Medelln, Colombia was a haven for drug trafficking,
resulting in one of the highest murder rates in the world. Economic development was stunted
and the city in general suffered from a lack of infrastructure, basic services, and of course safe
community spaces.
For different reasons therefore, both Singapore and Medelln were poor and, from the outside,
had little prospect of escaping their plights. Yet government leaders had a different vision for
their respective futures.
The strategy for Singapore
In Singapore, the government requested assistance from the United Nations to help them
devise a decidedly top-down economic strategy for emerging out of the poverty. Through a
concerted effort over a few decades, Singapore managed to invest in infrastructure and
education resulting in the attraction of significant foreign investment. In recent years, Singapore
has emerged as one of the most important hubs for multinational corporations in the Asia Pacific
region. The key strategies for Singapore's transformation have been:
The government's strategic role,
Mobilization of its human capital, and
Continuous development of infrastructure.
I was fortunate enough to visit Singapore in 2012. The city-state is now a high-tech hub with
world-class facilities and infrastructure. Singapore has invested in smart solutions to facilitate
clean urban transport and to discourage personal vehicle use through a variable automated
tolling system, and very high taxes for acquiring the rights to vehicle ownership. It has an
excellent park system, and has also invested heavily in harvesting rainwater as part of a clear
strategy to remove dependence on imported drinking water.
Despite all of this success, Singapore has significant challenges remaining. Tensions amongst
lower-income classes have risen in recent years. The Gini-coefficient, a measure of income
inequality where 0 is the lowest inequality and 1 is the highest, was .463 for Singapore in 2013.
To put this in perspective, Denmark's national Gini Index is .230.
The culture and governmental policies in Singapore are oriented towards multinationals.
Although Singapore scores relatively highly on Richard Florida's Global Cities Index, the
tolerance for entrepreneurial failure is low in Singapore as is the perceived desirability of
entrepreneurship as a career path. In Singapore only 50.9% of the population considers
entrepreneurship a good career choice and 39.7% of citizens have a fear of failure, according to
the 2013 Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM).
Transformation in Medelln
Although the transformation of Medelln began with an entirely different process than that of
Singapore, the results have been equally impressive. In the 1990s, the Medelln Academy
began to push for a new city vision, which started by focusing on the poor communities on the
periphery of the city. They brought their ideas to the city's poorest residents and began to co-
evolve solutions for transportation, access to schools, work, and healthcare.

(Medelln, Colombia. Source: David Pea)

The former Mayor of Medelln, Sergio Fajardo (2003-2007), embarked on a mission to "Close
the door to crime and open the door to opportunity." While Singapore's transformation was
largely top down and government-controlled, Medelln's was more organic, with a significant
focus on bottom-up and citizen engagement.
Having visited Medelln in 2011, I must admit I left just as impressed with it as I would be with
Singapore. Both Medelln and Singapore are true success stories on a global scale. Yet, there is
something under the surface that feels very different when experiencing both cities and when
speaking with leaders and locals.
I believe some of it has to do with an entrepreneurial spirit. In Colombia, nearly 91% of citizens
consider entrepreneurship a good career choice and 31.8% have a fear of failure according to
the 2013 GEM. I don't have the data, but I do know from spending a lot of time in Colombia, and
meeting entrepreneurs from Medelln, that Medelln is actually considered the home of the arts
and entrepreneurial communities in Colombia. Of course not all the "entrepreneurs" from
Medelln have been benevolent -- such as the infamous Pablo Escobar. Yet even Escobar
initiated numerous civic projects, albeit not with altruistic intentions.
Two different cities
The top-down nature of Singapore's approach makes open innovation and civic
entrepreneurship more challenging. Not to say it could never happen, but, for example, one
expects civic crowdfunding and hackathons to be less likely in Singapore than in Medelln.
Medelln has a recent history of engaging its citizens in its transformation. It has a culture more
supportive of entrepreneurship (and failure) than Singapore's. And it has begun to address head
on the challenges and opportunities of true social inclusion in ways that I believe suggest
Medelln is a model not just for Colombia or Latin America, but perhaps for cities around the
world to consider.
The Medelln Declaration, signed at the World Urban Forum, reinforces their commitment, and
leadership, in ensuring that smart cities are also equitable cities.
Finding that right balance between supporting a creative and civic-minded entrepreneurial
economy while bringing up the quality of life for all citizens is not an easy task. But we may find
part of the answer by looking to Medelln for inspiration.

NOTE:
This is how you cross out unimportant words. And this is how you highlight important words.
3. I think this is a secondary source because the person that wrote this was analyzing facts and events
that happened before. He is analyzing primary sources. It has pictures and it is an article. Also, it has
links to primary sources.

5. Medellin and Singapore are cities that went from their worst to success in different ways.

6. Two cities that have emerged from being poor to successful cities are Medellin, Colombia, and
Singapore, Malaysia. They have used different approaches to gain their success, but in the end, their
result has been impressive. These two cities should be considered as an example for other cities in the
world to follow.