Cali, Expanded City-Region: a Metropolitan Territory

Is the outcome of interdisciplinary and interinstitutional collaborative research carried out by the Alliance of Universities for Regional Urban Development with Equity, constituted by the Universidad Autónoma de Occidente, Universidad ICESI, Pontificia Universidad Javeriana-Cali, Universidad de San Buenaventura-Cali, and Universidad del Valle. The Ford Foundation endorsed this alliance between the universities of the region to provide scientific and technical support to social inclusion projects aimed at generating equity. The financial resources provided by the Ford Foundation and the time allocated by the professors and researchers of the Universidad Autónoma, Universidad ICESI, Universidad de San Buenaventura-Cali and Universidad del Valle made this research and its publication in a book possible. This book discusses different theoretical guidelines used in the definition of a region, considered useful as analytical references for the empirical proposal in this book about the 28 municipalities in northern Cauca and southern Valle. Its six chapters describe the patterns of territory occupation, the socio-demographic characterization of the municipalities of the extended city-region, the region’s economic structure components, the labor market imbalances, the analysis of the political-electoral heterogeneity of the urban agglomeration of Cali, and some conclusions and policy recommendations. Hence, based on a conceptual and methodological model, the empirical analysis furthered in this book indicates that Cali, as the main urban center, should include in its development plans and territorial planning more effective measures to know, assess, and plan—together with the neighboring municipalities, not only those of the department of Valle itself but those of the urban-rural periphery or hinterland of the southwest, which includes the municipalities of southern Valle and northern Cauca—, albeit through less asymmetrical relations and more shared associations to face a set of common problems that affect the entire region whose epicenter is Cali.