Urban Ecology and Managing the Ecological Footprint of Metropolises

Abstract

Written by a professor at the School of Regional Urban Planning of the Universidad Nacional de Colombia, Medellín campus, this article reflects on the ecological crisis of urban concentrations, illustrated by the Aburrá Valley metropolitan area. The author explains the concept of a personal "planetoid" weighted by socioeconomic stratum, documenting that a resident of stratum 2 requires 1.32 hectares for their sustenance, against a local carrying capacity of just 0.0321 hectares. The text develops a bioregionalist approach to identify the strategic ecosystems that provide goods with low urban substitutability, concluding with a call for payment-for-conservation mechanisms directed toward the peasant communities that provide them.