Containment or Drainage? Controlling Urban Expansion Seen from the Interface

Abstract

Written by a Medellín city councilman and an urban architect, this article analyzes the problem of uncontrolled urban expansion in Latin America as the spatial manifestation of a consumption-based development model. The authors present the territorial approach to development as an alternative to the traditional sectoral view, and offer a critical questioning of traditional strategies for containing urban growth. The text proposes reconceptualizing urban-rural edges as intermediate spaces, presenting the "drainage" strategy as more effective than traditional containment for regional sustainability.