A tale of two cities: recovering community spaces for peacebuilding in Medellín and Acapulco.

Abstract

The high levels of crime and drug-related urban violence which made Medellín (the capital of Colombia’s Antioquia province) infamous during the 1980s and 1990s were significantly lowered when the city adopted a multi-level strategy that managed to shift policy and transform a range of former spaces of violence into arts and literacy centres, libraries and parks, providing an innovative way to reduce crime rates (Vulliamy, 2013).