Date/Time
Date(s) - Wed - 16 Mar
12:00 pm - 1:30 pm
Categories
Dear friends of the Urban Futures Centre @ Durban University of Technology (UFC@DUT),
UFC@DUT will be running its 6th seminar for the year. This week we have a guest scholar from Columbia. Please join us in this fascinating seminar and discussion as we learn about the urban trends in Bogota.
Topic : Urban Trends in the Global South, Criminal Organizations and the Links Joining Informal and Formal Urban Systems. Some thoughts about the case of Bogotá, Colombia..
Presenter: Bernardo Perez Salazar
Date: Wednesday, 16 March 2016
Time: 12:00 to 13:30
Venue: BS2103, Level 1, S2 Block, Steve Biko Campus. Entrance from gate 1 and 2. 79 Steve Biko road.
About the Presentation
Cities in the global South are growing rapidly; simultaneously they experience youth bulges. In the context of very rapid urbanization processes, construction booms create and absorb large numbers of low skilled jobs. However as urban growth slows down, youth unemployment becomes a major challenge for the formal urban system. This creates profitable opportunities for political and illicit entrepreneurs that are ready to take advantage of idle youths, both as expendable workforce to carry the risk burden in “informal “ operations including selling smuggled goods and drugs, as well as captive consumers of many of these goods. However, cash flows coming from the urban informal system need to be laundered; thus, in large cites the circuit with the formal urban economic system is closed by means of sophisticated schemes, usually in the form of alliances between local politicians and formal construction businesses. The case of Bogotá allows to clearly illustrate how this mechanism works.
About the Presenter
Bernardo Pérez Salazar is an independent researcher based in Bogotá, Colombia. His expertise lies at the crossroads of transnational organized crime, environmental conflicts associated with extractive industries and urban security and safety. He has lead and published research in these fields for National Police of Colombia, the office of Bogotá’s Secretary of Government, the office of Colombia’s General Comptroller, UN HABITAT, among others. Bernardo speaks regularly at international forums, workshops and panels organized by, the Federal University of Minas Gerais in Brazil (2015); the Swiss Federal Department of Foreign Affairs (2013); the Latin American Studies Association (2012); the Austrian Institute for International Policy (2011); the Regional Safe Communities Forums in Mexico (2010); and the UN Congress on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice (2010). Mr. Pérez Salazar holds a degree in social communications from the Universidad del Valle in Colombia (1989) as well as an M.A. in Regional Development Planning from the Institute of Social Studies in the Netherlands (1994).
Kindly RSVP to confirm your attendance to ufcadmin@dut.ac.za Please feel free to send this on to others who might be interested.