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The tension between public space protection and the right to work entitled to the peddlers and itinerant vendors have been solved in Colombia with the application of the legitimate expectations principle. The present paper describes and analyzes the case of peddlers who work on the Plaza España in Bogotá. The case is shown as an example of solidarity between civil society and the state. The level of trust generated between the parts involved (the peddlers and the district administration) was due to legal tools given by the Colombian social rule of law. This paper is the result of a research based on documents, laws and jurisprudence in addition to a field work (ethnographic observation and interviews, besides historical sources), which started on 2007 with the thesis of Laura Llinás to obtain her undergraduate degree in law in the Law Department at the Universidad de los Andes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a first approach to a state of the art on public space in Colombia. For this purpose, this article analyze the production of research groups from several universities and institutions, both, public and private. The reviewed studies are organized from the spatial, social, historical and educational perspectives and analyzed from their influence on the urban management. Finally, it is proposed to continue the traking of the development of research on the field in order to fill the gap between research and urban decisions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents the assessment that inhabitants of some Colombian cities did on the conditions that contribute to the livability of public space. Seven hundred and forty people, inhabitants of Yopal, Villavicencio, Valledupar, Popayán, Pereira, Pasto, Neiva, Montería, Medellín, Fusagasugá, Cúcuta, Cartagena, Cali and Bogotá participated in the study. The assessment of the conditions that contribute to the livability of public space was carried out using an instrument composed of 48 items that inquired about the level of contribution that can have different conditions on the quality of public space, from a scale five points ranging from: Does not contribute at all (-2) to: Contribute significantly (+2). The results show the conditions that most affect the habitability of public space in Colombia, as well as the differences between cities according to the assessment made by participants about the general state of public space in cities. Multidimensional analysis (SSA) evidence a structure that reflects the function that public space plays in people's assessment on Colombian cities. It is discussed the implications of the findings for urban planning and management and the designed instrument is proposed as a tool to assess the quality of urban public space. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present paper attempts to measure empirically the externalities generated by the street vendors in four zones of the city. Given the lack of information censuses and surveys were carried out during December of 2004 and January 2005. The descriptive statistics show that the established commerce is less formal than expected; whereas the street vendors are mostly stationary, exhibit reduced scale and low space rivalry. The econometric estimations show that the congestion of the public space generated by street vendors has a negative impact on both sales and employment of established retail commerce. The simulations of a reduction of street vendors pinpoint that although street sales account for just 2% of total sales in the four areas under study, they reduce 14% and 16% sales and employment of formal retail commerce respectively. Finally, some limitations of the methodological strategy are raised and some public policy proposals to face the phenomenon are presented. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is an exercise on the ethnographic interpretation of the "paseode olla", an urban practice observed at a traditional park in bogotá, the "Parque Nacional Enrique Olaya Herrera". The text combines ethnographic descriptions and reflections about the urban public space as well as socio-spatial analyses of human interaction. The text emphasizes in the importance of space practices analyses as forms of culture materialization in urban contexts. It also shows the persistence of the family in contemporary urban practices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper addresses the factors underlying the shift of public space management Bogotá's Historic Center from one neglect by presidentially appointed mayors to an aggressive public space recuperation campaign led by Bogotá's elected mayors from 1988 to the present. Faced with the high barriers to public space recovery-the potential loss of needed political support from vendors and the power of vendor unions to obstruct their removal-this article holds that two factors enabled elected Bogotá mayors to recuperate public space. These are: 1. a democratization of the Bogotá Mayor's Office which made elected mayors responsible to the electorate for their neglect of public space, and 2. the political-economic marginalization of traditionally obstructive Bogotá vendor unions. Field work was carried out in metropolitan Bogotá to determine the impact of the public space recuperation on vendors who were relocated by the Mayor's Office of Bogotá. When compared to data from the street, results of the randomized surveys illustrate improvements in working conditions but lower income and fewer clientele for relocated street vendors. The study similarly documents how more benefits accrued to relocated vendors in markets that specialize in the sale of one product instead of more generalized markets. The conclusion points to the importance of public space recovery for the reinstatement of public order and for downtown economic revitalization. These benefits are described parallel to the disadvantages of the intensification of vendor-government conflict and the large-scale abandonment of costly markets by relocated street vendors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]