El sistema urbano en Colombia y la formación metropolitana: una aproximación desde la Nueva Geografía Económica.

Metropolization can be understood as a spatial social and economic process that usually occurs in the context of urban systems, so it can also be seen a process of a specific urban subsystem. This paper seeks from this framework to understand the process of metropolization of the most important large Colombian cities throughout the twentieth century and the beginning of the current one. This approach, from the so-called New Economic Geography, indicates some valid explanations. Three characteristics can be derived from this vision: formation of dynamic spatial structures, urban hierarchy, and spatiotemporal evolution of the hierarchy. Changes in the urban system looked at are useful to explain some features of the Colombian metropolization processes and the dynamics of re-accommodation of its urban concentration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]