Hacia el urbanismo social

This article will briefly expose the history of Urbanism: its beginning, the utopian proposals of Ebenezer Howard and Antonio Sant'Elia, the results of the meeting of the CIAM (International Congress of Modern Architec-ture) and post-modern proposals of urban activism. Taking into conside-ration the historical account presented, in which the participation of ci-tizens is non-existent during political deliberative processes and urban planning, a new proposal for urban discipline is presented: Social Urba-nism. As examples the Social Urbanism model for the Colombian city of Medellin, the deliberative budget and the citizen participation in Porto Alegre, and the National Movement for Urban Reform in Brazil are pre-sented. To contrast and illustrate the opposite situation, two current examples of Puerto Rico will be used. Social Urbanism is presented as a democratic and participatory mechanism for the process of decision-making on the city and its inhabitants.