Analysing (In)Justice in the Interplay of Urbanisation and Transport: The Case of Agrarian Extractivism in the Region of Urabá in Colombia

– Spanish colony

– Rubber companies (Goodyear)

– Vegetable ivory companies (German companies)

– Marine transport companies (Pacific Steam Navigation Co. and Pacific Railroad Co.)

– Banana companies (Banacol, Uniban, Augura, etc)

– Port concession of Colombia

– Port areas in Urabá

– Local political institutions of Urabá

– Colombian government

– U.S. Government

– ANI (Asociación Nacional de Insfraestructura)

– PIO SAS (Puertos, Inversions y Obras S.A.)

– Landlord's militias

– Colombia's Ministry of Transport

– Freight transport companies

– Paramilitary groups

– Indigenous groups

– Rural peasant communities (local banana producers)

– Low-income groups

– Rural day labourers (colonos)

– UFCO employees

– Self-defence communities

– Political parties (Socialist Revolutionary Party, Communist Party and UNIR)

– Guerilla groups

– Developmental model oriented to maximising productivity, profits and efficiency of banana production

– Harvests of banana companies tend to have little or no processing.

– Governmental regulations related to mineral and oil extraction rather than to agricultural extraction

– UFCO territorial control systems of getting lands

– Agricultural landscapes revealed a huge potentiality, mainly for foreign companies

– Transport infrastructures planned and built focusing on the performance of the transport systems related to agro-extractivism without thinking of needs of inhabitants

– Ineffective land reforms due to corruption within government institutions

– Government of Colombia de-emphasised land reform and shifted focus to rural development through agribusiness.

– Law 200 (eviction of tenant farmers indiscriminately)

– Transport infrastructures as crucial instruments in the context of rapid economic globalisation

– Military violence (pre-existing power structure approved by the state)

– Developmental model is not being driven by principles of social and environmental well-being

– Little job creation for local comunities by banana companies as the harvests produced do not require much processing

– Societal fragmentation

– Rural peasants migration to agro-extractivist areas in search of better opportunities, since they were suffering huge challenges related to unemployment and lack of basic services in their rural areas

– Local population without an income and more likely to rely on informal, survivalist strategies

– Exclusion of low class population from the qualities and benefits of urban life.

– Urban inequity and rise to high concentrations of poverty

– Almost all transport infrastructures and heavy machinery are related to banana production

– Traditional planning refrained from coordinating existing urban, transport and traffic dynamics

– In harvesting period families arrived and settled in private properties in temporary shelters

– Urban and transport planning was based on providing a better connection of the agro-extractivist region with Medellín and the main production and consumption centres of the country

– Transport infrastructures that support export-oriented industries

– La vía al mar provided a higher monocrop productivity of banana production.

– Road insfrastructure (4-lane design, targeted mode and type of transport, trajectory, materiality, required size of investment, etc)

– Urban fragmentation related to the social division of labour

– Inadequate provision of public services

– Fundamental changes related to excessive population growth rates

– Excessive use of available resources, in particular water resources

– Mobilisation of entire groups of families along the rivers and mountains of the region, establishing new urban and rural settlements

– Migrant influx led to an embryonic market for informal settlements in urban areas

– Planning and design of transport infrastructural projects propagate an unfair distribution of accessibility

– Changes to the rural landscape (areas accommodated different human behaviours and activities for land-use practices)

– Rural peasants lacking sufficient basic services provoked a constant migration of its population to the agricultural lands

– Small farms were replaced by large-scale agro-extractivist infrastructures (illegally appropriation)

– Urban clusters became concentrations of unplanned settlements

– Urban settlements located in protected areas and areas risking flooding

– Transport infrastructures contributing to the increase of traffic congestion in urban areas and excessive demand for the capacity of the road

– Overcrowded concentration of informal commercial activities along the highway

– Urban areas became a transit zone