Highway Expansion and Crime: Challenges on Urban Development for Sustainability

The implications of highway development on the creation of physical urban edges within neighbourhoods have turned into a significant concern on the spatial deterioration and the increasing presence of crime. This paper discusses the urban origins of the historical post-Hispanic Santa Ines neighbourhood in Bogota and traces the subsequent 1950s intensive highway expansion. By the end of the twentieth century, this traditional neighbourhood became a hotspot for crime, better known as “El Cartucho”, and was designated by the World Health Organization as Latin America’s most violent area. This study aims to understand the presence of crime in terms of environmental criminology and the urban development for sustainability. The research indicates that while the development of major highways benefitted mobility at a metropolitan level, it critically compromised urban conditions at the local scale. Hence, the neighbourhood lost the capacity to be integrated with its natural environment.