ACHIEVING SUSTAINABILITY IN BOGOTÁ-COLOMBIA
THROUGH CIVIC CULTURE

This article presents the pedagogical strategy of change that the past city’s Mayors used in Bogotá to achieve a more sustainable city. Bogotá is a complex city: has more than seven million inhabitants that were not committed or interested in the city issues, financial resources are scare and always insufficient to solve the principal problems; local authorities were considered not reliable or accountable and citizens and industries did not obey the law. These barriers acted against any possibility of achieving sustainability, therefore the first step of the city was an strategy that reinforce local authorities, create breaking point situations, which interrupted the inertial movement of the citizens and the city; and establish and rebuild civic culture. These strategies helped sustainability. The paper presents the campaign to save water, the carrot party to reduce car accidents, traffic reduction that includes: Transmilenio (new public transportation system), clycloways (streets on Sunday are for pedestrians and bikes), bikeways, peak and plaque (restriction of car using by hours and plaque numbers), free car day and better walkways for pedestrians. It also addresses the way in which theater and mimes were use to change the behavior of pedestrians and drivers. All these cases show that the pedagogical effort to change behaviors were crucial to build a more sustainable city, that could change the way citizens related with the city. However, the effort is experimenting some failures because the lack of continuity of the cities new administration.