For Some of the World’s Poor, Hope Comes Via Design - NYTimes.com →

Ms. Smith also includes in the exhibition the by-now textbook case of Medellín, Colombia, once the world capital of drug cartels, murder and despair. Progressive political leaders there, starting roughly a decade ago, decided somewhat counterintuitively to invest most heavily in the worst slums, building a cable car system to link the city’s center with the isolated, crime-ridden areas that blanketed the surrounding hills. New libraries and parks, public schools and pedestrian walkways were built around the pylons of the transport system so that the most beautiful and ambitious public architecture in the city went into the poorest neighborhoods. Medellín became a changed place.