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Latin America is a continent living amidst strong inequalities, and the region’s cities reflect this in a distinct way. In order to analyse and explain urban inequality in the region, this article studies the case of Cartagena de Indias, on the Colombian Caribbean coast, from the points of view of different historical studies about the racial gaze, gentrification, racial capitalism, and the research connecting urban planning and racial segregation, among others. By applying the historical method, the authors delve into institutional primary and secondary sources from the contemporary historiography, which relate urban development to racial issues. The main outcome is a deeper understanding of the urban and racial phenomena in the context of current theories, with some re-weighing of their impacts. Much of the discussion about racial segregation in Latin America has revolved around metropolises and forgotten medium-sized cities. To remedy this, an overview of studies and theories is offered and subsequently applied to a medium-sized city such as Cartagena, with examples from this city’s planning history in conjunction with its social history and tourist development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Processes of gentrification can be seen in the historic center of Cartagena de Indias, which arise from the colonial city and the republican capital, suitable as a military fort, maritime port, railway station and cultural district. This led to the occupation of the peripheral areas and the displacement of the people who lived there to give way to walls, urban walkways, railway lines and motorized avenues. The objective of the text is to describe the processes of the urban transformation of the peripheral areas of Cartagena to consolidate the fort-city, adapted as a historic center and tourist district. To this end, the historical method is used of contrasting printed documental evidence with articles and studies on urban policies that allow the recognition of four periods of geodemographic changes. In conclusion, the current historic center has experienced the processes of the expansion of the dominant classes into the lands occupied by the popular sectors, combined with the construction of roads, the protection of walls and bulwarks, the urbanization of the nearby islands and beaches for touristic ends, as well as the sociocultural expulsion of the poorer classes from the popular sectors towards faraway places, invisible and distant from the tourists. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]