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Comments

• [1] judy from NYC April 04, 2008 - 10:21AM

  I visited Colombia about 15 years ago and spent a few days in Bogota alone. I loved the city and found many interesting places to see. But my hotel had a tourist police officer follow me around to keep me safe!

  
  
• [2] Fernando from Midtown, New York April 04, 2008 - 10:24AM

  Brian's willingness to begin confronting his biases expressed by his comments about Bogotá and Colombia are welcome. His biases about Latin America as a whole should be next.

  Brian: You and WNYC are now being challenged to do more positive coverage about all Latin America, its cities, people and culture. There is plenty of POSITIVE ideas, trends and developings that the world is not aware of.

  Regarding Bogotá Safety subject: It might come as a surprise that this city is safer the Washington DC and many others http://www.comunidadesegura.org/?q=en/node/31987

  
  
• [3] Santiago from Greenpoint, Brooklyn April 04, 2008 - 10:42AM

  For decade and a half, Bogotá has been transforming into one of the world's best sustainable city as shown on PBS Special on NYC channel 13 http://www.pbs.org/e2/episodes/209_bogota_building_sustainable_city_trailer.html

  Bogotá, also known as "The South American Athens", is a safe(lower crime rate than many US cities including DC), cosmopolitan and ever-changing city that is achieving great social inclusiveness (unlike the one seen in many American cities); SOMETHING MLK WOULD OBSERVE AND BE PROUD OF.

  To realize the changes are taking place down there, please check this NYT article published this past Sunday: http://travel.nytimes.com/2008/03/23/travel/23surfacing.html?st=cse&sq=colombia&scp=3 ;

  Another great thing about Bogota is that it has the LARGEST WORLD THEATER FESTIVAL held biennally. This year over 50 countries partook and the United Kingdom was the guest country.

  I also urge you and WNYC to do more positive coverage about all Latin America. There are many educated, properous, hard-working people tirelessly laboring to change the region. Their ideas, philosophies, solutions and imagination also deserved to be studied and shown to the world especially in NYC whose population is 1/3 Latino.

  
  
• [4] pedro arango from soho April 04, 2008 - 11:10AM

  brian - stop! please stop! Having spent a total of 2 months over the past few years in Bogota - What A CITY! It exudes charm and beauty ONLY because there are so few tourists. One is forced to blend in - which is lovely.

  The people are kind and unspoilt by the mighty tourist $.

  
  
• [5] SS from NJ April 04, 2008 - 11:31AM

  Satyagrah - also means to get respect from the adversories. All the means followed by Gandhi was to achieve that. This can be applied to any situation - Israel war, Global warming

  
  
• [6] Fernando from Midtown, New York April 04, 2008 - 11:47AM

  Including a guest who is a bit more knowledgeable to Colombia´s reality is a good idea. However, Gabriela is not even Colombian: She is Venezuelan. Although she does charity work for Colombian kids, she is not necesarily an expert on the topics that has transformed the city.

  You should have contacted previous Bogotá Mayors including Antana Mockus, Luis Garzón, Enrique Peñalosa, Jaime Castro and current Mayor, Samuel Moreno.

  Please keep those names in mind for future reference.

  
  
• [7] Robert from NYC April 04, 2008 - 11:53AM

  Brian is a provincial New Yorker. You must travel more. People think the same thing about NYC and yet just a day or two ago you supported a mother allowing her 9 year old son to ride the nyc transit system all by himself.

  
  
• [8] tricia from nyc April 04, 2008 - 11:54AM

  Santiago, yes! That's the "e2" PBS documentary I was going to mention! It was a great eye-opener and a much-needed uplifting story.

  Brian, please watch it; I think you'd LOVE it!

  http://www.pbs.org/e2

  
  
• [9] Antonio from Jackson Hgts April 04, 2008 - 11:55AM

  You never cease to exceed my expectations Brian; Than You for giving Latino issues the grand amount of a whole ten minutes!!!

  
  
• [10] leonardo aponte from new york April 04, 2008 - 11:58AM

  Bogota like any other city, including European cities -Naples is rather dangerous- demands common sense. It is not heaven but certainly not hell. as far as transit & so on it's years light from a place like NYC were cars are more important than pedestrians