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Megacities, due to their enormous population concentrations and rapid development dynamics, are gaining more and more importance as junctions of globalisation processes and governance centres in a world increasingly dominated by cities. Megacities are not just large cities. Their scale creates new dynamics, new complexity and new simultaneity of events and processes -physical, social, political and economic. A multitude of drivers, driving forces and actors as well as interacting and partially selfenhancing acceleration and feedback effects is further contribu ting to the complexity of their development dynamics.

The El Rodadero, 5-6 km southwest of Santa Marta, was a lonely sand beach up to 1960 with dispersed fishing huts. From 1965 it developed more and more to the seasonally prefered bathing place of Colombia on the Caribbean Sea. Both, the Colombian press and the public opinion regard the Rodadero as "centro turístico de Colombia" or "la perla del Caribe"; it is compared with the international luxury beach towns in the circum-caribbean region (Acapulco, Miami etc.). - As there exist however strict arguments against this statement, a socio-economic study was carried out about he Rodadero in 1969/70. As a result the following characterization is possible: a constructionally unorganic, periodically frequented bathing-(vacation~)place (max. 3 months/ year: middle of December up to the end of January, the Easter week, 4 to 5 weeks in June/July according to the main school holidays) of national importance as well as of a certain value to the weekend holidays-traffic coming from the region of Barranquilla. Apartment houses with vacation flats belonging to rich Colombians are clearly dominating compared with hotels, motels etc. On the whole the infrastructure is not sufficient, especially the public supply (drinking-water, sewage, electricity etc.).

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