...but, I finally found some good information by city rather than the country as a whole. I posted this on another message board earlier today in response to a question from a potential exchange student. -David
If you go to the website below many of your questions will be answered:
http://www.alcaldiabogota.gov.co/NuestraCiudad/negocios.htm
Download "Bogota en Sintesis" and "Vivir e Invertir en Bogota"
in either PDF or Word format. Both documents are about 50 plus pages jam-packed with statistics, cost of living information, average salaries, crime figures, etc. Since this is the mayor's website, a lot of it is focused on Bogota, but it's directed toward visitors and investors so it also compares Colombia to many other Latin American
countries.
By the way (for other readers who have discussed the crime subject), on page 46 or 47 of the "Sintesis" document I found extensive tables and charts of murder rates. Surprising to me was that Bogota in 2001 had a lower rate than "fortified" Cartagena. Medellin and a few other cities I don't recognize were six or seven times as high.
On the plus side, the urban areas of greater Bogota and Ctga (33 and 38 per murders per 100,000 citizens, respectively) ARE statistically safer than the worst three or four U.S. inner cities.
David
