Urban renewal and the fi ght against poverty: 25 years of Spanish cooperation in defense of the urban heritage

Abstract

The paper approaches the diffi culties to advisability and hoped for characteristics of any strategy
aimed at revitalizing the city centres of Third World countries. The author holds that the sustainable
managing of this urban inheritance should be considered as part and parcel of the war upon
poverty given the way they affect so many aspects of what should be understood as human
development be this in terms of habitability or standards of living or again the maintaining that
proper identity and historical memory of a given society so often best enshrined in its architecture
and urban landscape. The drive is likewise urged to regain for the city as the crucible for a society’s
social sharing, togetherness and sense of citizenship. Nor is its function as a generator of jobs and
economic activity along with those posts arising from its centralizing nature to be forgotten and
yet again, those work places that its proper rehabilitation would bring into being. The paper puts
forward a series of methodological ploys for the task and makes much of guide-lines of principle
such as social equity, sustainability and compulsory purchase in order that certain undesirable
side effects to any such a rehabilitation might be avoided, arguing for this from the long experience
in the matter that international co-operation has gleaned for all and most especially from Spain’s
contribution to such endeavours.