Reinvention of heritage and urban revitalising. As regards the Malaga model

Abstract

The subject of this article is the recent urban requalification and transformation processes
in Malaga and their links with the changes operated in the understanding of heritage and its use as
a touristic attraction. The city is analysed in terms of space and assets, attending to the means that
have conformed the urban model implemented by the Public Administrations (urban and strategic
approach). The article starts from the following cases: Malaga is a city with a legacy of ongoing
urban decay; important pockets of empty land; numerous natural and cultural resources, although
of a very different character regarding its social recognition and its state of conservation; and
involved in a process of heritage reinvention supported by a substantial offer of museums. As a
result of this, the city is immersed in the configuration of a new touristic-speculative model which
uses and reinvents heritage as a strategy for achieving more projection and attractiveness in the
context of the global market of touristic flows. This is projected in very powerful urban transformations
which are profoundly unequal in heritage and urbanistic terms, as analysed in the article. This
concludes with the analysis of the different materialisations of the model (the cities within the city)
and with diagnosis of the most significant scenarios: a) areas of heritage reactivation, with two
sub-models, depending on whether these are active scenarios of traditional and emerging heritage,
or dysfunctional vacant spaces; and b) the city, aside from the new heritage and urbanistic model,
also with two sub-models: scenarios in reserve for future actions and neglected spaces.