The urban renewal legacy in the current urban regeneration processes. Debating the Renewal-Regeneration trajectory

Abstract

First, we have analyzed the concept of “urban renewal”, as it was conceived in the American
experience of the 50s / 60s, for which we have taken as reference the Boston Plan of 1950. Second, we
have focused our attention on the form adopted by such processes in the European experience. We
tackle, in this way, how the “urban renewal” practices have been transferred to Europe, showing that
influences they have had in the new configuration of the “old continent” cities through the management
of the “great property”. Finally, as a case study, we examine the “urban regeneration” operations
undertaken in Italy, those that are supported, above all, on specific military properties that have been
dismantled from their original function. With this work, we pretend to show the common thread between
the American “urban renewal” and the current processes of “urban regeneration” in Europe. Both
practices, the “urban renewal” and the “urban regeneration”, constitute, in our point of view, two
variables of the same process, the one that manifests itself in different phases, and in response to the
interests of the real estate-financial capital in its urban aspect, betting on the transformation of the
“existing built environment”.