A fresh start for old cities

How Latin America is bringing its historic districts back to life

This cycle of urban creation and destruction has been going on in Hispanic American cities for more than 400 years. Much has already been lost. But from steamy ports like Cartagena and Salvador to Quito and Cuzco in the snow-peaked Andes, a great deal of the region's urban heritage remains intact. In fact, 24 historic districts in Latin America and the Caribbean have earned the coveted UNESCO designation as World Heritage Sites.

In many cases, UNESCO recognition has helped to awaken local interest in preserving these districts. At first, the job was spearheaded by the region's cultural elites, and more recently by enlightened municipal authorities. But though well intentioned, these top-down approaches have not been able to ensure long-term preservation. As environmentalists have learned through bitter experience, broad-based citizen participation-and not government proclamation-is the only way to conserve natural areas for the long term (see IDBAmérica November-December and March-April). This message has not been lost on urban planners.

So today, urban heritage proponents in Latin America and the Caribbean are turning to local communities and the private sector to help design and carry out preservation programs that will serve their own economic and social interests.

This new participatory approach to urban heritage conservation is already being applied in several cities profiled in the following pages. Perhaps the most trendsetting program is being carried out in Quito, Ecuador, where IDB financing is helping the government, the private sector and civic groups to simultaneously restore the city's historic center and make it a fully functioning part of the urban economy.

"What the IDB is doing in Quito is very pioneering," says Eduardo Rojas, the Bank's senior urban planner. "We are showing that we can turn the vicious cycle of poverty, decay and neglect into a virtuous cycle to create a good place to visit, a good place to do business, and a good place to live."

Date posted: June, 1999

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