Urban Rehabilitation

The rapid growth of Latin American and Caribbean cities has prompted a surge in the economies of the region, but has also created new problems. One major concern is the abandonment of central areas of cities, the result of a complex combination of consumer preferences and deficient public policies that encourage urban sprawl. The most dynamic economic activities, high-income households and the services that supply them, have moved to the periphery, demanding new infrastructure and generating new urban facilities (such as shopping malls, gated communities and country clubs). This process causes the economic and social decay of central areas and the deterioration of real estate assets and infrastructure.

Several local and state governments have implemented programs to rehabilitate and develop these abandoned central areas. The IDB supports these programs through loans and technical assistance. They include a variety of interrelated interventions including changes in zoning, infrastructure rehabilitation, improvement of public spaces, the promotion of new economic activities, the preservation of heritage or symbolic buildings and the recovery, recycling or redevelopment of private buildings. Execution of these programs requires significant financial and institutional resources, as well as the establishment of strong alliances between all interested parties, in order to sustain the interventions in the long term.

The Sustainable Development Department collaborates with the Regional Operations Departments in the identification, design and execution of urban rehabilitation programs through good practice studies and operational guidelines. The study of international urban rehabilitation programs indicates that successful projects require well-coordinated interventions, executed in a suitable sequence and with sufficient scale to counteract the negative trends in real estate markets. The proper execution of these programs requires efficient institutions capable of working in cooperation with the private sector. For this reason, the Bank emphasizes the development and strengthening of the institutional capacity of the executing agencies in all urban rehabilitation projects.


Last updated: 01/16/07

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