Policies for the recovery of central areas in Latin American cities. Case studies: São Paulo, Santiago de Chile and Buenos Aires

Author(s)

Mariana Pavlick

• Document type: Master's Dissertation
• Press: São Paulo.
• Institution: Universidade de São Paulo (USP). Faculdade de Arquitetura e Urbanismo (FAU/SBI)
• Defense date: 2010-05-05

Examining board members

Maria Cristina da Silva Leme; Maria Lucia Refinetti Rodrigues Martins; Nadia Somekh

• Advisor: Maria Cristina da Silva Leme

Abstract

In Latin America, big cities have started to change their economical and spacial structure for the last forty years. Consequences of those modifications are observed in the central areas of these cities its physical degradation, its inhabitants renouncement, its traditional activities transference to new locations. Those areas have been popularized and, even though still plenty alive, have presenting different degradation degrees. Otherwise some of these areas have been object of local public power intervention regarding its revitalization. The main goal of this research is to investigate how central areas of some Latin-American cities have been treated by its local government and which are their politics facing the recent urban process. Therefore, our intention is to contribute building a panel that analyzes central areas revitalization politics in a Latin-American scene. For that matter, weve studied the central areas revitalization politics and strategies applied in São Paulo, Santiago de Chile and Buenos Aires. In that way, plans and programs developed for the central areas of these cities for the last two decades will be presented and analyzed in a comparative manner by this study. This research proposes itself to answer some questions: are there similarity between the metropolitans process presented by these cities, and how these reflect in each central area? How each local government is responding their different demands regarding the revitalization of its central areas? What are the main lines of their actions? What instruments and strategies have been used in different sectors? Would this politics be following a new leading in urban management? (AU)