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University of Stuttgart
Dipl.-Volksw. Angelika Krehl, Dipl.-Geogr. Stefan Fina
Summer Term 2013
The Case of the Historic Center of Quito: Chronicle of a
Gentrification Foretold
Alexandra Velasco
Master course in Infrastructure Planning
Email: alexa@movere.ec
Seminar Report
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ABSTRACT “The case of the historic center of Quito: Chronicle of a gentrification foretold” is an
analysis of the revitalization plan of the historic center prepared by the local and
national government intended to be launched up to 2017 and its possible outcomes in
the social structure of the local residents. By taking a look at other renewal projects for
historic centers that already occurred in Latin America and its outcomes, and reviewing
several urban theories regarding this concept, it concludes that a gentrification process
is very likely to occur. The large public investment for infrastructure and services
projects, mainly for housing and tourism, the private business sector with its local
interests and the social displacement due to the attraction of new middle and upper
class dwellers, are some of the facts that support this thesis.
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TABLE OF CONTENTS 1. INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................. 4 2. GENTRIFICATION IN LATIN AMERICAN HISTORIC CENTERS ........... 5 3. THE HISTORIC CENTER OF QUITO ............................................................ 7 4. PLAN FOR THE REVITALIZATION OF THE HISTORIC CENTER ........ 11 5. ANALYSIS ..................................................................................................... 14 6. CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS .......................................... 16 7. BIBLIOGRAPHY ........................................................................................... 19 8. APPENDIX ..................................................................................................... 21 List of Figures FIGURE 1: PANORAMIC VIEW OF THE HISTORIC CENTER OF QUITO ................................................. 8 FIGURE 2: DEMOGRAPHIC GROWING IN THE HISTORIC CENTER ..................................................... 9 FIGURE 3: THE FORMER GARCÍA MORENO JAIL ........................................................................... 10 FIGURE 4: HOUSING TENANCE IN THE HISTORIC CENTER ............................................................. 10 FIGURE 5: PROJECTS FOR LIFE´S QUALITY STRATEGIC AXIS ........................................................ 12 FIGURE 6: POSSIBLE EDIFICATIONS TO BE TOPPLED ...................................................................... 12 FIGURE 7: PROJECTS FOR INSTITUTIONAL MANAGEMENT SCOPE AREA ....................................... 13 FIGURE 8: PROJECTS FOR HERITAGE AND CULTURE STRATEGIC AXIS ......................................... 13 FIGURE 10. LOCATION OF HISTORIC CENTER IN THE METROPOLITAN DISTRICT OF QUITO ......... 21
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The Case of the Historic Center of Quito: Chronicle of a
Gentrification Foretold
1. Introduction
The famous book of the Columbian writer Gabriel García Marquéz, “Chronicle of
a Death Foretold”, begins with Santiago Nasar´s final morning, clearly stating he is
going to be killed. Santiago's death is clearly alluded to preceding the “in-novel”
events. To some degree, an astonishing number of coincidences occurred to prevent
even those who wanted to warn Santiago from doing so; even so, the failure to prevent
Santiago's death is a failure of every individual within the society. In this way, this
essay “The case of the historic center of Quito: Chronicle of a gentrification foretold”
makes an analysis of the local and national government revitalization plan for the
historic center intended to be launched up to 2017 and its possible outcomes in the
social structure of the local residents. By taking a look in other renewal projects for
historic centers that already occurred in Latin America and its outcomes, and reviewing
several urban theories regarding the different meanings of this concept, this essay will
give some clues that support the hypothesis of a gentrification process on track.
Gentrification’, as originally coined, referred primarily to a rather different type of
‘new middle class’, buying up older, often ‘historic’ individual housing units and
renovating and restoring them for their own use — and in the process driving up
property values and driving out former, typically lower income working class residents
(Slater, 2006:744). As mentioned by Slater, gentrification needs four processes to
occur: 1) capital re-investment; 2) improvement of social conditions by higher income
social classes; 3) changes in the urban landscape and; 4) direct or indirect displacement
of lower income groups. (Salinas, 2008: 285).
Different terms as urban renewal or urban revitalization hide behind euphemistic
discourse, the increasing commodification of cities and the continuity of social
differences in a territorial scale. This process confirms that today the city is built
primarily to meet the needs of consumers with purchasing power, and that always
occurs at the expense of low-income citizens who need more protection (Smith 2011,
p: 236). This has being especially evident in the downtown areas of several cities all
over the world. Quito is no exception. In former administrations several “urban
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renewal” projects arose in many traditional neighbourhoods of the city like “La
Mariscal” or “Cumbayá” giving the land use purchase power, speculation and property
to the real-state market. Nowadays the Housing Ministry, with the support of the local
authorities, is launching a project of urban revitalization and public spaces recovery for
the Historic Center of Quito, which is the largest inhabited museum and best-
conserved core of Latin America, is a prime example of various architecture, declared
capital of the American Baroque and World Cultural Heritage by the UNESCO in
1978. This paper will analyse the aims of the project, the process for its consecution,
the stakeholders involved and the possible effects in its local inhabitants composition
due to gentrification process.
2. Gentrification in Latin American Historic Centers The process of gentrification is an international phenomenon. It is taking place
throughout North America and much of Western Europe, as well as Australia and New
Zealand (Smith, 1996: 231), and now also occurring in Latin America. But in the first
two cases, the term gives reference particularly to the transformation of different
spaces caused by services related with globalized economy and the residential use by
the “new middle class” or “creative class”. In contrast in Latin America, gentrification
in the core areas relates to a change in the functional use of the buildings, particularly
from residential to retail or other type use, highlighting restaurants, bars, discotheques,
travel agencies, boutiques and call centers. (Salinas, 2013: 286). This is launched by a
public agenda that highlights master plans for the “urban recovery” or “urban
revitalization” of the historic centers, which addresses the need to reinforce the
security, to improve public spaces and to displace street hawkers, beggars and poor
street children, most of them from indigenous origin, mainly in Quito und Guayaquil in
Ecuador (Swanson 2007, p:211) and México City (Crossa 2009, p:45). The Latin
American governments, with the aim to reactivate economics and attract foreign
investment, put large amounts of money to displace low-income populations and
“beautify” the image of historic centers. (Steel y Klaufus, 2010, p. 5). These projects of
“recovery” of the historic heritage are intended mainly to attract tourism and foreign
investment, as seen in Cuenca-Ecuador or Cusco –Perú (Steel y Klaufus, 2010),
Buenos Aires - Argentina (Gómez y Zunino, 2008), Santa Marta - Colombia and Porto
Alegre y Salvador in Brasil. For achieving this aim, Bromley and Mackie describe how
“the urban authorities in the South, inspired by zero-tolerance projects from the North,
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tried to chase away urban undesirables because they were and still are considered a
hindrance in the city’s modernization projects and do not give security and good urban
image in the public spaces”. They also describe the displacement of informal traders
from the city center of Cusco and how this has been prompted by tourism goals,
arguing that displacement of informal trading is integral to any gentrification process
of the city center. “In this way, the center of a city whose cultural heritage site is
intended to tourism may be more likely to experience gentrification” (Bromley y
Mackie, 2009: 1502). Exemplifying this policy in March 2001 the major of Cusco,
Alfonso Valencia inaugurated two modern commercial centers: ‘El Molino 1’ and ‘El
Molino 2’. Around 2000 ambulant vendors of fruit, food and petty commodity were
forced to move from their temporary market stalls on the Avenida Ejercito to this
newly erected market. Other colonial houses were transformed into shops, pubs, bars
and restaurants, raising the land, clothes and food prices. “Local people have ever less
access to the center for purposes such as living, shopping, eating out or entertainment
because of the excessive prices, which can only be paid by ‘rich’ tourists” (Steel, G.
and Klaufus, C., 2010, p:8) and “lower-class traders are displaced to provide cleared
central streets which are attractive to middle-class national and foreign tourist, as well
as to middle-class local people” (Bromley and Mackie, 2009: 1503).
Another important issue of the processes of gentrification in Latin American city
centers is that the local authorities have to deal with a strong race-class dimension.
Jones and Varley (1999) argue that “gentrification should be approached as a source of
identity formation, in which the local middle classes try to gain moral authority over
the working classes and over popular culture alike”. So this has caused multiple
struggles of control and ownership in the urban spaces of the city centers of Cuenca
and Cusco. In Cuenca, for example, El Ejido, a garden-city borough, with very typical
neo-vernacular architectural style, named Arquitectura Cuencana, shows strong social -
class struggle between the cultural elites (pro-heritage conservation activists), the
economic elites (investors, real estate developers) and the “migrantes”, a low cultural
status group with rural mestizo background, who succeeded to improve their economic
position through transnational migration and remittance sending. Gentrification in El
Ejido is not about the displacement of working class residents in a strict sense, but
about old and new upper-class families who try to exclude each other, as well as
working-class ‘migrantes’ who have worked their way up. All of them bought
apartments in the new condominiums or recycled the old houses with new economic
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entrepreneurships. Nevertheless the real state offers for new upper-class families differ
strongly from those targeted to the migrants, although they have the money to invest.
“The working class is barred from the city center through active and passive forms of
discrimination. As said by Similar to the Vancouver case where moral and ideological
conflicts over the physical changes in the built environment were intertwined with issues of
race, class, cultural identity and citizenship, gentrification in Cuenca is linked to the
cultural codes associated with specific social classes. The working class in this case is not
expelled but immobilized.” (Steel, G. and Klaufus, C., 2010, p:17).
3. The historic center of Quito
As stated in different websites and touristic guides, the historic center of Quito is
the biggest and best-preserved colonial core of South America. Although Quito
appears officially founded in 1534 by the Spanish, it already existed several years
before the European conquest in the current location of the historic center. Quito was a
re-established settlement conferred by the Incas, that also conquered and settled over
the Quitus – Caras, ancestors living along the Andes Mountains in different valleys.
When the Spanish came, they evicted or killed the former inhabitants and settled in
their buildings. This gave a special characteristic to its morphology and urban
structure, expressed in scattered open spaces, big buildings and high-densities housing
projects.
“The center of Quito is built upon a reticular and orthogonal structure, with equidistant
axes that are approximately 100 meters apart […]. This structure is present, in different
scales and intensities, as much in the main religious buildings –such as San Francisco’s
or Santo Domingo’s Monasteries – as it is in the basic residential units in which most
historic blocks are subdivided. Quito’s core is a harmonic and homogeneous urban
fabric, where some specificities emerge from the suppression of some of the blocks
and the subsequent appearance of large public spaces around which the main religious
and civil buildings gather” (Correa, F: 2012: 5).
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FIGURE 1: PANORAMIC VIEW OF THE HISTORIC CENTER OF QUITO1
(Source: compiled by the author)
The historic center of Quito changed from an aristocratic borough during the
Spanish colonization and the republican period (1700 – 1930) into a set of poor
boroughs (1930 – 1990) when the rich families left their houses due to the increased
commercial activities on the first floor of their houses, and moved to the north of Quito
(See Appendix, Figure 9). Most of these families did not sell their houses, but rented
them to immigrants coming from the countryside attracted by the racing “oil boom”
economies in the large cities of Ecuador. The government institutions like the
Government Palace, the Municipality, the Ministry of Defense and other public
buildings remained in the core site. One fact of significant importance is, without any
doubt, the declaration of the historic center as a world cultural heritage site by the
UNESCO in 1978. It caused several public and social stakeholders, national and
foreign actors, to launch different programs, plans and interventions for the
preservation of the heritage in the old city. For example, during the first decade of 21st
Century the former Major Paco Moncayo removed street vendors from the Ipiales Av.
to peripheral malls in the downtown in a long process of negotiation between the
1 In the back the hill with the virgin on the top is “El Panecillo” (the Little pumpkin) and the snowy mountain is the Cotopaxi Volcano
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Municipality and the merchants associations. This project enabled private investors to
locate their business such as luxurious hotels and restaurants in some colonial houses
that were previously merchant’s shops. According to Demon, it created an artificial
situation dividing the historic center into a renewed inner core with poor boroughs in
the periphery. “A island of beauty was created in the middle of a region of poor
populations”. (Demon, 2012:172). This is evident in some parts of the old city where
street vendors, delinquency and prostitution still sojourn. Nonetheless, the commercial
and political activities continue in the historic center, causing around 300.000
commuters to break through its narrow streets or stay there every day.
For the Ministry of Housing Development of Ecuador (MIDUVI) the historic
center is suffering a diminishing local population and the reduction of the housing use.
The land use is predominantly for housing (57.6%) , most of them given in rent. The
main economical activity is retail businness (31.4%) followed by public administration
sector and tourism. Around 60% of the private-ownership heritage buildings are in the
process of deterioration. The sewage system and other infrastructure networks need
urgent repair and replacement and the incorporation of new technology (MIDUVI
2012).
FIGURE 2: DEMOGRAPHIC GROWING IN THE HISTORIC CENTER
(Source: MIDUVI 2013)
The Jail Number Two (former García Moreno Jail), the large and popular
market San Roque and the station transfer La Marín, all of them, are incompatible with
the soul of the Historic Center, according to the MIDUVI and the Municipality of
Quito. There are also problems of accessibility and traffic, security and bad state of
public spaces.
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Beginnings of the 20th Century
Nowadays
FIGURE 3: THE FORMER GARCÍA MORENO JAIL2 (source: Rafael Racines Cuesta Archives)
According to the MIDUVI the 99% of the sewage system is in
obsolescence and 17.4% of the private houses are in a bad state. Only 39.2% of
the houses could be considered as in a good state. There is also an increas in the
one-flat apartments (38.7%) and rented rooms in the big historical houses. The
26% of families live in houses of two or more stocks. There is also a part of the
whole offer of housing that is unoccupied (10.4%) and 25.4% has public toilets.
(Miduvi, 2013).
FIGURE 4: HOUSING TENANCE IN THE HISTORIC CENTER
(Source: MIDUVI 2012) 2 Today called: Jail Number 2
4.604 units, 28%
1.264 units, 8% 10.347
units; 64%
Housing in the Historic Center
OWNED
BORROWED AND SERVICES
RENT AND ANTICHRESIS
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So in general, the MIDUVI and the local government see, as the main
problems, the lack of coordination between the different stakeholders of the
historic center and that a part of the local inhabitants are living in extreme
poverty conditions.
4. Plan for the Revitalization of the Historic Center For addressing the above mentioned problems, the MIDUVI in coordination with
the Municipality, launched an urban intervention plan last year for the historic center to
transform it as “a vibrant core of our identities and cultural and historical heritage for
the world, a contemporary place to live, work and enjoy in harmony with the
environment, and as a world reference for historic centers management”. (MIDUVI,
2012). In this context, four strategic actions have been formulated to achieve the main
objectives:
1) To implement a master plan that allows the HC to be a worldwide reference
and foster an emergency program with emblematic actions
2) To launch new management mechanisms guarding the institutional autonomy
3) To intervene in the preservation and use of the heritage, including a social and
economic approach
4) To invest in the improvement of the life conditions of vulnerable population
These strategies are addressed in 3 core frameworks: 1) Quality of Life, 2)
Institutional Management and 3) Heritage and Culture. All these 3 axes gather long-
term projects, to be performed till 2017 and several short-term emergent projects,
called emblematic interventions that should be launched up to 2014. In the first scope
area (Life´s quality) the main projects are new functional road planning, renewal of
public spaces, new functions for public buildings as embassies and international
organisms, demolition of 12 edifications which do not correspond to the colonial
architecture for opening new squares and the recovery of inner courtyards. (Figure 6,
MIDUVI 2012).
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FIGURE 5: PROJECTS FOR LIFE´S QUALITY STRATEGIC AXIS (Source: compiled by the author; data from MIDUVI 2012)
FIGURE 6: POSSIBLE EDIFICATIONS TO BE TOPPLED
(Source: MIDUVI 2012)
The second strategic scope area is the institutional management, in which the
main objectives are 1) to strength the urban control and to insure a normative
framework for a new form of management; 2) to launch a financial sustainability plan
and promote private investment; and 3) to invest for life quality´s improvement of
vulnerable population (MIDUVI 2012).
Long-term Projects (up to 2017) Emergent Projects Scope Strategic Action
Life´s Quality
Housing Credits for popular housing
Improvement of buldings, facades, 3.000 housing
certificates
Infrastructure and Public Services Public Lighting sewage, power supply,
road network maintenance
New Buildings and Public Space
Cumandá Park, San Lárazo University
Heritage buildings for embassies, relocation of
Jail and San Roque Market
Security Improvement of ECU 911
Relocation of dysfunctional buildings
Mobility and Transportation
Network
Intervention Marín-Trébol Cumandá
ring road
Non-motorized transport, less private cars,
peripheral parking lots
Environment Underground dumps
Alternative solid waste collection, reforestation
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FIGURE 7: PROJECTS FOR INSTITUTIONAL MANAGEMENT SCOPE AREA
(Source: compiled by the author; data from MIDUVI 2012)
The third and last strategic scope area deals with the heritage and culture issues. It
reinforces the mechanisms to preserve the heritage buildings and strength of the
cultural heritage development. Also a communications and educational program is part
of the aims of this area.
FIGURE 8: PROJECTS FOR HERITAGE AND CULTURE STRATEGIC AXIS
(Source: compiled by the author; data from MIDUVI 2012)
The total budget designated for the short-term projects is USD $83.280.550,00
(45%) from which USD $36.230.550,00 comes from the Municipality of Quito, USD
$37.050.000,00 (44%) from the national government and USD $10.000.000,00 (12%)
from private investment. For the long-term projects the total invested amount is USD
Long-term Projects (up to 2017) Emergent Projects Scope Strategic Action
Institutional Management
Urban Regulation and Control
Special Group for urban control of
image and facades
Zero Tolerance Plan, expediting
procedures, specialized
controls
Economic Sustainability
Popular Solidarity Entrepreunirship,
promotion for private
investments and tourists
Economic development program and promotion of investments
Social Sustainability and
Integration
Strengthening the quarry project for
sex workers
relocation of sex workers, attention plan for beggars
Long-term Projects (up to 2017)
Emergent Projects Scope Strategic Action
Heritage and Culture
Tangible and Intangible cultural
heritage Heritage Inventory
Update Refunctioning
Public Buildings, preservation
religious buildings and museums
Communication, Marketing and
Education
Education Programme for
Heritage Preservation
Communications and Education Plans
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$675´200.000, from which USD $264´900.000 are from the Municipality of Quito
(40%), USD $318´550.000 (47,2%) from the national government and USD
$91´750.000 (12,8%) from the private sector. In conclusion, the final budget for all the
masterplan of revitalization is USD $758`480.550 during five years.
5. Analysis
The Historic Center of Quito is without any doubt one of the most important living
heritages of Ecuador and South America, a testimony of the colonial architecture and
also a mixture of different social classes and racial groups living and/or working in the
same space. Reading the whole revitalization plan there are new approaches like
environment, citizen participation and mobility, that were not take into account in the
former administrations (Innovar UIO 2007, p:1-5). The life´s quality scope area is the
most favoured in economic terms, meaning that infrastructure and physical
interventions are the priority of the revitalization plan (USD $481´300.000). The social
inclusion area is of lower importance in the whole project with a budget of USD
$15´900.000, designated especially for the relocation of sex workers and attention to
beggars.
In this way, and regarding the experiences of other Latin American cities (Cuzco,
Cuenca, Buenos Aires), where gentrification processes were accompanied by public
investment and private business in infrastructures and services, we can argue that
gentrification could also occur in the historic center of Quito due to the following facts:
1) The high percentage of public funding for private real estate projects (USD
$50´000.000 from a total of USD $121´750.000 for housing) compared with 4.000
popular certificates of USD $5.000 each one, for housing projects in the historic center
(USD$ 24´000.000). Currently, the price of each square meter is between USD $250
and $500 (Olx.com.ec: 2013), but in some renewed boroughs like San Marcos in the
east, it is not a surprise to find an apartment of 115m2 in USD $112.000 (Nexos
inmobiliarios: 2013). Although in the plan appears the certificate for low – incomers,
the housing projects points to middle– class dwellers as stated by the Metropolitan
Director of Heritage, Ana Lucía Armijos. In one of the most deprived and marginalized
sectors of the historic center, the Av. 24 de Mayo, three housing projects built by
MIDUVI “try to offer better housing options for its inhabitants as well to attract new
inhabitants of middle class of other zones of the city” (La Clave, 2012). Therefore, the
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municipality has enough power and discretion to choose the objects of investment and
its beneficiaries. As Fainstein states, “Capital investments by city governments are
intended to support development projects rather than improve the quality of peripheral
neighborhoods, and rezoning for higher densities occurs in response to developer
demands for more profitable investment opportunities.” (Fainstein, 2009: 1). On a
deeper level apparently the aim of the municipality is to re-settle the historic center
bringing middle and high-class dwellers but there is no plan to integrate them with
local residents. In words of Butler “It values the presence of others — that much has
been seen from the quotations from respondents — but chooses not to interact with
them. They are, as it were, much valued as a kind of social wallpaper, but no more.”
(Butler, 2003: 2484).
Another important project that should be taken into account for the potential
change of the historic center’s social structure is the location of a branch of an upper-
class university (UDLA – Universidad de las Américas) in the former psychiatric
hospital San Lázaro in the southwest part of the historic center. In the eyes of
democracy and tolerance it could be seen as a good policy for social integration and
mixture of classes. Nevertheless, is very unlikely that the students socialise with the
local residents, eat or talk with them. Moreover, as seen in other parts of Quito where
universities are located in residential areas, the increase of pubs, restaurants and bars
for student´s consumption could also occur in this area of Quito. In first instance it is
good because it will bring economic revival and maybe job opportunities, but in terms
of social inclusion it is very likely that the local residents would not use these services
due to the higher prices of foods, beverages and shops targeting the students’ pocket.
In the same way, a few days ago the MIDUVI and the Ministry for Foreign Affairs
invited several embassies and international organisms to an important event showing
the location of heritage houses available for their activities. (Ministry for Foreign
Affairs, 2013). It could be predicted that a change in the local space will occur due to
the new needs for security and concomitant exclusion and services related to this kind
of buildings and users. “The displacement or replacement is often neither direct nor
immediate, but the process remains ‘gentrification’ because the space is being
transformed for more affluent users.” (Slater 2006, p:744).
As already showed in the Cusco case, there is a similarity in one of the projects of
the institutional management scope area and the aim of strengthening the urban
control. A zero-tolerance project with USD $2´500.000 will try to chase away urban
16
undesirables because they do not give security and good urban image in the public
spaces.
Finally, the national government and novel experts wants to truly believe that
development cannot be stopped and neither changes in the structure of society or the
type of tourists coming to the Historic Center. As said by Julio Rivas, an tourist guide
in the historic center: “It is not only important the number of tourists, but the quality of
them”, referring to a very specific targeted tourist, that one who pays expensive rooms
in the luxurious (existing or potential) hotels located in the downtown, who eats in
expensive restaurants and who expects security, high-quality services and richly
colonial architecture and folklore signs of the heritage. (BBC, 2013). Taken into
account one of the five faces of oppression stated by Young3, at least cultural
imperialism and marginalization could occur even if not yet occurring in the historic
center of Quito. This would keep out the discussion about the symbolic value of the
heritage, what it really means for the local townsfolk and for the local government,
focusing only in the attraction of foreign tourists and not in the local residents that live
and work in the historic center.
6. Conclusions and Recommendations
Coming back to the book of García Marquéz, “Chronicle of a Death Foretold”, the
townsfolk desperately wanted to believe that the death was truly "foretold," due to the
many signs pointing to it. This essay intends to make an analogy comparing the
“signs” of the MIDUVI revitalization plan that could lead to a gentrification process in
advance. In the name of preservation of the heritage, the public opinion is guided to
think that the intended interventions such as the introduction of new novelty uses like
embassies or a upper-class university are necessary for attracting dwellers to the
diminishing population of the historic center. Also the demolition of “non-compatible”
buildings is part of the recovery of the colonial architecture and the “natural habitat”.
The velocity of renewal and the loss of roots are part of the new language of
neoliberal urbanism, as stated by Carrión (F. Carrión, 2000, p:15). The economical
interests are above the heritage value, disregarding the value of memory and territory.
3 Young describes five faces of oppression: exploitation, marginalization, powerlessness, cultural imperialism and violence. (See Young, I.M (1990) Justice and the politics of difference)
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This also is part of the crisis of urban planning, whose consequences are evident in the
creation of the “great urban projects” (GPU)4, serving mainly to the market and real
estate (F. Carrion 2000, p:30). This language is also evident in the whole proposal
diminishing or hiding the great potential of local dwellers to strength and races the
living standards in the historic center if they had the opportunity and the credits to do
so.
Knowing that the Ecuadorian society is still classist (as showed in the Cuenca
study) and expresses huge gaps between rich and poor, class conflict and involuntary
displacement of local residents is very likely to occur in the historic center. People will
move not because they do not like the gentrification around them, but rather because
there will be no alternatives available to them in a tight housing market (Slater 2006,
p:749). The housing projects of the national government could be overshadowed by the
real estate projects in some peripheral boroughs. In words of Neil Smith, gentrification
could occur due to the created hierarchies of power between gentrifiers and the
homeless, and the emergence of deep tensions along the major social fault-lines of
class, gender, ethnicity, race and religion, lifestyle and place - bound preferences.
(Harvey 1992, p:420).
It is also worrying that in the different public debate and social networks nothing
has been said about gentrification, rent increases or affordable housing crises, as one of
the outcomes of the revitalization plan. The discussion between architects, citizens and
local authorities remains in the demolition of a few modern edifications in the core
area. Nothing is said about gentrification as an expression of urban inequality. In this
sense, academics and the mass media have a role to play in exposing the serious side-
effects of gentrification for the local population structure and economy, even for the
current problems the municipality is trying to face with this project.
The revitalization plan could shift to a more democratic and socially inclusive plan
if a more public participatory approach and not only relocation programmes of
undesirable social groups are launched. “If city politics is to be democratic and not
dominated by the point of view of one group, it must be a politics that takes account of
and provides voice for the different groups that dwell together in the city without
forming a community” (Young, 1990: 227). In this way, the plan should be
transformed into a city project in which “public investment and regulation would
produce equitable outcomes rather than support those already well off” (Fainstein,
4 GPU: grandes proyectos urbanos (Great urban projects)
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2009: 3). Only the understanding by the local authorities that a urban development
project by itself in an specific territory could not change a deeper problem of inequity
and scarce access to housing, job, health or education, would produce the intended
outcomes of the plan, that is the vision of ·a vibrant core of our identities and cultural
and historical heritage for the world, a contemporary place to live, work and enjoy in
harmony with the environment”.
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7. Bibliography
Bromley, R. and Mackie, P. (2009). Displacement and the New Spaces for Informal Trade in the Latin American City Centre. Urban Studies, vol. 46 (7), p. 1485-1506.
Butler, T. (2003). Living in the bubble: gentrification and its “others” in London. Urban Studies, vol. 40 (12), p. 2469-86.
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