Culture-led urban regeneration policies in the Ibero-American space

ABSTRACT

This article examines cultural policy strategies supporting urban regeneration, focusing on its particular characteristics in the Ibero-American context. We start by developing a systematic contrast between the different circumstances that have led to the emergence of these strategies in the Ibero-American sphere and in other parts of the world. Our examination of the Ibero-American regenerative experience also includes a consideration of the paradigmatic cases that arose initially in the Iberian Peninsula and the typological analysis of subsequent Latin American experiences. The consideration of all these different elements ends up providing a global vision of the specificity of the phenomenon in its Ibero-American context.

KEYWORDS:

• Urban policy
• urban cultural regeneration
• Ibero-America
• Latin America
• Barcelona

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. In Portugal, on the contrary, this impulse will not come until the end of the 1990s and will be much less intense.

2. Thus, for example, Sánchez Belando, Rius Ulldemolins, and Zarlenga (2012, 37) restrict it to three characteristics while Arbaci and Tapada-Berteli (2012, 291) identify no less than 10 traits and just one of them is part of the other list.

3. There is an abundance of critical literature that over the years has been denouncing the gentrification of El Raval, but their perspectives on the phenomenon have been generally quite limited (see Rius 2014, 14–15, note 1). On the contrary, Subirats and Rius (2006) documented in depth the fundamental social continuity of the neighbourhood during the first 20 years of its transformation, which allows us to conclude that the regenerating operation has not produced any significant gentrification in terms of class replacement.

4. Visitors to the city passed from 100,000 per year before its opening to more than 900,000 the following year (Plaza 2008, 506).

5. It has even grown slightly in recent years, having produced the record in attracting the public from outside the Basque Country in 2017, with 1,047,000 visitors.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Arturo Rodríguez Morató

Arturo Rodríguez Morató is Professor of Sociology and current Director of the CECUPS (Center for the Study of Culture, Politics and Society) at the University of Barcelona. Former Vice President for Research of the International Sociological Association (2006-2010) and Former President of its Research Committee on Sociology of the Arts (1998-2002). He has been Visiting Scholar at the EHESS in Paris and the New School for Social Research in New York, as well as the University of Exeter and the University of Cambridge in the UK. He has been Coordinator of the project CulturalBase funded by the European Commission (2015-17). Lately, he has published one special issue of City, Culture and Society together with Marianna d’Ovidio (Volume 8, March 2017) and one book with Alvaro Santana-Acuña (La nueva sociología de las artes: una perspectiva hispanohablante y global, Barcelona: Gedisa, 2017).

Matías I. Zarlenga

Matías I. Zarlenga is PhD in Sociology from University of Barcelona (UB) and graduated in Sociology from the University of Buenos Aires (UBA). He also has an MA in Art History from the University of San Martín (UNSAM) as well as in Visual Arts and Education from University of Barcelona. He participated as a researcher in various accredited projects related to the sociology of culture in the Gino Germani Research Institute (IIGG) at University of Buenos Aires. He works as Associate Professor at the University of Barcelona and he was Postdoctoral Researcher at Cultural Base Project. Currently he works as Professor and Researcher at the University of Tres de Febrero (Argentina). He also works as Collaborating Researcher at the Centre for Studies on Culture, Politics and Society (CECUPS) of the University of Barcelona. His research interests include Sociology of Art and Culture, Urban Sociology and Urban Cultural Policies. Today his research focuses on the analysis of urban cultural dynamics and policies. His publications include papers in local and international journals and book chapters on issues related to urban cultural creativity, cultural district, cultural-led urban regeneration policies, etc.