White Paper on Strategies to Revitalize Historic Urban Cores in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC)

2016

The Inter-American Development Bank asked Eparque to frame the challenges LAC cities face in developing vibrant historic cores. Historic city centers across the region have been abandoned in favor of peripheral areas with more contemporary living spaces and modern amenities, and there is little integration of urban planning and heritage management. As of 2015, 18 countries across LAC had implemented interventions in a total of 48 historic centers—but usually as part of, and focused solely on, historic-center management. We conceived the task differently, stressing the need for an integrated, holistic approach that values economic as well as cultural vibrancy. We developed a position paper that emphasized the positive impacts of historic-city regeneration on: infrastructure development, local economic development , property values, real estate market.