By: Marco Fidel Suárez Bedoya
In recent days, the port of Liverpool in the United Kingdom was removed from the world heritage list. The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, UNESCO, made that decision arguing that the urban plans would irreversibly damage the historical heritage of the place. The same fate could befall Cartagena de Indias, the memorable walled city of the Colombian Caribbean, all due to a “small” building that affects the exceptional universal value for which La Heroica entered the world heritage list in 1984. It seems that The controversial Aquarela tower, which is built one block from the mythical Castillo de San Felipe de Barajas, will be demolished, but UNESCO has not only demanded it, but has also ordered the District to approve and implement two special plans for management and protection of heritage: the Special Plan for Management and Protection of the Historic Center (Pemp), and the Territorial Planning Plan (POT). These measures would put an end to the urban chaos in the city and would be supported by the Heritage Directorate of the Ministry of Culture.
Urban plans seem to desperately seek a way to accommodate more and more citizens every day. According to UNESCO, more than half of humanity, that is, 3.9 billion people, live in cities. A figure that has multiplied by five since 1950. According to ECLAC, Latin America is the most urbanized region in the developing world. Two-thirds of the Latin American population lives in cities of 20,000 inhabitants or more and almost 80% in urban areas. The growth of cities ends up affecting, in one way or another, local heritage. Cities increasingly require more buildings for more people who interact socially and culturally, who have endless needs of all kinds and who will make a thousand and one uses of their environment.
These situations bring us face to face with the relationship between urbanization and heritage, understanding this in all its categories (architectural, intangible, natural, etc.); a relationship that, if not properly coordinated, becomes a threat to sustainability. The problem seems to be that we understand the concept of sustainable development, but in practice we continue to marginalize culture, and that we continue to see heritage as mere old buildings commercially exploitable for tourism.
We often forget that the preservation of heritage requires, as García Canclini (1999) explains, a participatory perspective. This server translates it as follows: heritage goes beyond the building to be preserved; It is the meaning and use that a human community has and makes of it. In a single word, it is appropriation. In the case of a house, a castle or a heritage sector, it is not only the façade, which is generally the most noticeable aspect for the tourist, but also the ancestral construction technique, the geometry of its spaces, the art used in its decoration, the historical events that were recorded there, among other characteristics that make it particular, and, most importantly, the meaning it has for its inhabitants and neighbors.
Thus, it is about preserving heritage spaces so that they remind the people of their identity, their history and their values. The economic use is not in the mere observation of the heritage site but in the cultural framework that emerges and is expressed there. That is, offering the visitor the possibility of being part of it, of sharing it, of feeling it just as the community to which it belongs does. Preserving heritage is giving it a life of its own, allowing the native to take ownership of it and receive more than money from it. It is something that urbanization must be clear about in its growth since culture is the engine of human development and social cohesion.
Taking into account that one of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals in the 2030 Agenda proposed by the UN are sustainable cities and communities, and that achieving this means redoubling efforts to protect and safeguard the world's cultural and natural heritage, we need urban plans aware of the social and cultural interactions of citizens. That is to say, beyond offering them a space to live, it is offering them a space to fully develop, and that development implies giving culture and heritage the place they deserve.
Sources:
CEPAL. (2012). La urbanización presenta oportunidades y desafíos para avanzar hacia el desarrollo sostenible. [En línea]. Disponible en: https://www.cepal.org/notas/73/Titulares2
García Canclini, N. (1999). Los usos sociales del patrimonio cultural. Patrimonio etnológico: nuevas perspectivas de estudio. Coord. por Aguilar Criado, E. ISBN 84-8266-093-4. Pp. 16-33.
UNESCO. (2021). La UNESCO por las ciudades sostenibles. [En línea]. Disponible en: https://es.unesco.org/unesco-for-sustainable-cities