An approach to public policy for urban heritage protection in Colombia using path dependence (1954-2019)

Abstract

Urban heritage is a category of cultural heritage. Historic centers are protected by a legal framework that safeguards the values that are the object of the declaration. The study of urban heritage protection policy in Colombia has been limited by the classical perspective. In contrast, this research performs a case study on conservation legislation and the historical centers declared in Colombia as Assets of Cultural Interest (BIC, in Spanish) between 1954 and 2019 from historical institutionalism. The methodology used is the Path Dependence Application Scheme (EAPD, in Spanish), which seeks to recognize the relationships between the variables, periods, and trajectory of the object of study; to demonstrate the hypothesis of this work, namely the emergence of urban heritage and protection mechanisms is due to the debilitation of the law and ideas of historical heritage. The preliminary conclusions outline five periods and emphasize the mutual dependence of urban heritage and protection policies, as well as the recent emergence of citizen participation, and the loss of flexibility and versatility of the legal framework with manifestations of irreversibility in the conservation of urban heritage.