Deeping in the genetics of medium-sized cities. Heritage as an identity feature in Andalusia

Abstract

Interest in urban agglomerations, metropolitan areas, large cities and in general the spaces where the majority of the world’s population is concentrated, has occupied the interest of an urban research for decades. According to the United Nations sources, today, the world population is 7.6 billion, is going to reach 8.6 billion in 2030 and 9.8 billion people in 2050. In Spain, according to sources from the National Institute of Statistics, the population reaches 46.57 million inhabitants, although its distribution is not uniform in the territory. Andalusia, with 8.37 million, is the first most populated Spanish autonomous community, followed by Catalonia (7.55) and the Community of Madrid (6.50) with almost one million fewer inhabitants, respectively. Following the same indicators, most of this population already lives in large cities and in the upcoming years, this figure will increase exponentially. This means that a large part of people will be concentrated in a small part of the territory and, on the other hand, which we begin to have large areas of the territory without inhabiting or with a very low population density. Examining aspects traditionally considered as secondary, involving a minority of the population, has been one of the disciplinary general constants in the last century and that not only affects architects or urban planners. To say medium-sized cities in Europe is to think about urban-territorial heritage, historic landscapes that continue shaping wide territories. In Andalusia (87600 km2), the effects of metropolization are still punctual (3.72 % on 778 municipalities). Totalling 778 municipalities, up to 122 of them are listed for their Historical Centres. We find that only 3.72 % of these municipalities exceeds a population of 50 000 inhabitants. The Heritage constitutes its ‘genetic heritage’. Both considering international and national scales, its historic relevance is noted in Civitates Orbis Terrarum (with 25 Andalusian cities from 34 Spanish). Nowadays, its heritage value is represented by the Historic Centres (the first two listed cities in Spain, 1929, were Andalusian), and World Heritage inscriptions. This outlines the necessity of decoding the Heritage DNA, as an indissoluble variable prior to planning. The aim of this research is to characterize the European medium-sized cities and their territory in the heritage terms, defining what is the Andalusian territory. Different cultural and productive landscapes are the main actors of the medium-sized Andalusian cities: the landscape of fishing, the art of the almadraba, the wine cellars, the olive trees plantations, the urban networks of convents are only a sample. The dynamics experimented at this regional level could be extended to the rest of the European countries analysed in the project. This research will gather partial results of an R&D project “Patrimonial Urban Characterization and Cultural Tourism Model in the Middle Cities. Potentialities and Challenges for its Internationalization: Inner Baetica”, funded by the Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness of Spain.