Grandi eventi e rigenerazione urbana negli anni della grande trasformazione di Genova: 1992-2004

Abstract

Great events have played a crucial role in the urban transformations that have been taken place in Genoa over the past 20 years, both for the huge investments they required and for the way they have redefined the city image. Urban transformation, upgrading and maintenance, all of which have affected the historical centre and the waterfront, have contributed decisively to reversing the process of physical, economic and social degradation which was devouring many parts of the city centre. The great operation of urban transformation, re-qualification and maintenance which saw as protagonists the historical centre of Genoa and the waterfront of the Porto Antico (ancient harbour), began in 1992 in the year of the Columbus Expo, celebration the 500 th anniversary of the discover of America, and was later continued and evolved by the G8 Summit, held in Genoa July 2001, and by Genoa European Capital of Culture in 2004. These great events have contributed, in a decisive way, to trigger processes of reversing the trends of declining physical, economic and social, which were acting in many parts of the central area of the city, allowing, through the creation of a new waterfront space open at the city, the connection between the historic port basin and the ancient nucleus of the city. The binomial waterfront-historical centre, characterised all the more substantial urban policies decisions in the 1990s and the first few years of the 2000, likewise catalysing the greatest interest and most of the financing, so consequently, the interest in this area has progressively grown to the value representative of the whole city.