HABITAT AND HABITANTS IN THE CATALAN PYRENEES: DYNAMICS AND POLICIES FOR UNDER-POPULATED HIGH MOUNTAIN VILLAGES

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This paper is the result of a research carried out in 2006 in a partnership between the Universitat de Barcelona and the Universitat Politecnica de Catalunya, which was aimed to define guidelines to recover the architectural and scenic values of villages in almost abandoned Pyrenean valleys in Catalunya. The research studied at different levels (geographical, urban and architectural) the villages of several valleys in order to find out the factors more determinant to explain their degree of revitalization or decay. As a result of the research, the paper presents some conclusions on how to intervene on those pyrenean valleys: to work at the level of geographical units rather than with singular villages or individuals; to establish degrees of priority of intervention between the valleys in order to increase the efficiency of the actions; to ensure high quality infrastructure levels on the selected valleys; to fix strict limits to the construction of new vacation houses in high mountain villages in order to orient the real state demand to the rehabilitation of existing buildings; to create a program of subsidies to help the permanent population working on the primary sector to rehabilitate their dwellings; to promote the display of the natural and cultural richness of the valleys as a main factor for their revitalization; to support private and civic actions oriented to the recover of the valleys.