Abstract
Following a decades-long real estate bubble involving a culture of indiscriminate ownership and occupation of land, PAX—Patios de la Axerquía is proposing an innovative system of governance in the city of Córdoba in Spain that fosters a new urban model consistent with the aims of the New Urban Agenda and a Smart, Sustainable and Inclusive City: from a culture of speculation to one of rehabilitation. A system of multilevel co-management between the public administration and the social economy provides the basis for the acquisition and cooperative use of empty houses as a model of urban regeneration through social innovation in a heritage context. The rehabilitation of the patio-houses in Axerquía, which have been threatened by gentrification, aims to restore the environmental values of the Mediterranean city and upgrade its historical characteristics in a contemporary way together with the citizenship: from its architectural value as a World Heritage site to its anthropological value as Intangible Heritage of Humanity, as recognised by UNESCO in 2012. The interaction between innovative mechanisms of sustainable urban development opens up a pathway of virtuous policies for the densification of the existing city by the local population, generation of micro-employment, and support for collective projects that incorporate refugees and migrants in a system of solidarity. Updating the urban, environmental, social, and economic values of the traditional city is a step toward understanding the Mediterranean city as an undeniable reminder of our past and, at the same time, providing an essential tool for the future development of a smart, sustainable, and inclusive Europe.
Highlights
‘Venice is priceless: because the invisible city intertwines every stone of its bridges, every drop of water in its canals is a dense knit of relationships, a powerful plot of facts and gestures, memories and words, of beauty and history.’
Gentrification is determined by the ‘normal’ dynamics of the real estate market, which changes the social fabric, while in other occasions it depends on the interest that financial funds have in finding new contents linked to the real estate market
The tourism industry, which is becoming increasingly influential in the world real estate market, is generating new formats that are extremely revolutionary in relation to the urban and contemporary social fabric
Summary
Generation of public housing stock or cooperatives of local citizens using vacant patio-houses in the city centre to curtail gentrification. This strategy promotes the purchase of abandoned historic buildings for the densification of the city in the framework of housing, professional and restoration cooperatives, to enable the preservation of both the architectonic and environmental heritage and to maintain the local population. PAX promotes cultural activities in collaboration with other institutions and cultural and social organisations to facilitate the understanding of heritage in relation to people
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