Urban Growth and Sustainability. Case Study, Ribera Norte Project, Concepción, Chile

Abstract

During the last decade of the past century, a new term emerges that extends and introduces all human activity, sustainability. The second World Habitat Conference in Istanbul, under Agenda 21, highlights the role of cities and local authorities in the implementation of the global environment compromises and the generation of life quality and habitat. The design, development and management of “sustainable human communities” points to good urban life quality. Chile joins Agenda 21 and in 1998 promulgates a Law of Environment, together with the launch of various urban projects as mechanisms for recuperation and “relaunching” of its cities. One of these projects was Ribera Norte Project, an initiative that sought to recuperate a degraded area of the city of Concepción and generate urban soil in response of an increasing demand for a sustainable urban growth. The present study attempts to explore the relation and/or articulation between urban growth and sustainability through a concrete urban action, such as the Ribera Norte Project. The objective is to deepen the theoretical knowledge of one of the most discussed urban interventions of the past years in Chile, with the goal to gather lessons about sustainable urban planning in our cities. Starting with the premise that underdeveloped countries have to resolve both problems of urban poverty today and ecological preservation tomorrow, a task that becomes titanic in nature and almost impossible to resolve due to the lack of resources to cover so many urban problems at a time.