Urban regeneration in the crossroads

Abstract

The depletion of urban expansion has forced the building sector to consider alternatives to the mere growth, that was the motor of recent housing boom and also promoter of a long period of development of more than two centuries that is coming to the end. With this intention was approved in 2013 the Act of Urban Rehabilitation, Regeneration and Renewal, encompassing under that name the regulation of the processes of transformation of the existing city. In this article, strategies, objectives, methods and proposed instruments are discussed for carrying out the policies of intervention and transformation of urban consolidated area, highlighting the limitations of some approaches that ignore the reality of an obsolete built park, in need of intervention, but mainly held by insolvent homeowners, operations that require strong public intervention, and housing policy away from patterns of pure promotion of common property business throughout the twentieth century. The alternative is the privatization of the regenerative action, with a sequel of social conflicts at the inability of a significant portion of the current owners to cope with the costs of the unavoidable obligations that become with this law.