The permanence of the population in historic centers from the perception of residents. Morelia’s historic center as a case study

Abstract

The inclusion of historical centers in Mexican cities on the World Heritage List brought the promise of benefits for its inhabitants through tourism development of those sites, which would be a trigger for local and regional development. However, over the time have been observed both positive and negative impacts, most notably the latter a process of depopulation of many of these urban areas, a phenomenon that is addressed in this paper, based on the case of the historic city center Morelia. Based on the premise that local urban programs implemented in recent decades have ignored largely the opinion of the residents of the site regarding urban problems and possible solutions in this article the results of an investigation are presented aimed at identifying the perception of the residents of the historic center on the factors that have determined their stay in that place, in order to infer the reasons which led to the decline in population in this areas and draw conclusions that will contribute in the formulation of strategies to achieve its demographic recovery.