Historic centre
The historic centre is the oldest part of the city, predating the nineteenth-century extensions: narrow streets, irregular blocks, buildings of several overlapping periods. It concentrates heritage, tourism and, increasingly, the conflict between preserving the building and keeping the people who live inside it.
Through the twentieth century it decayed or was demolished; since the 1980s it is rehabilitated, and with rehabilitation comes touristification. A historic centre emptied of residents is a stage set. Policies that work combine building protection, affordable housing and control of tourist use.
Videos on this term (9)
- Urban history
Christine Boyer: How the City Turns Memory into a Tool of Power
M. Christine Boyer shows in The City of Collective Memory that heritage and urban images are selected and…
Christine Boyer 3 min read - Urban geopolitics
Rem Koolhaas: Manhattanism, Bigness and the Generic City
Rem Koolhaas explains what happens when the city grows faster than the planner's control: Manhattanism, Bigness,…
Rem Koolhaas 3 min read - Urban form
How Five Elements Make a City Legible and Accessible
Kevin Lynch's five elements, paths, edges, districts, nodes and landmarks, explain how people read a city, and…
3 min read - Housing
The Historic Centre as a Deceptive Façade: Tourism Without Neighbours
Historic centres restore their stones and lose their residents to short-term rentals and souvenir shops.
3 min read - Urban history
Aldo Rossi: The Architecture of the City
A summary of Aldo Rossi's The Architecture of the City (1966): the city as a historical artifact, urban…
Aldo Rossi 2 min read - Urban psychology
Kevin Lynch's The Image of the City: How We Perceive Cities
The Image of the City (1960) by Kevin Lynch explains how we perceive cities through five elements: paths, edges,…
Kevin Lynch 3 min read - Urban history
Christine Boyer: Collective Memory and Urban Planning
The City of Collective Memory (1994) by Christine Boyer explains how the city stores memory and how regeneration…
Christine Boyer 3 min read - Urban economy
Urban Logistics: Distributing Goods Without Choking the City
Urban logistics manages the movement of goods in the city: loading zones and time windows according to Browne, data…
2 min read - Housing
The Impact of Airbnb on Neighbourhoods: Rents and Everyday Life
How short-term rental raises rents, replaces local shops with souvenir stores and breaks neighbourhood life, and…
3 min read
