Departamento de Geografia - Universidade Estadual de Maringá

RESUMEN: Mucho se ha escrito sobre el antiguo centro colonial que todavía perdura en muchas ciudades Sudamericanas. La apropiación de los espacios de los centros históricos se ha basado tradicionalmente en relaciones de proximidad y de cotidianeidad. El propósito de esta presentación es ofrecer varios perfiles empíricos sobre el uso de suelo. La presentación intenta hacer una primera aproximación tanto al perfil cuantitativo como al cualitativo sobre qué es el "casco histórico" y como es posible que los urbanistas puedan aprender de las experiencias y grandes desafíos que enfrenten estos centros viejos. El levantamiento de datos proviene de dos centros históricos: Cartagena (Colombia) y Cuenca  (Ecuador).

Palabras Claves: entro histórico; proyecto urbano; capital-inmobiliario; Sudamérica

ABSTRACT: Much has been written about the South American colonial center, which still prevails in many places. The asumption of space in historic centers is usually based on proximity and daily life. The purpose of this presentation is to offer various empirical profiles of land use. The presentation represents an initial assessment of both the quantitative and qualitative dimensions about the "historic center." It aims to identify how urban scholars --geographers, planners, and designers-- might learn from the experiences and challenges of these old centers. We conducted a land-use survey in two historic districts: Cartagena (Colombia) and Cuenca  (Ecuador).

Key Words: historic center; urban project; real-estate capital; South America

 Introduction

Neighborhood real-estate cycles in the advanced capitalist nations frequently entail gentrification, urban revitalization, and tenant displacement. Various theoretical lenses seek to explain this process. Some analysts conceptualize speculative investment as an opportunity to rejuvenate older inner-city neighborhoods. Others interpret the infusion of capital as both hegemonic and a disrupting force that destroys social networks and expels residents. Empirical evidence suggests that real-estate capital is a combination of these two outcomes. In Latin American cities, however, little comparative research has systematically described this process, particularly in UNESCO- or nationally declared historic districts called ‘heritage sites.’
This research report examines two historic districts undergoing gentrification driven by different sources of real-estate capital. It responds to a recent review of Latin American cities that claimed “there [is not much] chance of a widespread process of gentrification “improving” the [Sud American] urban center, even though certain governments would like to encourage it” (Gilbert, 1996, 102). I argue that change has been profound and quick, and that the state has been neither idle nor uninformed about the transformation of their historic district.
The first site is Cartagena de las Indias, Colombia (UNESCO World Heritage Site). Here, wealthy Colombians, Europeans, politicians, and narco-investment are changing the walled-city into a chic, upscale, and second-home tropical resort. A second location is Cuenca, Ecuador, a National Heritage Site, slated in the near future for candidacy as a UNESCO site.(1)   Remittances sent there by cuencanos working in the metropolitan New York area have created a burgeoning banking industry in Cuenca’s colonial core. Capital infusion increases rent, displaces some artisans and Indians, and attracts art galleries, restaurants, and related tourist services.

Related Literatures

A predominant theme in urban studies since Friedmann’s (1986) world cities hypothesis is the identification of global centers of influence. Sassen’s (1991) later work on Tokyo, London, and New York further explained the control functions of major metropoli. To be sure, there is a spate of research on how influential “world cities” induce structural change well beyond their own countries (Knox 1995; Johnston, Taylor and Watts, 1995). Nonetheless, little work moves beyond this “broad brush” political economy approach and clarifies change within particular districts of the SudAmerican cities. While it would be unfair to label the world-city paradigm as trendy and ephemeral, it seems prudent to recognize that the rush to explain complex processes under a broad and ambiguous process such as “globalization” may also be myopic. Sudamericanist scholars have not ignored the world-city approach (Keeling 1996). However, there is evidence that some are adamant about what constitutes acceptable Sudamericanist urban research (Keeling 1998). In their rush to seek causation for global urban change, world-city researchers may be reaching reductionistic conclusions; (i.e., that everything is related to macro forces emanating out of restructuring and “control” functions of the world’s leading metropoli).

The research presented in this report is less grandiose and more modest than the world-city genre of research. Instead, it aims to understand the relationship between local geographical contexts and broad capital transformations. Is local capital more readily accepted than capital created by non-local individuals and firms? David Ley (1996) shows in his study of Canadian cities that cultural features of gentrified neighborhoods share equal footing with the explanatory factors used commonly in political economy and the world-cities researchers.
Increasingly, scholars are learning more about the sources, processes, and outcomes of gentrification in Latin American cities. This entails an understanding of the relationship between spatiality in local geographic contexts and capital transformation. One question about which we know little is whether local capital is more readily accepted than capital created by non-local individuals and firms. While most Latin American urban geographic research has examined urban morphology and ambulant vendors (Bromley 1998; Hays-Mitchell 1993, 1994), fewer studies have tried to trace the connections among global, national, and local forces through the study of how local residents grapple with gentrification (cf. Jones and Varley; 1994 Ward 1993). The theoretical frameworks employed move beyond the useful but somewhat restricted subjectivist theories of Weber, Parsons and Durkheim by engaging praxis-oriented interpretations. An alternative approach used in this paper is that residents of Latin American historic districts are not monolithic. Cultural attributes and local history condition the nature of response to real-estate capital.

To situate this work, we turn briefly to related literatures that examine some trends in the advanced capitalist nations. We begin with a brief overview of the gentrification process. The following section outlines how cultural features have shaped urban revitalization in Canadian cities. A final section of the literature review identifies forms of collective action. We begin with these conceptual frameworks in the section that follows.
Gentrification and Frameworks from the Advanced Capitalist Nations

What Smith (1996) calls the ‘revanchist city’—one that is a divided and dual place of poverty and wealth—is a standard feature of the Latin American inner city (Ward, 1993; Hardoy and Gutman 1992). Gittell (1992) examines the collective responses of those displaced by gentrification in a variety of places: from Lowell, New Bedford, and Jamestown, to Adams Morgan (Washington, D.C.) and McKeesport (Pittsburgh) in the USA. He argues that there is a perception that collective action will better deter gentrification and displacement than if folks act alone. His work, like Olson ‘s study (1965) of Atlanta, springs from public choice theories of collective action. Accordingly, members will not be involved in collective action if they can ‘free ride’; that is, benefit from the group’s effort without their participating directly. Axelrod (1984) has modified this notion by suggesting that repeated interaction of local organizations and their residents allow groups and individuals to see the shortcomings of non-cooperation, and to learn patterns and norms of local governance. Variants of these themes assess the role of political leadership and growth machine politics, well illustrated by the work of Mollenkopf (1983). He states that “political entrepreneurs can bring together widely different, competing and even conflicting political actors and interests by creating new governmental bases for exercising new powers which none of these actors and interests could otherwise have experienced on its own.”

Culture and Gentrification

Ley (1996) assesses the geographic specificity of the Canadian inner city and the conditions that lead to its ‘embourgeoisement.’ He shows how the spectacular products of the culture industry rekindle the allure of the inner city landscape that, in turn, “cannot escape the nexus of the culture of consumption” (Ley 1996, 13). While the social relations and political goals of gentrifying Canadian inner cities was subsumed under the label of the ‘livable city,’ the middle-class moving back to old central neighborhoods responded to a savoir-faire, niche marketing of a tastes, sounds, and fragrances for a new, urbane class of city residents. Ley coined the term ‘cultural new class’ to describe cultural and social professionals who wanted to enhance their quality of life in ways that are not simply economic. As the case study shows below, this ‘re-enchantment of urban space’ is similar to the transformation of the historic walled city of Cartagena, Colombia. Ley assails Bell’s thesis (1970) that the post-War middle class demanded more beauty and quality of life in their environs (elements that could only be found in the suburbs). Ley found that it is no longer valid in the Canadian city. Instead, “middle class settlement in the inner city is not primarily a convenience in minimizing the journey to work downtown. It is also a statement of social identity and cultural politics” (Ley 1996, 24). His findings offer non-economic explanations for inner-city change.
Collective Action: From Subjectivity to Praxis

We may conceptualize action-oriented theorists into two types. The first group is the subjectively oriented theorists while the second includes theorists of praxis. While a full review of these literatures is impractical here, defining points of their work mark parameters for this study. Weber’s contribution was to note that social actors ascribe meaning to their behavior and respond to those institutions and forces that they perceive as shaping their world. A long-standing criticism of this assumption is that “actors may or may not reciprocally agree on the interpretations of one another’s behaviors”(Cohen 1996, 114). In the case of opposing gentrification, local residents may or may not join in collective action for the same common goal. Instead, each may first wish to satisfy an immediate, personal objective.(2)

To understand the new interpretations of theories of action in the late 20th century, we may turn to those concerned about praxis. These theorists contend that the role of consciousness in subjectivist theories of action (Weber, Parsons, and Durkheim) is unduly emphasized. Will, intent, and minds—it must be remembered—cannot carry out social action. Anthony Giddens’ (1979, 1984) structuration theory transcends some dualisms underpinning the subjectivists noted above. One is his ‘subject/object’ dualism and the other is ‘structure/agency’ which is well known among geographers. The former assumes a conscious agent as the locus of action and the structure/agency dualism assumes enacted ways of behavior as the locus of action. For Giddens, patterns of action and human behavior are distinct from the systemic patterns found in the biological sciences. Giddens’ (1984) conceptualization of time-space distanciation means that the media and telecommunications pervade the globe in a network of relations that seemingly include ‘absent’ agents. In the Latin American gentrification studies, then, it may be assumed that definitions of taste, style, comfort, home, chic, basic necessities, neighborhood, home and family become defined in part by influences beyond the ‘local,’ and in turn became layered upon face-to-face interactions.

While these frameworks may be useful in capitalist democracies, it must be remembered that they apply to cities in multi-party systems where the citizenry exercises greater options in opposing neighborhood change. Furthermore, urban renewal in most U.S. cities entails the competition for office space and manufacturing that lead to displacement. Latin American city governments, however, have little power and revenue-generating ability, unlike their North American and European counterparts (Scarpaci and Irarrázaval 1994; Williams 1984). Organized labor throughout Latin America has entered into various associations with political parties and regional strongmen (caudillos) in seemingly random fashion, and often times mirrors the way in which civil alliances are forged in opposition to Latin American national and city governments (Berquist 1986). Scarpaci’s (1991) study of private voluntary health organizations in three Southern Cone cities found that city governments did not work with shantytown health-care groups because of class differences. Latin America, moreover, lacks the kind of ‘messiah mayors’ who can build public-private partnerships that made Pittsburgh, Baltimore, Detroit, and New York City ‘models’ of urban renewal (Teaford 1990). When commercial competition is not the driving force, explanations about elite proximity to white-collar places of employment prevail (Palen and Nachmias 1984; DeGiovanni 1984).
The two Latin American case studies depart from the models of public-private partnerships common in the United States. In Colombia, political violence, human rights violations, and narco-lobbying rocked the government of Ernesto Samper 1994-98 (Cepeda 1997). Political opposition, community activists, judges and police routinely fall victim to assassinations (Castillo 1996). Race and class divide Ecuadorian politics that have been mired in centuries of colonial and elite Creole rule (Martz 1997; 1972).

In short, these theories cannot be grafted on the Latin American gentrification process. Only by carefully grounding Latin American case studies in field research can we begin to understand Latin American gentrification, and inductively build a path to suitable explanatory frameworks. In this spirit, Dutch geographers have argued that Third World collective actions reveal “territorial organizations of the urban poor [that] do not act within a political vacuum and have to reckon with them set by the social and political structure of society” (Schuurman and van Naerssen, 1989, 2). The poor of Latin American cities, moreover, are attuned to the workings of the real-estate market (3)  (Jelín 1985; Walton 1987) Cultural interpretations of urban gentrification, therefore, are both place and class-specific. If a political economy framework is to provide information about how local responses to gentrification stem from the workings of a global economy (Smith and Williams 1986; Smith 1994, 1996), then this macro-theoretical context needs to be grounded in local history and geography (Slater 1993, 1995, Eckstein 1989).

Case Studies
Cartagena

Background. The principal colonial port of the Caribbean, Cartagena de las Indias served as a transshipment point for colonial extractive industries in South America. It fell into economic depression in the 19th century shortly after independence. Trade and political power gradually accrued to nearby Baranquilla. Construction of an important canal in the early 20th century renewed commerce again between Cartagena and its hinterland.
Today, Cartagena is one of the few remaining walled cities (4)  in the Western Hemisphere that functions as a vibrant service and tourist economy. Its high-quality building façades reflect a vibrant local economy. Public investment in streets, lighting, and open spaces (plazas and plazuelas) is significant and Cartagena has the highest quality built environment of the two sites. The author’s 1992 land-use survey of the walled city showed a significant portion of residences and small, mom-and-pop shops. These land uses give Cartagena a unique status among other Latin American historic districts (Figure 1). A French and Colombian hotel and investment group renovated two former convents in 1995 and 1996, respectively. Adjacent buildings and land-uses have also changed.

Figure 1

Real-estate development. Since the 1980s, Cartagena has increasingly become a place for second homes. Wealthy Europeans and Colombians, national politicians, and narcotics magnates seeking to launder their profits in the real-estate market have ‘discovered’ Cartagena. As noted above, hotels (5)  have sought out historic landmarks for renovation and commercial use. Not surprisingly, property demand and value have risen sharply. A new antique district emerged and many long-time homeowners are anxious to sell their modest homes. One 57 year-old widow viewed her modest property as a retirement account: “I am waiting for my prince to knock on my door and offer me some good money for my property so I can live out the rest of my days with children and grandchildren in the countryside.” These ‘princes’ (and ‘princesses’) include a ‘jet-set’ crowd of Spanish, Italian and Germans who maintain a second (or even third) home in this tropical resort. The source of capital for Cartagena’s gentrification is, therefore, both legal and illegal, national and international. Field research in 1997 revealed that many widows, widowers, and pensioners in Cartagena were waiting for anyone (drug dealer, Spanish businessman, or Colombian politician) to make an offer on their home. Impending social costs (rising rents, possible displacement of neighbors, higher taxes) were not a concern. Interviews with scores of owner-occupants showed that a primary goal is to retire with financial security.

In 1995, the Colombian national congress passed an important investment law, El Proceso 8000 (P-8000 henceforth). The purpose of the law is to force investors to disclose the nature of all large-currency deposits in bank accounts. A detailed accounting record must disclose the source of revenues in Colombia or abroad. By 1996, the real-estate market in Cartagena and throughout the nation slowed dramatically. On the one hand, P-8000 had made it difficult for narcotics money-laundering businesses to “recycle” funds in real estate, a sector that generally has been considered a safe investment haven. On the other hand, political violence and an uncertain financial market continue to rock the nation. Thus, it is difficult to point to a cause-effect relationship between P-8000 and the sudden drop in building construction and renovation in Cartagena.

There is, however, a strong association between P-8000 and building activity in Cartagena’s historic district. Before P-8000, building construction and remodeling remained strong, as measured by building permits approved by the town planning office. Permits issued in 1993 jumped from 16 to 30 the following year. Late the following year, P-8000 came into effect. Still, the planning office issued 25 permits. In 1996, the figure fell by half. As of July 1997, only six permit requests had been filed in the town planning office that year. (Figure 2) Unlike other parts of Cartagena (outside the historic district), self-construction is minimal in the historic area (Personal communication, Isabel Polo, 7 July 1997).

Figure 2

Community Response to Gentrification in Cartagena. Of the two case studies, residents of Cartagena offer the only semblance of sustained community opposition to gentrification. Fifteen years ago, just the traditional center—one of the three neighborhoods comprising the historic district (Centro, San Diego, and Getsemaní)—seemed ripe for urban renewal. Outsiders since the late 1980s, though, have upgraded San Diego and Getsemaní in spotty but essential ways (Díaz de Paniagua 1995). Cartagena’s ethnic stock consists largely of Afro-Caribbeans, though not all are “black” nor are they all poor (Díaz de Paniagua and Paniagua Bedoya1994). There exists a rich cultural life based on local history and customs. At the same time, though, there are no “channels of communication that permit the flow of information among different social classes that would allow real citizen participation” (Díaz de Paniagua 1995, 104). Tourism, a focal point for job creation and a source of social recreation for cartageneros as well as tourists, has been disruptive. It has disarticulated the social relations among the locals, changed the use of local spaces, and transformed cultural patterns (Paniagua Bedoya1992, cited in Díaz de Paniagua 1995, p. 104). By 1998, tourism in Cartagena had fallen and the few sojourners that vacationed there were reporting aggressive street vendors and panhandlers.

Tourism operates in Cartagena without carefully respected master plans. Marketing emphasizes the selling of anything that is tourist related without any strategic or social planning to accompany such promotions (Paniagua Bedoya 1995, 113). The larger the tourist facility in Cartagena, the greater the likelihood that it will draw on skilled labor from outside the city. Cartageneros occupy mostly the lowest paying jobs such as waiters, waitresses, truck drivers, and heavy laborers. Locals fight a stigma, like most coastal residents in Colombia, as lazy, irresponsible, carefree, and unprofessional workers (Díaz de Paniagua and Paniagua Bedoya1994).

Despite these collective forces and concerns over the influx of tourism, there has been little protest against tourism. One response, though, is led by a local cartagenera, Nilda Meléndez. A lawyer, Meléndez heads up a NGO called Fundación Cultural Getsemaní. Her organization’s position is that the city government wants to “run down” the neighborhoods of the walled city. In turn, out-migration would take place, community opposition to gentrification would be nil, and broad-scale “urban revitalization” could take place. (6)  There is some sentiment in Getsemaní that unless gentrification is slowed down, the local residents will wind up as gardeners and domestic servants to a gentrified class (Personal communication, Nilda Meléndez, July 7, 1997).

One goal of the NGO is to persuade local and national banks to subsidize low-interest loans so tenants in the neighborhood can purchase their own homes. In the meantime, the original Turkish (7)  ethnic composition of Getsemaní that gave way to Afro-Caribbean residents during the middle of this century continues to decline (Díaz de Paniagua and Paniagua Bedoya1994). Increasingly, German, Italian and Spanish foreigners purchase adjoining one- and two-story homes and combine them into a single, large residence. As Meléndez describes it: “They throw away the old Spanish tiles in their renovations, import Italian marble, and drive out the locals. This is the conventional term for so-called “economic development” and there are enough of us that oppose all of it” (Personal communication, 1997).
Like incipient collective action elsewhere, objection to gentrification has begun slowly. Public complaints usually begin over noise and traffic congestion brought on by restaurants and discotheques. A common complaint brought to the NGO (because the planning office contends that no legal infractions exist) concerns loud music and the use of air conditioners in commercial establishments. Persuading local shop owners to respect noise levels at night is done on a case-by-case basis. In a few instances, some air conditioners have been vented into the patios or back alleys of commercial establishments, as opposed to front windows. These are a just a few of the daily problems faced by residents of Getsemaní, of whom only 30% are estimated to be owner-occupied (Personal communication, Nilda Meléndez, 1997).
Cuenca.

Background. Like much of Ecuador, Cuenca was isolated from much of the outside world until the 20th century. Rugged terrain barred modern improvements from reaching the city steadily until the arrival of aviation in the late 1920s. Gradual road improvements reduced travel time to the capital city of Quito from several days to less than ten hours.
In the 1980s, restructuring in the international labor market brought new demand, especially in the U.S., for cheap manual labor. The illegal smuggling of aliens from Mexico to the United States extended to this Andean nation about ten years ago. Today, the term ‘coyote’ refers to the dealers who traffic in human labor the same way it has existed for decades along the U.S.-Mexican border.
Metropolitan New York the principal labor market for many undocumented and documented Ecuadorians who have migrated there by way of Central America and Mexico. A large number of these migrants come from Azuay Province, a depressed agricultural province next to the city of Cuenca. They work as bus boys, dishwashers, manual laborers, housekeepers, childcare workers, messengers, gardeners, and similar semi-skilled occupations. Like many migrants, a portion of

Ecuadorians wishes to return to their places of origin after satisfying certain personal and economic goals.
In the early 1990s, the U.S.-based workers sent back approximately $180 million USD to Cuenca through bank wires, inter-bank transfers, and money orders (Barrero 1992, 152). Remittances now constitute the largest source of revenues in Cuenca and the third or fourth largest national source of hard currency—in the range of $400-600 million USD—depending on which accounting system is used (Personal communication, Banco Central de Ecuador, Cuenca, 1997).
To accommodate this capital influx, an array of financial institutions, couriers, travel offices, and money exchange houses occupy the historic core in unprecedented numbers (Figure 3). Between 1976 and 1997, the number of establishments that operate legally in international transfers of money rose nearly five-fold, from 12 to 58. National and local banks build new offices in the historic district of Cuenca to process remittances. Although the designs of these buildings follow neo-colonial designs, they disrupt the urban fabric of the historic district. (8)  As well, property values and rents have increased by as much as 30% since 1992 (Personal communication, Alcaldía de Cuenca, December 1997).

Figure 3

Community Response to Gentrification in Cuenca. Cuenca operates in a strong laissez-faire economy. Welfare-state functions nor leftist political parties have never wielded much power in national politics (Martz 1997). Accordingly, the political culture of governance emphasizes minimum intervention in local housing markets and trade. Since the early twentieth century, “Panama hats” (paja toquilla) from Cuenca and surrounding Azuay Province have linked local production with the fashion markets of the United States and Europe (Miller 1986). Cuenca’s regional economy is familiar with global linkages. (9)
The author searched in vein for tenant organizations that might be concerned with the rise in rent and the introduction of new businesses. In the place of community opposition to this upscaling, there exists a prevailing attitude that locally-financed investment is part of the city’s modernization process, even if investment displaces tenants beyond the historic core. As one elderly tenant told me, “After all” she said shrugging her shoulders, “almost everyone has an uncle, cousin, or family member in New York. It’s how we survive.” Unlike Cartagena, the source of capital in Cuenca’s gentrification stems from expatriates living in the United States. Cuenca residents are more passive about this investment than residents of Cartagena.

Discussion and Conclusions

The transformations of these historic districts derive from real-estate capital from international, national, and local sources. To understand these case studies, we must cautiously look at the literature on gentrification and urban renewal in both rich and poor countries. Globalization’s long arm reaches into the heart of Cartagena and Cuenca. This case study identifies the variation that exists in what is often considered a homogenous process. Gentrification, up-scaling, and neighborhood change result from many forces. They stem from real-estate capital originating outside the local, metropolitan, and national realms. Formerly neglected spaces in the Latin American metropolis, historic districts are now being ‘rediscovered’ as unique relics of the built environment. Dwellers of these Latin American historic districts are not monolithic in their expectations about these changes. Local history and cultural attributes condition the nature of how these populations respond to real-estate capital.

Each historic district responds to distinct types of capital that drive these events. In the southern Caribbean port of Cartagena, European jet setters, and Colombian elite seek out vacation homes (10)  within the UNESCO-recognized walled city. Part of the source of Colombian capital allegedly derives from the narcotics industry. In 1995, a new law required that investors disclose the source of all bank deposits as well as funds directed for new housing and remodeling. The number of building permits has since declined by nearly two-thirds between 1994 and 1997. Although a strong association exists between the introduction of the law and the decline of building permits, it is unclear whether political and economic uncertainty in Colombia, or this new anti-money-laundering law, triggered the slump in the building sector.

The second case study examined Cuenca, Ecuador’s third largest city. A depressed regional and local economy “pushed” migrants abroad in the 1980s, mainly to the northeastern United States. Since then, the volume of remittances sent back to Cuenca has risen dramatically from an insignificant source of capital locally to nearly half a billion dollars. Therefore, it is a leading national source of hard currency. Entities such as banks, money exchange houses, couriers, travel agencies, and financial establishments show nearly a six-fold increase between 1978 and 1987. Attendant increases in property values, new up-scale establishments such as galleries, restaurants, and boutiques, and banks have produced some displacement. However, there is virtually no opposition among tenants or public officials about the impact of these remittances. Gidden’s (1984) notion of human agency would suggest that cuencanos believe they lack the power to invoke change or make a difference.

Collective responses in these barrios to the arrival of new and powerful capital point to a number of explanatory frameworks. Gittell’s (1992) work on collective action applies to Cuenca. In essence, unless residents believe that neighborhood organization will be more fruitful than individual passivity, little neighborhood activity will ensue. Cartagena appears to conform to Olson’s (1965) ideas about the “free ride.” While many cartageneros resolve their concerns about rent, noise, and congestion on an individual basis, a few have joined the one viable NGO operating there. Unless that organization can demonstrate the value of its membership, local residents will remain passive. Like Cuenca, the role of the free market is not strongly challenged. David Ley’s (1996) contention that cultural features of gentrified places share equal footing political economy variables applies here. Residents of Cartagena’s and Cuenca’s historic districts accept ‘embourgeoisement’ as a ‘natural’ process that derives from ‘development.’ In Cuenca, the displacement of indigenous cuencanos is part of along history of Indian exploitation (Miller 1986).

In Cartagena, a cultural norm ‘allows’ powerful forces (e.g., narcotics traders, entrepreneurs, international jet setters, and politicians) and the market to drive changes in the housing market. In both historic districts, residents acquiesce to displacement without mounting significant opposition.
Future research must tease out some of these causal relationships. Efforts to test these ideas will need to rely on group interviews of residents. Cuencan artisans and Indian residents of the old quarters may seek an alliance with city hall (alcaldía) whose mayor may need their support for re-election provided he/she tries to deter the construction of banks and up-scale homes in the area. Such a scenario would point in the direction of Mollenkopf’s and others’ work in political regime theory. In Cartagena, one neighborhood organization, Fundación Cultura Getsemaní, is trying to use retirement savings by local residents as equity for loans at private banks so that they might be able to acquire mortgages for their homes and apartments.

Summing up, this research presents three main conclusions. First, the source of capital transforming Latin American historic districts is not homogenous. While the convergence of process (upscaling, tourist development, and gentrification) is evident, there is divergence in how these outcomes play out in different geographic settings (Ward 1993). In contrast to Alan Gilbert’s (1996, 99) assertion that “fewer businesses are prepared to locate in the traditional [Latin American city] centre,” such is not the case in these cities. Nor is there support for a parallel claim that “central city areas are not likely to prosper in the next few years but neither are they likely to change markedly” (Gilbert 1996, 102). The built environments of these two central city areas have changed quantitatively and qualitatively this decade; this has not been an idle time. Clearly, Ley’s work on the role of local culture as a powerful force in directing the nature of urban renewal is germane here.
Second, there is no common urban proletariat response to these processes. Class-consciousness among tenants and owners of these historic districts is not uniform. Cuencanos appear to be more tolerant of displacement than residents of Cartagena. In the latter, a single NGO has taken a position on gentrification in one of three major neighborhoods of the old walled city.

Third, the state takes on different and unexpected roles in facilitating this change. The type of urban renewal in these two cities might easily provoke residents in New York, Pittsburgh, or Paris into organized opposition. The response, though, has been uneven and more passive than activist. Nonetheless, Colombia is unwilling to accept corruption at any cost, even if the state’s fiscal burden is alleviated somewhat. Proceso 8000 represents a serious attempt to restrain money laundering although it hurts public coffers and restrains the normal set of multiplier effects in the real-estate market.
Gentrification proceeds in these two barrios in different ways. It may well be a futile intellectual exercise to hypothesize that the nature of community response will depend on the source of real-estate capital. What if most of the residents in these cities would “welcome their prince or princess” coming to their doors and offering them a small fortune for their homes? Those who investigate the urban real-estate market must accept this, whether they personally support the idea or not. Only by carefully following the interconnectedness between local, regional and global forces can we continue understand how and why the historic core of Latin American cities change.

NOTAS:
1.- Field research in Cuenca was carried out in November 1995 and December 1997. During the latter, the author served as a consult for the city of Cuenca in preparing an inventory and site assessment for the Geneva-based UNESCO ICOMOS committee. We would like to acknowledge my thanks to many in the mayor’s office, too numerous to list here.
2.- Talcott Parsons (1937) conceptualized individual and group action by borrowing the idea of ‘means-ends’ structure of action from utilitarian theories. Values held by social actors become the basis for understanding purposeful and ‘rational’ action. Such a conceptualization has proved problematic in that the identification of ‘values’ depends upon normative assumptions. Weber and Parsons sought to identify these norms so that social theory could move from the abstract philosophies of the 19th century, to more empirically grounded and measurable work in the 20th. Parsons borrowed Durkheim’s notion that, ultimately, society imposes meanings on social actors.
3.- The source of information draws from the now widely held notion that the Latin American poor depend upon networks of reciprocity and fictive kinship to solve their daily problems, regardless of the problems imposed by the market (Lomnitz 1978). However, class solidarity in the face of external market forces may not be as prevalent as some purport them to be (Walton 1987). In parts of Cartagena, for instance, younger families with children seemed more concerned about displacement because of the proximity of their homes in the walled city to their places of work. As well, they appeared eager to enter the real-estate market before prices escalate well beyond their reach. This suggests that responses to gentrification may be a function of the life cycle. Clearly, local and household interests are not uniform.
4.- Actually, about 70% of the original ramparts still encompass the city. A mayor ordered part of the original wall to be torn down earlier this century.
5.- The French hotel chain Sofitel restored Santa Clara convent while Santa Teresa convent underwent restoration under the management group of Colombian investor Pedro Gómez. The Cartagena Chamber of Commerce reports that four international hotel chains were searching sites in Cartagena in 1997. They are Américas, InterContinental, and Hilton (although the latter has a site in the Bocagrande tourist district, it seeks to expand operations). However, law Acuerdo 52 of the Consejo Distral passed on 13 December 1995 prohibits the construction of more hotels, either on razed or vacant lots or through refurbishing. Thus, these hotel changes would have to request a special variance for their investments. According to the town planner, this would be hard to obtain (Personal communication, Isabel Polo, Cartagena, July 9, 1997).
6.- The term sanear (literally, to make healthy or clean) is used in local parlance to refer to this bulldozer approach to urban renewal. The same term is used in Chile but it refers to connecting poor neighborhoods with modern water and sewage. See Scarpaci et al. 1988 for a comparison
7.- As in many Sud American cities, the term turco refers to Europeans who immigrated to Sud America from the former Ottoman Empire. These include present-day Lebanese, Jordanians, and Syrians who are collectively called Turks or turcos. The term may also include non-Spanish European immigrants generally.
8.- Overtly ostentatious investment in the built environment is evident in small towns and hamlets surrounding Cuenca. The author observed elevators in modest two-story homes and new automobiles parked inside living rooms (because there was no garage in the original design of the home). These are the manifest signs of the nouveaux riche that send their remittances from the New York area.
9.- With the opening of the Panama Canal, invoices arriving in the United States and Europe listed Panama as the point of product shipment. Thus, the term “Panama” (versus “Ecuadorian”) hat prevailed. See Tom Miller’s (1986) highly readable account of this town and its most celebrated product.
10.- Colombians use Cartagena second homes mainly for religious and national holidays while foreigners travel during their winter seasons as well as the Christmas and New Year holiday.

Literature Cited
Axelrod, G. 1984. The Organization of Cooperation. New York: Basic Books.
Barrero, A. 1992. “Las migraciones y recursos humanos.” In Cuenca y su futuro, Quito: corporation de Estudios para el Desarrollo, pp. 92-171.
Berquist, C. 1986. Labor in Latin America. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
Bromley, R.D. 1998. “Expansion and exclusion in the historic centre of the Latin American city.” International Journal of Urban and Regional Research 22: 245-263.
Castillo,F. 1996. Los nuevos jinetes de la cocaina. Bogota: Editorial Oveja Negra.
Cepeda, F. 1997. La corrupción en Colombia. Bogota: TM Editores.
Cohen, I.J. 1996. “Theories of action and praxis.” In B.S. Turner, Ed., The Blackwell Companion to Social Theory. Oxford and Cambridge: Blackwell, pp. 111-142.
Columbia Gazetteer. 1998. Edited by Saul Cohen, New York: Columbia University Press (3 volumes).
DeGiovanni, F.1984. “An examination of selected consequences of revitalization in six U.S. cities.” In J. Palen and B. London, Eds., Gentrification, Displacement and Neighborhood Revitalization. Albany: SUNY Press, pp. 67-89.
Díaz de Paniagua, R. “El turismo en Cartagena.” In Cartagena Popular, Cartagena: Centro de Cultura Afro-Caribe, Colección Barrio Ciudad No. 3, R. Cartagena Popular, Cartagena: Centro de Cultura Afro-Caribe, Colección Barrio Ciudad No. 3, pp. 115-125.
Díaz de Paniagua, R., and Paniagua Bedoya, R. 1994. San Diego: Historia, Patrimonio y Gentrificación en Cartagena. Cartagena: Centro de Cultura Afro-Caribe, Colección Barrio Ciudad No. 2.
Díaz de Paniagua, R., and Paniagua Bedoya, R. 1994. Getsemaní: Historia, Patrimonio y Bienestar Social en Cartagena. Cartagena: Centro de Cultura Afro-Caribe, Colección Barrio Ciudad No. 1
Eckstein, S. 1989. “Power and popular protest in Latin America.” In S. Eckstein, Ed., Power and Protest: Latin America Social Movements. Berkeley: Univ. California Press, pp. 1-60.
Friedmann, J. 1986. “The world city hypothesis.” Development and Change 17:69-83
Giddens, A. 1979. Central Problems in Social Theory: Action, Structure and Contradiction of Social Analysis. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Giddens, A. 1984. The Constitution of Society: Outline of the Theory of Structuration. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Gilbert, A. 1996. The Latin American Mega-City. Tokyo: United Nations University Press.
Gittell, R. 1992. Renewing Cities. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Hays-Mitchell, M. 1993. “The ties that bind. Informal and formal sector linkages in streetvending: the case of Peru’s ambulantes.” Environment and Planning A 25:1085-1102.
———. 1994. “Streetvending in Peruvian cities: The spatio-temporal behavior of ambulantes.” Professional Geographer 46: 425-38.
Hardoy, E., and Gutman, M. 1992. Impacto de la urbanización en los centros históricos iberoamericanos. Madrid: Mapfre.
Jelín, E. 1985 Los nuevos movimientos sociales: Derechos humanos, obreros, barrios. Buenos Aires: Biblioteca Política Argentina.
Johnston, R.J., Taylor, P. J., and Watts, M.J. 1995. Geographies of Global Change: Remapping the World in the Late Twentieth Century. Cambridge: Blackwell.
Jones, G., and Varley, A. 1994. “The contest for the city centre: Street traders versus buildings.” Bulletin of Latin American Research 13:27-44.
Keeling, D. 1996. Buenos Aires. New York and Chichester: John Wiley and Sons.
Keeling, D. 1998. “Review of Havana: Two Faces of the Antillean Metropolis,” Annals of the Association of American Geographers 88: 533-34.
Knox, P. 1995. “World cities and the organization of global space.” In Johnston, R.J., Taylor, P. J., and Watts, M.J. Geographies of Global Change: Remapping the World in the Late Twentieth Century. Cambridge: Blackwell, pp. 232-247.
Ley, D. 1996. The New Middle Class and the Remaking of the Central City. New York: OUP.
Lomnitz, L. 1978. “Mechanisms of articulation between shantytown settlers and the urban center.” Urban Anthropology 7:185-205.
Martz, J. 1972. Ecuador: Conflicting Political Culture and the Quest for Progress. New Brunswick: Transaction.
Martz, J. 1997. The Politics of Clientelism. New Brunswick: Transaction.
Miller, T. 1986. The Panama Hat Trail: A Journey from South America
Mollenkopf, J. 1983. The Contested City. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Olson, M. 1965. The Logic of Collective Action. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Palen, J. and Nachmias, C. 1984. “Revitalizing a working-class neighborhood.” In J. Palen and B. London, Eds., Gentrification, Displacement and Neighborhood Revitalization. Albany: SUNY Press, pp. 128-139.
Paniagua Bedoya, R. 1995. “El turismo en Cartagena.” In Díaz de Paniagua, R. Cartagena Popular, Cartagena: Centro de Cultura Afro-Caribe, Colección Barrio Ciudad No. 3, pp. 113-125.
Parsons, T. 1937. The Structure of Social Action. New York: McGraw-Hill.
Sassen, S. 1991. The Global City: New York, London, Tokyo. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Scarpaci, J. 1991. “Primary care decentralization in the Southern Cone: Shantytown health care as urban social movement.” Annals, Association of American Geographers 81:103-126.
Scarpaci, J. and Irarrázaval, I. 1994. “Decentralizing a centralized state: Local government finance in Chile within the Latin American context.” Public Budgeting & Finance 14:120-136.
Scarpaci, J. Gaete, A., and Infante, R. 1988. “Planning residential segregation: The Case of Santiago de Chile.” Urban Geography 9:19-36.
Schuurman, F.S. and van Naerssen, T. 1989. Urban Social Movements in the Third World. London: Routledge.
Slater, D. 1993. “The geopolitical imagination and the enframing of development theory.” Transactions: an International Journal of Geographic Research, December, 18: 419-437.
Slater, D. 1995. “Trajectories of development theory: capitalism, socialism and beyond.” In Johnston, R.J., Taylor, P. J., and Watts, M.J. Geographies of Global Change: Remapping the World in the Late Twentieth Century. Cambridge: Blackwell, pp. 63-76.
Smith, M. 1994. “Can you imagine: Transnational migration & the globalization of grassroots politics.” In Knox, P. & Taylor, P., Eds, World Cities in a World System, Cambridge: CUP.
Smith, N. 1996. The New Urban Frontier: Gentrification and the Revanchist City. London and New York: Routledge.
Smith, N. and Williams, P. 1986. Gentrification of the City. Boston: Allen & Unwin.
Teaford, J.C. 1990. The Rough Road to Renaissance: Urban Revitalization in America, 1940-1985. Baltimore and London: Johns Hopkins University Press.
Walton, J. 1987. “Urban protest and the global political economy. The IMF Riots.” In M.P. Smith and J.R. Feagin, Editors, The Capitalist City London: Basil Blackwell. pp. 364-386.
Ward, P. 1993. “The Latin American inner city: differences of degree or of kind.” Environment and Planning A: 25:1131-1160.
Williams, P. 1984. “Gentrification in Britain and Europe.” In J. Palen & B. London, Gentrification, Displacement & Neighborhood Revitalization. Albany: SUNY Press, pp. 170-184.

Personal Interviews
1. Nílda Meléndez, Cartagena, July 3-6, 1999
2. Isabel Polo, Planning Office, Historic Center, Cartagena, July 5-9, 1999
3. Alcaldía de Cuenca, November 30-December 7, 1999.
4. Banco Central de Ecuador, Dec. 3, 1999

Bibliographic
Axelrod, G. 1984. The Organization of Cooperation. Basic Books. New York.
Barrero, A. 1992. Las migraciones y recursos humanos En Cuenca y su futuro, Quito: corporation de Estudios para el Desarrollo, pp. 92-171.
Berquist, C. 1986. Labor in Latin America. Stanford University Press, Stanford.
Bromley, R.D. 1998. “Expansion and exclusion in the historic centre of the Latin American city.” International Journal of Urban and Regional Research 22: 245-263.
Castillo,F. 1996. Los nuevos jinetes de la cocaina. Editorial Oveja Negra, Bogota.
Cepeda, F. 1997. La corrupción en Colombia. TM Editores, Bogotá.
Cohen, I.J. 1996. Theories of action and praxis En: B.S. Turner, Ed., The Blackwell Companion to Social Theory. Blackwell, pp. 111-142. Oxford and Cambridge.
Columbia Gazetteer. 1998. Edited by Saul Cohen,: Columbia University Press (3 volumes) New York.
DeGiovanni, F.1984. “An examination of selected consequences of revitalization in six U.S. cities.” In J. Palen and B. London, Eds., Gentrification, Displacement and Neighborhood Revitalization. SUNY Press, pp. 67-89 Albany.
Díaz de Paniagua, R. El turismo en Cartagena En: Cartagena Popular, Cartagena: Centro de Cultura Afro-Caribe, Colección Barrio Ciudad No. 3, R. Cartagena Popular, Centro de Cultura Afro-Caribe, Colección Barrio Ciudad No. 3, pp. 115-125 Cartagena.
Díaz de Paniagua, R., and Paniagua Bedoya, R. 1994. San Diego: Historia, Patrimonio y Gentrificación en Cartagena. Centro de Cultura Afro-Caribe, Colección Barrio Ciudad No. 2 Cartagena:.
Díaz de Paniagua, R., and Paniagua Bedoya, R. 1994. Getsemaní: Historia, Patrimonio y Bienestar Social en Cartagena. Centro de Cultura Afro-Caribe, Colección Barrio Ciudad No. 1 Cartagena.
Eckstein, S. 1989. “Power and popular protest in Latin America.” In S. Eckstein, Ed., Power and Protest: Latin America Social Movements. Berkeley: Univ. California Press, pp. 1-60.
Friedmann, J. 1986. The world city hypothesis En: Development and Change 17:69-83
Giddens, A. 1979. Central Problems in Social Theory: Action, Structure and Contradiction of Social Analysis. University of California Press, Berkeley.
Giddens, A. 1984. The Constitution of Society: Outline of the Theory of Structuration. Polity Press, Cambridge.
Gilbert, A. 1996. The Latin American Mega-City. Tokyo: United Nations University Press.
Gittell, R. 1992. Renewing Cities. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Hays-Mitchell, M. 1993. The ties that bind. Informal and formal sector linkages in streetvending: the case of Peru’s ambulantes Environment and Planning A 25:1085-1102.
———. 1994. “Streetvending in Peruvian cities: The spatio-temporal behavior of ambulantes.” Professional Geographer 46: 425-38.
Hardoy, E., and Gutman, M. 1992. Impacto de la urbanización en los centros históricos iberoamericanos Mapfre . Madrid.
Jelín, E. 1985 Los nuevos movimientos sociales: Derechos humanos, obreros, barrios. Biblioteca Política Argentina, Buenos Aires.
Johnston, R.J., Taylor, P. J., and Watts, M.J. 1995. Geographies of Global Change: Remapping the World in the Late Twentieth Century. Cambridge: Blackwell.
Jones, G., and Varley, A. 1994. The contest for the city centre: Street traders versus buildings Bulletin of Latin American Research 13:27-44.
Keeling, D. 1996. Buenos Aires. New York and Chichester: John Wiley and Sons.
Keeling, D. 1998. “Review of Havana: Two Faces of the Antillean Metropolis,” Annals of the Association of American Geographers 88: 533-34.
Knox, P. 1995. World cities and the organization of global space En: Johnston, R.J., Taylor, P. J., and Watts, M.J. Geographies of Global Change: Remapping the World in the Late Twentieth Century. Cambridge: Blackwell, pp. 232-247.
Ley, D. 1996. The New Middle Class and the Remaking of the Central City. New York: OUP.
Lomnitz, L. 1978. Mechanisms of articulation between shantytown settlers and the urban center Urban Anthropology 7:185-205.
Martz, J. 1972. Ecuador: Conflicting Political Culture and the Quest for Progress. New Brunswick: Transaction.
Martz, J. 1997. The Politics of Clientelism. New Brunswick: Transaction.
Miller, T. 1986. The Panama Hat Trail: A Journey from South America
Mollenkopf, J. 1983. The Contested City. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Olson, M. 1965. The Logic of Collective Action. Harvard University Press, Cambridge.
Palen, J. and Nachmias, C. 1984. “Revitalizing a working-class neighborhood.” In J. Palen and B. London, Eds., Gentrification, Displacement and Neighborhood Revitalization. Albany: SUNY Press, pp. 128-139.
Paniagua Bedoya, R. 1995. El turismo en Cartagena. En: Díaz de Paniagua, R. Cartagena Popular, Cartagena: Centro de Cultura Afro-Caribe, Colección Barrio Ciudad No. 3, pp. 113-125.
Parsons, T. 1937. The Structure of Social Action. New York: McGraw-Hill.
Sassen, S. 1991. The Global City: New York, London, Tokyo. Princeton University Press, Princeton.
Scarpaci, J. 1991. Primary care decentralization in the Southern Cone: Shantytown health care as urban social movement En: Annals, Association of American Geographers 81:103-126.
Scarpaci, J. and Irarrázaval, I. 1994. Decentralizing a centralized state: Local government finance in Chile within the Latin American context En:  Public Budgeting & Finance 14:120-136.
Scarpaci, J. Gaete, A., and Infante, R. 1988. Planning residential segregation: The Case of Santiago de Chile En: Urban Geography 9:19-36.
Schuurman, F.S. and van Naerssen, T. 1989. Urban Social Movements in the Third World. Routledge, London.
Slater, D. 1993. The geopolitical imagination and the enframing of development theory Transactions: an International Journal of Geographic Research, December, 18: 419-437.
Slater, D. 1995.  Trajectories of development theory: capitalism, socialism and beyond. En: Johnston, R.J., Taylor, P. J., and Watts, M.J. Geographies of Global Change: Remapping the World in the Late Twentieth Century. Cambridge: Blackwell, pp. 63-76.
Smith, M. 1994. Can you imagine: Transnational migration & the globalization of grassroots politics En: Knox, P. & Taylor, P., Eds, World Cities in a World System, Cambridge: CUP.
Smith, N. 1996. The New Urban Frontier: Gentrification and the Revanchist City. London and New York: Routledge.
Smith, N. and Williams, P. 1986. Gentrification of the City. Allen & Unwin, Boston.
Teaford, J.C. 1990. The Rough Road to Renaissance: Urban Revitalization in America, 1940-1985. Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore and London.
Walton, J. 1987. “Urban protest and the global political economy. The IMF Riots.” In M.P. Smith and J.R. Feagin, Editors, The Capitalist City London: Basil Blackwell. pp. 364-386.
Ward, P. 1993. The Latin American inner city: differences of degree or of kind. Environment and Planning A: 25:1131-1160.
Williams, P. 1984. Gentrification in Britain and Europe En: J. Palen & B. London, Gentrification, Displacement & Neighborhood Revitalization.: SUNY Press, pp. 170-184, Albany.