2023-07-08 23:14:00
The College of Architects of the Province of Córdoba (CAPC), through the Institute of Planning and Territorial Ordering (Ipot), directed by the architect Celina Caporossi, has as a priority objective to contribute reflections and proposals for the urban approach of its territory and of their cities, collaborating through technical knowledge to build a socially and environmentally integrated approach in line with current demands.
450 years after its foundation, the city of Córdoba today has 1,565,112 inhabitants (according to provisional results of the 2022 National Population, Household and Housing Census). Together with its metropolitan area, it constitutes one of the most important centers in the interior of the country and a structuring historical node of northern Argentina and the central region to which it belongs.
Its diversified economy contributes to the national Gross Domestic Product (GDP) as a source of employment and rebalancing center in the national context, which has more than 94% of its population living in cities.
Core of an extended region
Many current challenges derive from what can be called a “leap in scale”: from a medium-sized city, characteristic of the 20th century, to the Metropolitan Córdoba of the 21st century, which confirms it as the second largest agglomeration in the country.
In this sense, both problems and opportunities are associated with the understanding of an extension that exceeds the ejido of 24 x 24 kilometers and presents a great socio-territorial and geographical diversity.
Córdoba extends its influence in all its directions and generates a tentacular growth along its connection routes, annexing towns and localities that, in each case, present relationships of dependency and complementarity of varying degrees, which generates a complex and heterogeneous network. .
The city becomes a powerful center for an extended region, as an attractor nucleus of population, resources and economies, which in many cases crosses the provincial limits. For example, the National University of Córdoba has a very wide radius of influence, which incorporates students from other provinces and countries, and generates a characteristic sociocultural imprint.
In the same way, the problems are magnified. The pressure of urbanization on natural territories, with loss of the green belt and environmental risks; the reduction of population, slums and abandonment of the most consolidated neighborhoods of the city; increased vulnerability and urban inequality; the demands on infrastructures; and transportation problems, among others, are explained by the complexity generated by metropolitan growth dynamics and the difficulty of operating with planning and regulatory instruments without a socio-territorial understanding that only a socially agreed plan can offer.
Diego Peralta, president of the Association of Architects of the Province of Córdoba. Urban planning
Córdoba has gone through different moments of urban planning with a long and outstanding history. The 2008 Master Plan was the last attempt to generate a comprehensive vision. The city needs to embark on a planned path and in accordance with the new and complex socio-environmental challenges that this century imposes, expressed for example in the 17 Sustainable Development Goals of the United Nations (UN) agenda.
In this way, the implementation of effective actions to encourage territorial resilience to climate change, the reduction of inequality and social vulnerability, the generation of employment and social economies, the provision of local food together with the protection of the environment and the valorization of the built city are some issues that the city must incorporate in a structured way for the future, with a planning integrated by sectoral plans articulated with each other.
A “plan of plans” is required to generate direct action tools and effective public policies. Next, six relevant topics for urban planning in Córdoba are proposed, as contributions to a vision of a future city.
1. Open and integrated city
Córdoba experiences a growing socio-territorial fragmentation, for which it is necessary to generate actions tending to reduce urban vulnerability. Collaborating with an open city is thinking from the public space and promoting the reduction of informality and the integration of vulnerable neighborhoods. A socio-urban integration plan is necessary to balance distribution, generate employment and promote local economies.
2. City of neighborhoods, city of care
A neighborhood plan must be implemented to value the quality of life of central and peripheral neighborhoods, thinking about future growth, consolidating their urban space, strengthening existing neighborhood centralities and directing urban renewal. Similarly, a plan for the city center and its extended areas should be promoted, as a metropolitan and regional centrality. This promotes citizen involvement in the construction of urban fabric, social equipment and quality neighborhood public space.
3. Connected city
One of the great challenges of Córdoba is to materialize a new sustainable mobility plan to improve the connection of the city with its metropolitan area. A multimodal connective network must be drawn up with alternatives such as urban rail, non-motorized modalities and public transport. Some of these components are in projects that require completion. Accordingly, incentives for the production and use of urban land in integrated operations should be considered, as well as the association between mobility, public and green space.
4. Compact city
The new architecture, both public (with adequate allocation and production mechanisms) and private, must help to consolidate the existing city, compacting, densifying and taking advantage of the installed resources. In the same way, a municipal housing development plan is required to offer social solutions to the new ways of life, making it possible for the entire population to have access.
5. City resilient to climate change
Climate change forces us to review the way we build. It is necessary to resume the concept of urban green system for Córdoba, promoting and articulating the existing public spaces with other new ones of a metropolitan scope that allow the generation of biodiversity corridors and sponge the urban sprawl. The objective is that, together, they can protect and enhance the watercourses and the green belt.
6. Human City
Córdoba is a collective construction. Any intervention on it affects us all. Therefore, it should consider, in addition to growth and development in perspective of economic profitability, social profitability for the common good as a value.
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