Abstract
This paper analyzes the causes of the depopulation of urban centers in European medium-size cities, and presents a conceptual model to address this problem, considering that integrated rehabilitation is necessary to attract new inhabitants, based on the retrofitting of buildings from a sustainable point of view, by developing the concept of a new model of city management based in the generation of subsectors in each city quarter and erecting multipurpose infrastructure buildings that provide the sustainable requirements of that population sector. To illustrate its application to European medium-size cities, the model is applied to the city center of Coimbra, Portugal, including a critical characterization of the current situation, identifying the sociocultural and functional requirements for these neighborhoods, highlighting the feasibility of the conceptual model.
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Published In
Journal of Urban Planning and Development
Volume 142 • Issue 3 • September 2016
Copyright
© 2016 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Received: Dec 12, 2014
Accepted: Jun 30, 2015
Published online: Jan 4, 2016
Discussion open until: Jun 4, 2016
Published in print: Sep 1, 2016
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