- The changing City / Contradiction and Creativity in the public Spaces of historic City Centers    510 kb by    Yagüe Mata, José María | jmyague@wanadoo.es    Short Outline Most European cities are historic settlements with spaces, built structures and social systems that have suffered character loss as a result of many new modern interventions. Citizens are now working in parallel with city administrations in much more positive ways to provide better social and designed responses to the challenges of change. Abstract THE CHANGING CITY The contradiction and the creativity in the public spaces of the historic city centers Most European cities were conceived in the past, and have suffered from the new possibilities rather than benefit from them. Change could mean updating many aspects which could then become an improvement in the quality of life. Within the context of globalisation, at the present time suitable conditions are being created to facilitate changes in all aspects of our lives. In this moment, the inhabitants of the cities are working in parallel way with the public administration. In some cases it is possible that the inhabitants are working in a more positive way or in some case, transforming in a realistic way the spaces and uses that has been created and proposed by the public administrations. The spatial distribution of the centre of the city are at a greater level of development than the population which make them up, and are influenced moreover by the new inhabitants (immigrants fundamentally). There have been changes in communication, in economy, etc. and these have been or will be transferred to the social and urban structure, creating new opportunities which will arise and must be adopted so that they can be used to our advantage. This changes have been producing in the social and urban structure of the city. Is the design that is transformed, because the citizens change the administrations projects with news forms for living it and use it. At the physic level has been place in squares and streets, but also, in its texture (pavements), urban furniture (bench, streetlight, etc.), automobile (in a mobile or static way), traffic signs, garbage storage (or in some case, garbage dispersion). In the end, there is a city but with different readings about it. We are choosing some of them: a) The relational city. With a communicative act in progress between citizens (protagonists of spaces). b) The skin of the city. With the graphic paints, colours and textures. c) The amazing city. The city that the inhabitants are living like a physic platform, a stage for them. In the end, there are new urban uses and habits by the old city and, sometimes, its obsolete spaces. We study the case of the city center of Madrid, clearly illustrates these problems both as regards the intervention of public administrations and the role of public enterprise in urban development. Keywords the changing city Case Study presented on the ISOCARP Congress 2007: Urban Trialogues   Click to open the full paper as pdf document   Click to send an email to the author(s) of this paper