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Urban Renewal Problems in Greece

• Γετίμης, Παναγιώτης

The article refers to the debate on urban renewal projects realised after 1960 in many European countries and attempts also an evaluation of the respective programmes in Greece. Furthermore, the article emphasises some theoretical dimensions of the complexity of issues involved and traces the conditions necessary for a future social policy on urban renewal. The main aspects of the argument are summarised bellow: 1. Urban renewal programmes in Greece have stressed the morphological and aesthetic dimension at the expense of the social apsects of the renewal. On the other hand, a mixture of economic and public goals, create a situation full of problems and contractions. The case of Plaka, the old town of Athens, and the negative consequences for the low-income tenants, testifies the underestimation of the social aspects and the lack of social criteria in Greek urban renewal policy. 2. Problem areas demanding renewal are in Greece not only the historic centres with their specific value - to which renewal policy gives priority - but also the densely populated areas of the postwar high-rises with total lack of common spaces and acute traffic problems, the old housing areas around the economic centre which deteriorate with the expansion of the tertiary activities, the refugee housing areas created between the wars, and, finally, the formerly illegal housing areas of many postwar suburds characterised by the complete lack of any social or technical infrastructure. The present deterioration of all these• areas is the outcome of the absence of any socially-minded housing policy and the priorities of the private interests of land-owners and developers favouring the fast, intensive valorisation of land and housing stock without any provision for social facilities. 3. The deterioration of both the technical infrastructure and the built environment is further accentuated by a spatial mobility where the middle-strata abandon the central housing areas and various low-income groups come to take their place. Thus, urban renewal acquires a double character: a. as a means for the material upgrading of the built environment, and b. as a social intervention in a field of conflicting interests among social groups (owners, tenants, developers, public agencies, local initiatives, etc.). Within this context urban renewal cannot be seen as a regulatory mechanism that satisfies all these interests - though it is often presented as such ideologically - but it reveals itself as a social intervention that favours some of the groups at the expense of the others in accordance with its objectives. 4. Special emphasis is given to the economic dimension of renewal as a process subjected to (i) the developmental objectives of housing policy which are coextensive with the promotion of fixed capital investments and competitive uses in an area, and (ii) the competitive mechanisms of land-use and real-estate utilisation. The role of land-rent in the renewal of old buildings becomes very important as - the share of land-rent to total income increases with time - there emerges the possibility for the realisation of extra profits by both the land-owner (differential rent) and the capital-owner (surplus-profit), especially after the complete depreciation on the investment and the elimination of interest. On the basis of the above observations we can understand the choises of the owners aiming at either the partial or complete renewal (with or without restoration of the existing buildings) or the change of the previous uses. 5. A future, socially sensitive, renewal policy, which takes special care in order to avoid the negative consequences like the excessive increase of rents, the exclusion of low-income groups of tenants, the drastic change of the social composition in the area, must base itself upon the following principles: a. The insurance of the existing low-income users against removal from the area, for example through maintaining lowrents, subsidising rents, guaranteeing the participation of local and state agencies, etc. b. The securing of the consent of the owners through a pragmatic but contained within limits increase of the real-estate values. c. The mobilisation of the various social groups and associations (tenants, youth, women, etc) and their participation at all stages of the renewal programme (project elaboration, realisation, and management).

• Sociology

• Κοινωνικές επιστήμες

Το αντικείμενο παρουσιάστηκε τροποποιημένο ως εισήγηση στο Η' Πανελλήνιο Αρχιτεκτονικό Συνέδριο, Αθήνα 1984.

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