ECONOMICS UNIQUENESS

16 ■ THE ECONOMICS OF UNIQUENESS
Introduction
In a context of rapid urbanization, old cities struggle to modernize without
completely losing their character. In the absence of a strategic public intervention
to steer their transformation, many of them simply drift into a haphazard mix
of demolition, new construction, and building upgrading. Th eir overall densifi
cation, which is certainly welcome from an economic point of view, is oft en
accompanied by the displacement of the original population, which is more questionable
from a social point of view. Th e level of economic activity these cities
can sustain typically increases, sometimes substantially, but in the process these
places also lose their distinctive traits and become less livable. Th is is not merely
a concern of culture-loving intellectuals in the rich world, who may be too privileged
to fully value the benefi ts of rapid urbanization. In many cases, the inhabitants
of these cities also regret the loss of a sense of place and the disappearance of
the physical markers of their identity.
Development interventions by local authorities (oft en with the support of
international fi nancial organizations) tend to reinforce this trend toward blandness.
Th ose interventions emphasize access to water, sanitation infrastructure, or
convenient commuting, all of which are commendable. But the interventions pay
scant attention to the architecture of the buildings or the social fabric associated
with them. Th ey may include “livelihoods” components in addition to pipes and
concrete, but the main focus of those components is on economic activity, not on
aesthetics or culture. Th ey oft en seek ways to compensate the original inhabitants
for the property to be taken over by infrastructure and new construction; less
frequently do they consider how to keep those original inhabitants in place. Th e
frantic transformation of centuries-old Asian cities into soulless agglomerations
of generic architecture is an obvious illustration of this trend. Moreover, there is
an element of irreversibility in transformations of this kind, as recovering what
was lost is enormously more expensive than it would have been to preserve it in
the fi rst place. Bringing back the original population is simply not possible.
Admittedly, there is also an increasing trend toward fi nancing heritage projects,
aimed at protecting and restoring unique buildings or architectural ensembles.
Th ese are the kind of structures that can aspire to join the United Nations
Educational, Scientifi c, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) World Heritage
List, if they are not part of it already. Th ey typically include landmarks and small
historic centers of stunning homogeneity. Taking again Asia as an example,
extraordinary towns such as Lijiang in China, Luang Prabang in Laos, or Hoi An
in Vietnam fall in that category. While it is remarkable to see international fi nancial
organizations increasingly supporting projects of this sort, it is also clear that
the heritage approach can only be marginally relevant when upgrading major
cities and dealing with the challenges of large-scale urbanization.