International Postgraduate Program

Faculty of Urban Construction

Beijing University of Technology

COLONIAL CITY OF SANTO DOMINGO

DOMINICAN REPUBLIC
A CASE STUDY OF URBAN REGENERATION
Judith Lopez Gonzalez
S20216454W

An urban regeneration project is one that addresses urban challenges, seeks to intervene centers
of human concentration where economic, cultural, and political exchanges take place.
In this paper, we will address the regeneration project of the Colonial City of Santo Domingo
CCSD, a project that has given a noticeable change to this historic center of the city of Santo
Domingo, turning it into a highly attractive area attended by a large national and foreign
population. After having lived the experience of visiting and knowing the place first hand, it
becomes suitable as a case study to share.
1. General Context: Colonial City of Santo Domingo
The Colonial City of Santo Domingo CCSD is the oldest urban nucleus in the city of Santo
Domingo, capital of the Dominican Republic. The Colonial City was the first permanent
European settlement in the Americas, founded in the 16th century by Spanish conquistadors.
It has the oldest colonial buildings in America: the first cathedral, the first town hall, the first
hospital, the first customs office and the first university; in addition to dozens of buildings of
the time such as royal palaces, forts, churches, convents, monasteries, and hospitals.
On December 8, 1990, it was declared by the United Nations Organization for Education and
Culture UNESCO as a World Heritage Site, under the name of Colonial City of Santo Domingo.
Today it is one of the most important tourist places in Santo Domingo and one of the most
visited by national and foreign tourists in the Dominican Republic.
Until the middle of the 20th century, the colonial zone retained political, legislative,
educational, religious, and commercial functions. However, the socio-demographic fabric
changed with the fiscal crisis of the 1990s and the displacement of the middle and upper classes
who moved away from the center to settle in the west of the city, while the less favored families
settled in the lowlands a short distance from the colonial zone.
From the 1960s to the end of the 1990s, the Colonial City of Santo Domingo suffered a process
of depopulation, the result of the migration of its residents to other areas of the city that offered
greater comfort and better-quality public services, negatively influencing the economic activity
of this place. As in many other Latin American capitals, the urbanization process led to the
proliferation of shopping malls and closed private neighborhoods, which resulted in a
deterioration of public space as a place of social coexistence.
In those years, the colonial zone suffered from lack of maintenance, deterioration of the
architectural heritage, infrastructure problems, like water management and garbage collection,
in addition to the pollution of the Ozama River.
2. Urban Regeneration of The Colonial City of Santo Domingo
In this context and to increase the competitiveness of the country's tourism sector and
differentiate itself from the offer of other international destinations, in 2011 the Government
of the Dominican Republic, with the support of the Inter-American Development Bank IDB
through the loan operation Program for the Promotion of Tourism of the Colonial City, began
a process of diversification towards new forms of cultural tourism.
The Comprehensive Tourism and Urban Development Program for the Colonial City of Santo
Domingo aims to revitalize the Colonial City of Santo Domingo in its urban, economic, and
cultural tourism aspects.
The expected result is a fully recovered historic center, create the main cultural tourism offer
in the Caribbean region, improve urban habitability, a high-quality and diversified tourist
offer for nationals and foreigners, rehabilitated public spaces and commercial activity.

Specific Objectives:

A. Recovery of public spaces and historical monuments.

• Implementation of a sustainable urban mobility plan for the colonial city of Santo
Domingo, which includes the recovery and rehabilitation of pedestrian pathways.
• The study to identify infrastructure gaps was carried out.
• Restoration and enhancement of museums and archaeological ruins.
• Consolidation of surveillance and lighting system.
• Improved management and collection of solid waste.

B. Improvement of living conditions for residents.

• Program for home improvement and recovery of facades.
• Recovery of community public spaces.
• Incentives for home purchase.

C. Development of local economies.

• With the sponsorship of local financial entities, competitions have been held to promote
the start-up of new ventures complementary to the current offer and the creation of
employment for the local population.
• Work has been done to improve the offer and the creation of new services so that they
can take advantage of market opportunities by selecting businesses which have been
diagnosed and have been given a training and technical assistance plan.
D. Strengthening of the management of the CCSD. Sustainable management mechanism.
• The public-private inter-institutional governance mechanism was launched, with the
formation of the Project's Operating Committee, made up of representatives from the
Ministry of Tourism, the Ministry of Industry and Commerce, the City Council of the
National District, and the Tourism Cluster of Santo Domingo.
• Tourism promotion. CCSD Marketing Plan.
• Accompaniment plan execution of works.

3. Achievements & Weaknesses Comparison Table

Achievements Weaknesses

Connection of the roads

The conditioning of the
streets has improved,
favoring the pedestrian.
Promotion and facilities for
walking and using bicycles
Recovery of public within the area. Protection
spaces and historical and valorization of the
monuments. archaeological heritage.
Improvements in security,
surveillance and patrolling of going to the area.
the area has increased.
Improvement of the waste
collection system.
Change of image, generates
Improvement of living surplus value, and creates
conditions for residents. attractiveness. Increase
resident satisfaction.
with the city networks,
the area behaves as an
isolated element. When
there is a lot of activity in
the area, vehicular
mobility collapses,
vehicular traffic is
congested and part of the
public is inhibited from
Identification of unused
spaces within the
museums that could be
used to perform activities.
Interventions can
sometimes be perceived
as punctual and isolated
rather than as part of an
integrated whole, lacks
long-term sustainability.
There is a lack of
regulations at the legal
level that protect these
interventions, perhaps
state subsidies could be
considered. Higher costs
for properties acquisitions
and investment on
improvements have been
inevitable.
 Include activities that are
not necessarily subject to
Businesses in the area have
economic spending by the
increased, especially
user, activities that
restaurants and
promote cultural
entertainment. Incentive to
exchange and economic
carry out cultural activities
Development of local movement indirectly. For
in the open air that have
economies. those who already know
spread the interest and
the colonial zone and do
attractiveness of the area,
not go to a specific
while promoting its
establishment or activity,
preservation and
the area per se lacks
enhancement.
attractiveness, thus losing
an important public.
Identification of the Integration of
Strengthening of the
responsible parties and roles representatives of the
management of the
for the interventions, as well inhabitants of the area in
CCSD. Sustainable
as an execution program, the governance
management
which was non-existent to mechanisms of the
mechanism.
the moment. CCSD.

4. Thoughts on How to Improve the Implementation of Urban Regeneration in the

Colonial City.
It is important to note that the regeneration program has not yet completed its implementation,
therefore the results may be appreciated in the future, however, precisely because it is still
underway and with the knowledge that the city is a living entity in constant transformation, it
is always the ideal time to evaluate and improve practices.
Recognizing that already the interventions carried out to date have generated a palpable change
in this historic center, below we provide some observations that could be useful for the urban
regeneration of the CCSD:
• Consider that this is not just a merely tourist space or a shopping mall, but rather that
people live there and carry out their daily lives in these spaces, therefore the
participation of the general population and residents of the area must be increased in
the search for solutions to the weaknesses of the sector through mechanisms like
surveys or dialogue tables.
• Execute activities that promote the creation of feelings of belonging between the
population and the sector so that the changes implemented can be sustainable and
replicated in the long term, making the population aware of the importance of this
practice, how it affects them and the specific actions they can take from their role as
citizens and residents.
• Identify spaces that have been excluded as a priority and foresee measures that can be
implemented in these, although on a smaller scale, this would help avoid isolated spaces
that are not integrated with their context. Also, a better integration of the CCSD with
the rest of the city would improve its urban behavior and sustainability in the long term.
5. References

1. BID, MITUR (-). Desired Scenario Visualization Tool of the Comprehensive Tourism
and Urban Development Program for Ciudad Colonial Santo Domingo.

2. Inter-American Development Bank (2016). Colonial City of Santo Domingo, a living

city. Consulted May 9, 2022. From https://bidlab.org/en/node/163

3. Ministry of Culture of the Dominican Republic (2021). Documents for the Social and
Environmental Management of the Comprehensive Tourism and Urban Development
Program of the Colonial City of Santo Domingo. Consulted May 9, 2022. From
https://www.cultura.gob.do/index.php/noticias/item/1773-documentos-para-la-
gestion-social-y-ambiental-del-programa-integral-de-desarrollo-turistico-y-urbano-de-
la-ciudad-colonial-de-santo-domingo

4. Bahar, V (2018). A study of the impact of UNESCO and the Inter-American

Development Bank in the revitalization processes of Latin American and Caribbean
historic centers: the case of the colonial zone of Santo Domingo (Dominican Republic).
Consulted May 9, 2022. From
https://journals.openedition.org/etudescaribeennes/11388