Right to the City and the Equitable Management of the Urban Heritage of the Metropolitan District of Quito

Abstract

Since 1942, the Metropolitan District of Quito (DMQ) has applied policies and instruments that have allowed it to address the conservation of its urban heritage. However, his management has not managed to reconcile the correct interdependence of rights enshrined in the Ecuadorian constitution, deepening an inequitable distribution of urban burdens and benefits. With the issuance of the Organic Law on Territorial Planning, Land Use and Management (2016), the opportunity opens to equitably manage historical areas from the guiding law of territorial planning and land use and management planning – the right to the city – and whose exercise would allow a paradigm shift, recognizing the collective responsibility for its conservation and transformation, in accordance with the urban and sustainable planning and development of the territory. In this sense, the purpose of this article is to propose a reflection about how we understand the processes of heritage conservation on the territory, which, above all, are urban burdens that must be managed and not romanticized, and for which the right to the city plays an important role in establishing territorial equity and interdependence of rights.