Developing heritage : activist decision-makers and reproduced narratives in the Old City of Aleppo, Syria

Abstract

Aleppo's rehabilitation project has received plaudits for its comprehensive pro-resident approach and an active stance to limit gentrification and touristification. As this objective goes against many of the structural and economic interests in the city, the 'illogical' aspects of plans and regulations would be expected to be immediately transgressed. Surprisingly, however, municipal regulation of investments for significant new uses of property is strong, as is the provision of services to neighborhoods with little to no expected returns. Interviews and analysis of project documents demonstrated that these actions are not a passive enforcement of the plan and regulations. Instead, local decision-makers are active, collaborative agents who dynamically reshape and reinvent the guidelines for implementation. All decisions regarding the regulation of new uses, and especially those not directly traceable to immediate economic interests, were strongly paired in the discourse of the actors with a discussion of a normative vision of the city and specific re-constructions of an ideal past. Aleppo, like other historic cities, arguably represents some of the most powerful lieux de memoire of twenty-first century urbanity. But, while memory and culture have been well-researched as instrumental facades for profit-driven urban projects (as well as in the marketing of spaces for consumption) the methods through which constructed narratives impact decision-making processes is less well-known. This thesis argues that normative narratives of the city are reproduced, amalgamated, and re-imagined by decision-makers and that these narratives play a central role in the decision-making processes to control new investment in the historic center.