"Implementing the New Urban Agenda Thru Culture and Heritage:
From a Quito Neighborhood to the World, the Vive Alameda Urban Village Project Six Years After Habitat III"
Wed, Apr 27, 2022 10:00 AM

This event examined the state of progress towards implementation of the culture and heritage-related provisions of the New Urban Agenda. It occurred in the margins of the High-Level Meeting of the UN General Assembly on the progress in the implementation of the New Urban Agenda, held on 28 April 2022 in New York. It came on the eve of 6th anniversary of the NUA’s adoption at the landmark Habitat III Conference held in Quito, Ecuador in September 2016.

Background
The 2016 Habitat III conference was instrumental in advancing the global understanding of the role of culture and heritage for sustainable and resilient cities and human settlements. It occurred only a few months after the UN General Assembly had taken the innovative decision to expressly include natural and cultural heritage in the UN Sustainable Development Goals, through SDG 11.4. Attention to culture and heritage, and the amplification of SDG11.4, can be seen across the New Urban Agenda (NUA), in themes like:
• Promoting the ecological and social function of land, fostering ecosystem-based solutions to ensure sustainable consumption and production patterns (NUA Sections 14c, 45, 69)
• Quality, decent and productive jobs, including through the promotion of cultural and creative industries, sustainable tourism, performing arts and heritage conservation activities (NUA Section 60)
• Leveraging of cultural heritage for sustainable urban development, rehabilitating and revitalizing urban areas (NUA Sections 38, 125)
• Strengthening social participation and the exercise of citizenship, stimulating participation and responsibility (NUA Sections 38, 125)
• Sustainable, dense, low-carbon, inclusive land use and territorial planning, including the upgrading of slums and informal, while preserving cultural heritage (NUA Sections 52, 69, 97, 124)

The April 2022 event used as one of several points of departure the Habitat III Urban Village Project “La Alameda Historic District of Quito: Forging Heritage Tools for Urban Sustainability (Art and Citizen Participation).” The project is known informally as “Vive Alameda” after the Quito neighbourhood that was home to Habitat III. This neighborhood is also part of the "buffer zone" of the Historic Center of Quito, the first city inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List.

The Vive Alameda project was held during Habitat III. It was a collaboration between different community actors and various local, national and international cultural heritage experts. They came together to explore, experiment and examine the historical layers of fabric, values, cultures, traditions and experiences of the historic La Alameda neighborhood to test the cultural concepts proposed for inclusion in the NUA.

The Project aimed to benefit the neighborhood through the creation of concrete cultural heritage-based sustainable development tools and also to point the way towards viable strategies, replicable around the world, to realize the potential of culture to drive sustainable urbanization, as expressed in the NUA.

Six years later, participants in the Vive Alameda project as well as other partners and colleagues will assemble to consider the legacy of the Vive Alameda project, advances in the implementation of the culture and heritage provisions of the New Urban Agenda, and the ongoing search for models of sustainable urbanism.