Urban requalification processes and innovation imaginary. The case of Rosario, Argentina

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to reflect on how the idea of innovation, understood as a new significance in local public policies, affects the urban requalification processes. With this purpose, the theory of the social imaginary is conjugated with a cultural analysis to tense the discursive conformation of the dominant urban imaginary and the phenomena of transformation of the City of Rosario, which in the last decade, has been developing urban projects tending to restructure and recover degraded zones from the reclassification of spaces and activities. In this context we investigated the requalification processes defined by the notion of innovation as an engine of urban change: The Young City and the Technological Pole, in which evidence of the influence of the Í€œTriple HelixÍ€ model of innovation is evidenced in the new materializations due to happened transformations.