The railway heritage and sustainable development in northwest Argentina. Lines of intervention

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to provide guidelines for strategic planning based on the consideration of railway heritage and sustainable infrastructure. This emerged by the fact of having reached a nearly useless rail network and the continued loss of land and buildings linked to the rail. By this purpose, it examines the bases for intervention identified in some parts of the document around the railway line from Jujuy, La Quiaca in northwestern Argentina. It presents a diagnosis of the territory and its basic components: a model of colonial occupation and territorial organization, settlement and buildings and facilities related to the railway line and the operation of the system. This diagnosis that was made by the methodology of DAFO, shows the problems that led to the removal of the railroad but also the persistence of some features and the implications for their long-term conforming elements: the values are more or less damaged. Therefore, we analyze the potential to address the issues studied from a diversification of uses of the railway heritage oriented regional sustainable development. As results we suggest criteria for intervention on the scale of Northwest Argentina, again using the railway as a drive shaft development, recovering the use of the railway track and promoting reuse of architecture as an alternative means to rehabilitate the heritage.