Interventions of public art in the segregated city

Abstract

Public Art Interventions at the Segregated City A network city composed by the four major Costa Rican cities has expanded without control generating a fragmented city, with an important social segregation. These conditions have developed transportation problems, lack of services provisions, increased pollution and security issues. Uncontrolled urban development, obeying market laws without any state and local controls, has generated the disappearance of referent urban centers, the increase of gated communities, with the subsequent decline of social cohesion and cultural meaning of the city. This territory has not been able to developed cultural policies and therefore some urban subcultures have emerged in the city, as an alternative. Through de development of public art and community activities, small efforts have appropriated those fragmented public spaces