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<p style="text-align: justify;">Rio de Janeiro’s historic center tells a story familiar to many cities across Latin America and the developing world: decades of outward expansion have hollowed out urban cores, leaving behind degraded buildings, strained public services, and neighborhoods that once defined the city’s civic life. Washington Fajardo has spent over a decade designing urban revitalization policies to address this decay. As the Director of the IDB Cities’ Lab he works on cutting-edge solutions to address urban challenges in Latin America and the Caribbean. Previously as the Mayor’s Special Advisor for Urban Issues and President of the Rio World Heritage Institute (2009–2016), he designed policies and financing mechanisms to preserve heritage, regenerate buildings, and improve public services in the city center. He joins the Growth Lab to discuss what it takes to bring city centers back to life: which policy tools actually work to regenerate buildings and public spaces, how to finance preservation at scale, and what Rio’s experience offers other cities grappling with urban decay at their core.</p><p> </p><p><strong>Speaker: </strong>Washington Fajardo, Director of the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) Cities Lab</p><p> </p><p><strong>Moderator</strong>: Andres Fortunato, Growth Lab Research Manager</p><p> </p><p>Whether attending in person or virtually, please register in advance. Room attendance is permitted for the Harvard community. Lunch will be served. The Zoom session is open to the public.</p><p> </p><p>Speaker Bio:</p><p>As president of the Rio World Heritage Institute and the Mayor’s Special Advisor for Urban Issues from 2009 to 2016, Washington Fajardo created policies and finance solutions to preserve heritage, regenerate buildings and places, and improve public services in Rio de Janeiro. His innovative initiatives revived cultural heritage in the city’s waterfront renewal and supported private owners to rehabilitate historic buildings.</p><p> </p><p>A 2019 Loeb Fellow at the Harvard Graduate School of Design, he currently pursues architectural design and planning activities in his studio DEBR, he is developing a new “urban agency,” a mix of “do-tank” and investigation and problem solving lab at the intersection of academia, city government, and community. Fajardo created the Carioca Design Center and the African Heritage Historical and Archaeological Trail. He has won awards for Ver-O-Peso urban renewal in Belém in the Amazon Region, Pavuna Carioca Arena, and the New Imperator, an old movie theater converted to a multipurpose cultural center. His weekly column about urban issues appears in O Globo newspaper.</p><p> </p><p><em>The Growth Lab’s “Development Talks” is a series of conversations with policymakers and academics working on economic growth and development in countries, regions, states, and cities in the US and around the world. The seminar provides a platform for practitioners and researchers to discuss both economic growth and development and analytical work centered on policy.</em></p>
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