Heritage deviations in relation to town planning in Ciutat de Mallorca

This chapter describes a case of urban reform in an area of the Historic Centre of Ciutat de Mallorca / Palma (Spain). The case study is framed within a global movement for recentralizing, embellishing, commodifying and calming the historic centres of many cities, in a process of re-direction of flows that can be observed both at metropolitan and global levels (competition between cities). This case is composed of three reform planning schemes (Sa Calatrava, Sa Gerreria and El Temple) legally independent but that are parts or phases of a single large-scale execution unit with shared aims (fundamentally the creation of added value) and which becomes obvious in its promotion as a single heritage tourism product. Nevertheless, the different planning schemes seem to coincide with a specific functional specialization of two differentiated sectors: Sa Calatrava becomes a luxurious and calmed residential area without neighbourhood or outdoor life; Sa Gerreria is to be upgraded both as a central and a corridor area. The chapter shows an interest in the way in which the actors re-signify and appropriate this reforming action, re-creating from this ideas and social relations. Within this axiomatic approach, we have focused on two ethnographic examples that show a parallel logic of appropriation of discourse and action of reform, a logic that reads its arguments in a zealous manner and therefore uncovers resources, which we call deviations.