Santo Domingo: City profile of the Caribbean's metropolis

As the oldest city of the New World, Santo Domingo has undergone major institutional, political, economic and urban restructuring in five centuries of urban history. This city profile article investigates first the historical urban development of the city and then scrutinizes contemporary urban policies and projects that respond to challenges of rapid growth, inequality, and vulnerability to climate change. The article highlights how centralized policies initiated by divergent political regimes have resulted in a segregated city where Presidents used urban space to leave their legacies without adhering to planning mechanisms. The article also uncovers how rapid growth and absence of urban planning have produced two city making approaches, the “formal” and the “informal” cities converging parallel to each other. Furthermore, as the capital city of a Small Island Developing State, Santo Domingo's recent urban policies are embedded in global frameworks such as the Sustainable Development Goals and the Paris Climate Agreement; in this line, inequality and climate change vulnerabilities continue to be the city's main challenges in the 21rst century.