HAVE WE VALUED OUR CITIES ENOUGH? Values bind us together which makes our communities stronger and united. Communities are built upon our tolerance and understanding of the value of our ties, and ties pave our cities towards a bright future. The structure of this book is constructed around the concept of “value”. It contains a collection of readings about the Challenges we face in Cities, Culture, and Heritage. The book is divided into three Parts. The first part focuses on aesthetical values; the second contains articles on cultural values in cities, and the third part is a specialized theme on water values and urban areas. Collectively, the 12 chapters discusses findings, approaches, methodologies, and provide new ways of understanding values in old and new cities. This collection of essays and contributors is concerned with underlying issues such as architectural values, heritage and the city, urban identity, conservation and preservation, water values, and climate issues. Each part contains several chapters to enable cross-reference and comparison. This book is a useful collection of academic resource which discusses some questions and issues that cities have to face.

This volume looks at sustainable protection and sustainable use of cultural and natural heritage, particularly in view of the current challenges of the 21st century. For more than 40 years the World Heritage Convention has regulated the protection of the cultural and natural heritage of humankind, particularly in that heritage shall be protected if it is threatened by modern development. The international community has also adopted sustainability and sustainable development, as objectives to facilitate the protection of cultural and natural heritage. Sustainable heritage protection and use must therefore be preserved in the face of the global challenges it faces and must be perceived in terms of societal, political and corresponding economic paradigms.

In a world where half of the population lives in cities and more than 90 percent of urban growth is occurring in the developing world, cities struggle to modernize without completely losing their unique character, which is embodied by their historic cores and cultural heritage assets. As countries develop, cultural heritage can provide a crucial element of continuity and stability: the past can become a foundation for the future. This book collects innovative research papers authored by leading scholars and practitioners in heritage economics, and presents the most current knowledge on how heritage assets can serve as drivers of local economic development. What this book tries to suggest is a workable approach to explicitly take into account the cultural dimensions of urban regeneration in agglomerations that have a history and possess a unique character, going beyond an approach based solely on major cultural heritage assets or landmarks. The knowledge disseminated through this book will help stakeholders involved in preparation, implementation, and supervision of development investments to better assess the values of cultural heritage assets and incorporate them in urban development policies.

Theory without practice is empty, practice without theory is blind, to adapt a phrase from Immanuel Kant. The sentiment could not be truer of cultural heritage ethics. This intra-disciplinary book bridges the gap between theory and practice by bringing together a stellar cast of academics, activists, consultants, journalists, lawyers, and museum practitioners, each contributing their own expertise to the wider debate of what cultural heritage means in the twenty-first century. Cultural Heritage Ethics provides cutting-edge arguments built on case studies of cultural heritage and its management in a range of geographical and cultural contexts. Moreover, the volume feels the pulse of the debate on heritage ethics by discussing timely issues such as access, acquisition, archaeological practice, curatorship, education, ethnology, historiography, integrity, legislation, memory, museum management, ownership, preservation, protection, public trust, restitution, human rights, stewardship, and tourism. This volume is neither a textbook nor a manifesto for any particular approach to heritage ethics, but a snapshot of different positions and approaches that will inspire both thought and action. Cultural Heritage Ethics provides invaluable reading for students and teachers of philosophy of archaeology, history and moral philosophy – and for anyone interested in the theory and practice of cultural preservation.

The act of identifying, protecting, restoring, and reusing buildings, districts, and built landscapes of historic and cultural significance is, at its best, a reflective and consequential process of urban and socio-economic reform. It has the potential to reconcile conflicting memories, meanings, and cultural tensions, bridging and expanding the perceived boundaries of multiple disciplines towards bigger aspirations of city-making and social justice. How and where do such aspirations overlap and differ across nations and societies across the world? In places with different histories, governance structures, regulatory stringency, and populist dispositions, who are the specific players, and what are the actual processes that bring about bigger and deeper change beyond just the conservation of an architectural or urban entity of perceived value? This collection of scholarly articles by theorists, academics, and practitioners explores the global complexity, guises, and potential of heritage conservation. Going from Tokyo to Cairo, Shenzhen to Rome, and Delhi to Moscow, this volume examines a vast range of topics – indigenous habitats, urban cores, vernacular infrastructure, colonial towns, squatters, burial sites, war zones, and modern landmarks. It surfaces numerous inherent issues – water stress, deforestation, social oppression, poverty, religion, immigration, and polity, expanding the definitions of heritage conservation as both a professional discipline and socio-cultural catalyst. This book argues that the intellectual and praxis limits of heritage conservation – as the agency of reading, defining, and intervening with built heritage – can be expansive, aimed at bigger positive change beyond a specific subject or object; plural, enmeshed with multiple fields and specializations; and empathetic, born from the actual socio-political realities of a place.

Bringing together leading conservation scholars and professionals from around the world, this volume offers a timely look at values-based approaches to heritage management. Over the last fifty years, conservation professionals have confronted increasingly complex political, economic, and cultural dynamics. This volume, with contributions by leading international practitioners and scholars, reviews how values-based methods have come to influence conservation, takes stock of emerging approaches to values in heritage practice and policy, identifies common challenges and related spheres of knowledge, and proposes specific areas in which the development of new approaches and future research may help advance the field.

This book examines management of the built cultural heritagethrough the use of the concept of cultural significance. Itconsiders how and why cultural significance is assessed and how itcan be used as an effective focus and driver for managementstrategies and processes. Effective management of the built cultural heritage requires aclear understanding of what makes a place significant (and how thatsignificance might be vulnerable) but the book also emphasises thatthis understanding of cultural significance must inform allactivities in order to ensure that what is important about theplace is protected and enhanced. The book was written in the midst of much fundamentalrethinking, both nationally and internationally, on approaches tothe conservation of our built cultural heritage. Managing BuiltHeritage: the role of cultural significance is analytical andreflective but also draws on real life examples to illustrateparticular issues, looking at current approaches and drawing outbest practice. The authors consider key policies and procedures that need to beimplemented to help ensure effective management and the book willbe useful for specialists in built cultural heritage - conservationofficers, built heritage managers, architects, planners andsurveyors - as well as for facilities and estates managers whosebuilding stock includes listed buildings or buildings inconservation areas.