Public policies and conservation plans of historic urban landscapes under the sustainable heritage tourism milieu: discussions on the equilibrium model on Kulangsu Island, UNESCO World Heritage site

Purpose The tensions and threats in historic urban landscapes brought about by heritage tourism are still regional,global,general,and dynamic issues.For Kulangsu,there is an obvious problem in the connection between the current conservation plan and public policy.To a large extent,public policy cannot effectively,specifically,and flexibly respond to the dynamic problems in the implementation of the conservation plan,which seems insufficient concerning the effect of these conservation plans and public policies on promoting the adaptive reuse and sustainable tourism of the historic urban in Kulangsu heritage sites.Thus,giving more consideration to the combination of public policies and conservation plans of historic urban landscapes under the heritage tourism milieu,ensuring a balanced,sustainable,and integrated development pattern still calls for new discussions in achieving good performance of sustainable heritage tourism.This study conceptually discusses the equilibrium model of historic urban landscapes with a range of strategies under a sustainable heritage tourism background and responds to the synthetic contradiction of the imbalances among public policy,conservation plans,and development practices.Design/methodology/approach The study is based on a range of prepared desktop studies(public policy studies,conservation plans),field surveys,participant observations,and randomised interviews to respond to the insufficiency of the current heritagepractices.Findings This study discusses the equilibrium model of sustainable heritage tourism at heritage sites.It takes Kulangsu Island,a UNESCO World Heritage site in Southeast China,as an example to discuss the equilibrium model,which encompasses a convergent parallel framework and three dimensions concerning heritage management and policymaking.The equilibrium model of historic urban landscapes is a dynamic framework that integrates social,economic,environmental,and cultural concerns into a holistic collaborative framework under a sustainable heritage tourism background.Originality/value In line with the requirements of the Historic Urban Landscape(HUL)approach and general principles in support of sustainable urban heritage management promoted by UNESCO and ICOMOS,the study points out the peculiarities and potential of the equilibrium mode in solving the current challenges of historic urban landscapes for sustainable heritage tourism.Finding ways of linking policymaking,conservation,development,heritage tourism,and different interest groups to a holistic framework can stimulate effective means and management mechanisms for the complicated and changeable issues of sustainable heritage tourism.

Connecting Concepts of Cultural Landscape and Historic Urban Landscape: The Politics of Similarity

This paper projects the concept of cultural landscapes into the realm of urban conservation in the context of the Historic Urban Landscape(HUL)paradigm.To do this I take an historical overview of how,during the latter half of the 1980s and early 1990s,academic and professional interest in heritage studies started to embrace the cultural landscape construct.This movement continued through the 2000s with increasing links between theory and practice on urban conservation concerns and the concept of cities as cultural landscapes.In this connection the move in 2011 by UNESCO with the Recommendation on the Historic Urban Landscape is particularly notable.Coincidental were two significant movements.First was increasing questioning of heritage as focusing narrowly on the monuments and sites mentality.Second has been the growing appreciation that urban conservation locking onto separate historic towns or specific parts of cities is counter-productive;it ignores towns and cities as holistic entities isolating historic areas virtually as museum pieces separate from the rest of the urban fabric and lacking sustainability.In contrast HUL with its landscape approach is a process1 that embraces-city-wide-cultural,natural,tangible and intangible,social,economic,visual and experiential aspects of the physical morphology of the city and the image of the city;it underpins the fundamental concept of urban areas as a series of layers through time that link past,present and future as in the construct of cultural landscape.

The Way Forward with Historic Urban Landscape Approach Towards Sustainable Urban Development

The pace of urbanisation,with the increase in the number of metropolitan areas,has been paralleled with the heritage discourse of past generations that valorises monuments in isolation,and has pushed the ap­preciation of urban heritage to a grim corner in the face of development.Since the turn of the millennium there are international efforts to reverse this trend by placing culture and people-centred approaches into the heritage discourse in order to allow inclusive policies that see culture and cultural heritage as an asset and driving force for sustainable urban development.As one of such instruments,the UNESCO Recommendation on the Historic Urban Landscape,as an integrated management model,is considered in this article to have potentials to bridge existing divides to achieve sustainable urban development.With this belief,the paper looks into the future,with supporting arguments that come from discussions as a result of the WHITRAP International Expert Meeting on the Implemen­tation of the HUL approach which took place in 2018,Shanghai,China.

The Historic Urban Landscape and the Metropolis

The Historic Urban Landscape(HUL)recommendation adopted by UNESCO in 2011 provides a holistic approach based on landscape planning principles.It is in line with the International Guidelines for Urban and Terri­torial Planning adopted by UN-Habitat in 2015(UN-Habitat 2015).HUL concerns the integration of culture in territo­rial planning processes and the historical urban centre inside their urban or city context.Large cities are becoming the dominant pattern of the human settlements worldwide.They are the main engine of economic development,attracting people for jobs,creating the highest values and are the main support for the globalisation process.The 21^(st) century is the era of the metropolis,with a large increase of cities of more than 500,000 inhabitants.The heritage of the 21^(st) century will be building through the metropolis.We can consider the metropolis as an artefact of the humankind.It produces large urban-rural systems supported by large infrastructures,iconic buildings and specific facilities.The upgrading of the main characteristics of the metropolis adds value in cities for the quality of life,creating new heritage at a scale greater than the existing world heritage categories.HUL could be extended as a relevant approach to be applied on the metropolitan scale.

Built Heritage Conservation and Contemporary Urban Development:The Contribution of Architectural Practice to the Challenges of Modernisation

An insight into the shared history of built heritage and urban development along the 20th century reveals different attempts to solve the dialectic conflict between conservation and modernisation from the discipline of architecture.This paper makes a review of the nature,aims and results of these attempts,highlighting the contributions to the discussion that originated from Italy between the 1950s and 1980s.It points to the challenges brought by the 1972 World Heritage Convention and the extent of social,economic and urban changes that have contributed to raise awareness about urban heritage in the present time.The article departs from a value-centred framework in order to describe current architectural,cultural,economic and social issues concerning the contribution of architecture and urban planning to heritage conservation in the age of globalization.This insight will delineate new conservation practices,strategies and methodologies,especially relating to the 2011 Historic Urban Landscape Recommendation and its declared goal for sustainable urban development.

Impact Assessments for Urban World Heritage:European Experiences under Scrutiny

In the context of the broadening understanding of urban heritage,including the 2011 UNESCO Recom­mendation on the Historic Urban Landscape and related United Nations agendas such as the 2030 Sustainable Devel­opment Goals and the New Urban Agenda,this article questions the relevance of limited-focused impact assessments as a tool for the holistic management of complex urban sites in the 21st century.The article identifies pitfalls in the use of such assessments,illustrating this principally with two cases in which retrospective assessments were under­taken post-inscription in an attempt to address conflicting interests:the visual impact study for Dresden Elbe Valley,inscribed on the World Heritage List in 2004 and delisted in 2009;and the three impact assessments for Liverpool Maritime Mercantile World Heritage Site,also inscribed in 2004,and placed on the List of World Heritage in Danger continuously since 2012.The article identifies critical missing elements that are inherent in discrete assessments,and provides indicators for practical tools with relevant applicability.

World Heritage Cultural Landscapes:An Old or a New Concept for China?

The term‘cultural landscape’has many different meanings for different people throughout the world.It has been widely circulated since the international recognition of cultural landscapes extended to World Heritage prominence in 1992 with three categories of cultural landscapes of outstanding universal value defined as the‘combined works of nature and of man’.However,the application of World Heritage Cultural Landscapes(WHCLs)encountered difficulties in China.This paper reviews the history of nature-related World Heritage conservation in the country,examines the cross-cultural confusion of World Heritage practice from Chinese traditional cultural perspective of culture and nature relationship to address to the international bewilderment about China’s two-decade absence from WHCLs.The paper also reviews the efforts taken by China to dispel the conceptual confusion,what has been inspired by and contributed to the WHCLs in the recent years.Finally,the paper examines what China and WHCLs can mutually benefit from each other based on the common concerns of sustainable development and harmonious human-nature relationship in the future.

Cultural Landscapes Link to Nature:Learning from Satoyama and Satoumi

The nature-culture divide is an artificial separation consolidated by Western modern science.It is a social construction that disseminated globally,but does not exist in some non-Western societies.Abandoning this framework to embrace an integrated system for sustainability is challenging.The concept of the Historic Urban Landscape(HUL)already attempts to integrate natural and cultural heritage into urban planning by focusing on a landscape approach.However,this approach consumes rural and nature into the urban.To uncover nature and return it to the forefront of urban conservation,this paper explores cultural landscapes as examples where natu­ral and cultural values are inextricably related.Four case studies are presented of satoyama and satoumi,cultural landscapes of Japan where Shinto beliefs and traditional agricultural practices knit together nature and culture,rendering the divide unseen.This paper suggests connecting the HUL approach,with this inclusive understanding,by turning the focus to mapping seasonal relationships following a transdisciplinary approach in which indigenous and local knowledge are integrated,as well as a temporal dimension.In this way,one can find satoyama and satou­mi in the urban environment:by looking beyond the attributes,the interrelationships with the natural substratum needed to support the development of quality and resilient environments can be revealed.

Urban Heritage in the Arabian Peninsula, the Experiences of Jeddah and Dubai

Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates feature ultra-modern cities with millions of residents that developed in opposition to the physical patterns of traditional historical settlements.In the past years,however,there has been a renewed attention to urban heritage and two metropolises,Jeddah and Dubai,have decided to aim for World Heritage status and to leverage historic city centres as engines of economic development and tools for the reinforcement of national identity.In Dubai,the conservation and reconstruction of historic neighbourhoods gives residents an urban historic depth previously unrecognised,favouring the integration of different ethnic communities while contributing to the tourist development of the Emirate.In Jeddah,the preservation and revitalisation of the historic centre is part of a larger strategy focusing on the reinforcement of the private sector to trigger new urban dynamics building upon its rich heritage.Recent strategies and plans are briefly discussed,underlining the specificities of the Arabian Peninsula context and its complex and evolving relationship with history and heritage.It is argued that the nominations for inscription on the UNESCO World Heritage List have been a catalyser for the definition of new planning and conservation policies integrating urban heritage into urban development strategies.

Conceptualising Intangible Heritage in Urban Environments: Challenges for Implementing the HUL Recommendation

The Historic Urban Landscape(HUL)Recommendation(UNESCO 2011)suggests that heritage manage­ment should be holistic,integrated,people-centred and focused on sustainable development goals.Both tangi­ble and intangible heritage should be taken into account,allowing for appropriate change over time.A variety of stakeholders should be involved in planning processes,including all levels of government,NGOs and communities.Intercultural dialogue and mediation,as well as tools such as documentation,inventorying and mapping should be used to identify multiple layers of heritage.Implementing the Recommendation thus offers a wonderful op­portunity to develop consultative,bottom-up,integrated planning for sustainable development in urban areas.This paper suggests that one barrier to integrating management planning for tangible and intangible heritage is a persistent confusion about what‘intangible heritage’is and why it deserves protection.Is it the values that local communities associate with their environment(‘intangible values’),or is it cultural practices that they happen to perform in that environment(intangible cultural heritage,or ICH)?Should‘intangible heritage’be managed as an attribute attesting to the authenticity of tangible fabric,or as a subject of safeguarding in its own right?If it means all these things at the same time,why is the same concept being used for so many different ideas and what are the consequences?The paper will suggest that a clearer conceptual understanding of intangible heritage is necessary to effectively integrate it into urban management strategies under the HUL approach.

Repositioning Urban Heritage-Setting the Scene

International conventions,charters and recommendations tend to follow trends and are generally reactive to contemporary circumstances;the debates on urban heritage are no exception.These texts need to be read in the perspective of socio-economic and environmental considerations of their time together with their inter-dependence on other disciplines.The dramatic changes to our urban conurbations have included environmental degradation,the complexities of migrations and socio-economic transformations.Addressing these major concerns in managing urban heritage highlights the necessity for cross-disciplinarity in research and the need for adopting a more integrative attitude in the planning processes.Applying the General System Theory by the biologist Ludwig von Bertalanffy brings a systematic,holistic methodology from the realms of modern science into extending the historic centre and the city with a territorial approach of the metropolis allowing for sustainable and resilient rural and urban linkages.This article brings together seven contributions on issues affecting the Recommendation on the Historic Urban Landscape The potential of the digital revolution is in the capacity of recognizing the speed and rapidity of change,and the mega-data available as affecting our lives and environment together with the role of history,tradition and continuity in linking the past to the future.

The Old and the New: Designs to Enhance Cesano Maderno Old Town through a Regenerative Structure

The relationship between the old and the new is a specific theme of architecture that bears witness not so much to the original appearance of the old but to its enduring meaning in historic Italian and European cities.The complex palimpsest of signs,memories,and overwriting that time has layered on built forms opens questions of meaning that can be untangled only in the relationship between history,site and design.The investigation of structural characters of places and their relationships with cultural assets and heritage provides a layered set of readings,which is itself the forerun of an urban landscape design action.Beyond preserving the integrity of the material traces,there can only be the new.The test bench is therefore the project as a cognitive act around which to build‘case by case’the strategies for recovering urban identity.The series of projects for Cesano Maderno old town,north of Milan,exemplifies a design-led approach to the built heritage and historic urban landscape in which reading tools,conservation and design are shown in their mutual relationship.In this dialectic between the old and the new,the design is part of the architecture of time where the new,working through light reversible overwriting and measured grafting,becomes a further layer in the historical palimpsest and the authentic form of its enhancement and reuse.Integrating project strategies-from pure conservation to new architectural grafting,from reuse to overwriting-the sequence of designs give shape to a‘regenerative structure’that enhances as a system and for public use a set of introverted Baroque buildings and spaces along a historical promenade,re-centring the city around its brownfield core.

Modern Heritage, the Other, and the Anthropocene

The 2020^(th) century was modernism’s century;a comparatively fleeting moment in which the human race’s transition to an urbanised species created an entirely new geological epoch:the Anthropocene.The existen­tial challenge for our species in the 21st century will be to transform the modern city into a site of truly sustainable human habitation.This challenge requires us to engage critically with the past in a way that serves the needs of the future,globally and permanently.The Historic Urban Landscapes(HUL)approach,together with the UN’s Sustain­able Development Goals and UN Habitat’s New Urban Agenda,offers a framework for meeting this challenge and,critically,to change our relationship with both the past and the future.