HerO Final Results :The Road to Success - Integrated Management of Historic Towns Guidebook

There are many cities in Europe and worldwide with historic urban areas and outstanding cultural heritage values. These areas are often highly contested arenas of diverse and partly conflicting interests and development ideas, which challenge the safeguarding of the cultural heritage. A non-balanced handling of the conflicts can lead to a loss of cultural heritage and identity or economic stagnancy and non-competitive areas with low amenity values.

 
Therefore, the challenge of historic urban areas is to match their inherited urban structure, identity and buildings with the manifold demands of residents, visitors and businesses. The goal is to capitalise on the cultural heritage for attractive and liveable cities with mixed-use historic urban areas keeping up quality of life of residents and visitors, the identity of the place and safeguarding the cultural heritage for present and future generations. The motto is: Traditional, uncoordinated mono-sectoral approaches are not adequate to that. There is the strong need for an integrated management approach which links the safeguarding of the cultural heritage with the sustainable development of historic urban areas (heritage-led urban development as cross-sectional task).

In this context, the URBACT II thematic network HerO has developed an innovative management strategy supporting an integrated, sustainable development of historic urban areas, strengthening their attractiveness and competitiveness by capitalising on cultural heritage assets. Based on the exchange of experience through a series of seminars and two expert
workshops and on case studies of the network partners the instrument of an Integrated Cultural Heritage Management Plan was developed and tested in support of the new approach to the management of historic urban areas.

This guidebook provides guidance for city administrations and practitioners on how to apply this new approach by producing an Integrated Cultural Heritage Management Plan. It describes the main characteristics of such a plan and presents the main steps for its production in support of safeguarding and capitalising cultural heritage for a sustainable urban development.


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