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

Abstract

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. © 2018, The author (s).