© Luba Krutenko, 2024

What civil practices and framework conditions can encourage greater appreciation of the existing building fabric in urban development?

We see heritage as a process of re/constructing and negotiating cultural and social values and meanings (Smith, 2012) and such negotiation is hardly possible without opportunities for political participation for variety of actors.

Therefore to preserve the diversity of the urban environment in cities, it is necessary to value and preserve social and political diversity and provide access to policy making for all citizens. 

Preservation of diversity demands democracy. Political and economic power should be shared with citizens so that they can communicate their opinions, hear each other and negotiate values of their common city. Every piece of building fabric will then have its own defenders and representatives.

The resulting cities may not be as neat as if architects had designed them perfectly from start to finish. And not as radically fair as some activists dream. But they could be lively, unique, complex and interesting, and there is even a chance that people will not want to leave them for an abstract “normal city“.

*Smith, L. (2012) ‘Discourses of heritage : Implications for archaeological community practice.’, Nuevo mundo mundos nuevos [Preprint]. doi:10.4000/nuevomundo.64148.