- Heritage Resources: An Essential Component of the Strategic Factors    32 kb by    Rypkema, Donovan | DRypkema@PlaceEconomics.com    Short Outline The relationship of a heritage resource to each of the strategic factors. Abstract Heritage conservation has traditionally been promoted on cultural, aesthetic, and educational grounds. Over the last decade the preservation and adaptive reuse of those resources has become an integral component of broader urban strategies. The five strategic factors identified are: direct and indirect competitive factors; cohesion, environment, and governance. Rather than identifying strategic indicators within them, this paper will argue that the reuse of a city’s heritage resources is an essential vehicle for capitalizing on each of these factors. Direct factors. One of the most under recognized attributes of heritage buildings is their adaptability to a wide variety of economic functions. Further the buildings themselves add a sense of quality and authenticity to whatever good or service is produced within. Indirect factors. In countries rapidly moving toward a post-industrial economy, the most valuable resource is knowledge workers – a growing segment of the world’s labor force. Those workers are increasingly choosing where to live based on quality of life factors and on the differentiation of the place they choose to call “home”. Heritage resources are a major contributor to both the quality of life equation and differentiation. Cohesion. The most vociferous protests against globalization are not about economic globalization but rather cultural globalization, and the loss of local identity and sense of belonging. The adaptive reuse of heritage buildings is an effective means of fully participating in economic globalization while mitigating the adverse impacts of cultural globalization. Environment. The demolition and disposal of heritage buildings has a high cost to the natural environment. More important, however, is that their careless demolition represents the diminution of the human and cultural environment. Governance. World-wide, heritage conservation has been a frequent method in establishing public-private partnerships and creating a connection between local government and its citizens. Keywords heritage resources, economic competitiveness, cultural globalization Case Study presented on the ISOCARP Congress 2004: Management of Urban Regions   Click to open the full paper as pdf document   Click to send an email to the author(s) of this paper