The Historic Urban Landscape paradigm and cities as cultural landscapes. Challenging orthodoxy in urban conservation

Today, for the first time in human history, more than half of the world’s population lives in cities. According to UN-Habitat, within two decades, five billion people will live in cities. Coincidentally, within the field of cultural heritage conservation, increasing international interest and attention over the past two decades has been focused on urban areas. This is timely because pressure for economic development and for the prioritising of engagement with the global economy has accompanied rapid urbanisation. In many societies, pressures for economic development have privileged modernisation efforts leading to the loss of traditional communities. Accompanying this has been a concentration in the field of urban conservation on famous buildings and monuments rather than seeing cities as communities of people with values and belief systems that are reflected in the city’s overall setting: its cultural landscape. This paper explores alternative ways of seeing cities particularly through the Historic Urban Landscape paradigm.