Sustainable Revitalization of a Heritage Site: Community-Based Conservation and Adaptive Reuse of Wuxi’s Sanliqiao Catholic Church

Within UNESCO’s framework for sustainable heritage, this study examines how community engagement shapes the conservation of religious architectural heritage and the continuity of cultural landscapes. Using Sanliqiao Catholic Church in Wuxi, China, as a case study, it explores how heritage value is produced through the interaction of everyday practices, place identity, and participation in governance. Drawing on 19 interviews, field observations, archival materials, historical images, and 216 online comments, the findings reveal how everyday spatial practices sustain the cultural landscape. These practices generate differentiated place identities among believers, residents, and commercial stakeholders. Such identity differences, in turn, influence uneven participation in heritage governance and shape how cultural value is experienced and distributed. Cultural landscape reproduction thus emerges as a dynamic process linking everyday practice, identity formation, and participatory governance structures. The study underscores the critical role of inclusive participation in heritage governance and contributes to broader international debates on socially sustainable heritage management, with implications for similar religious and urban heritage sites beyond the Chinese context.