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From preservation to creation of value

<p>This report asks the question how to balance thepreservation of cultural built heritage against other publicand private interests in local planning. The aim of the studyis to contribute to knowledge about how different actors valuethe built heritage and how they interact in planning. The studydiscusses how this knowledge can be taken into account inplanning practice. As society develops further into a knowledgesociety, the valuation of local environmental qualities seemsto be more complex than during previous decades. For thatreason the maintenance of cultural built heritage is moredifficult to handle than before. The planning process has bytradition been characterised by a strong public sectorinvolvement and by strict procedural links to the regulationsystem. However, private initiatives have come to play anincreasingly important role in the planning process. Thesechanges have led to a situation where decision-making becomesinformal. The question is if planning functions in such waythat all values represented by different interests areconsidered carefully when decisions are made for preservation,renewal or change of the builtenvironment. There are reasonsto question the notion of citizen representation by localpoliticians and experts of various kinds. The theoreticalfoundation for the study is economic valuation theory, andespecially environmental economics, in combination withnegotiation theory and planning theory. These theories are usedas a starting point for an analysis of different actors’understanding of the cultural built heritage, their incentivesfor participating in planning, and, hence, for understandingthe interaction which determines preservation practice.Empirical findings are based on a case study of planning andheritage management in the municipality of Umeå. Itincludes studies of five recently completed planning processesconcerning specific real estate properties, as well as, aquestionnaire directed to a random selection of 1000inhabitants in the municipality. The study concludes that theoutcome of planning to a substantial part is depending of theinteraction and relations between the stakeholders, and, hence,structured by what has developed as the intellectual traditionand context of the city. The study shows that the builtenvironment seen as a public good in general is not fullyacknowledged and understood. Consequently, the private goodcharacteristic of the built environment is stressed inplanning, not only by private actors, but also by the publicsector. Furthermore, the study concludes that one importantissue in the management of the cultural built heritage is todraw on the actors’incentives for preservation, hence,paying more attention to the question of future direct andindirect use of the built heritage. An actor who primarilyfocuses on existence value runs the risk of being situated inthe margin of planning, with no real influence on decisionsconcerning heritage management.</p>

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:UPSALLA/oai:DiVA.org:kth-3618
Date January 2003
CreatorsOlsson, Krister
PublisherKTH, Infrastructure, Stockholm : Infrastruktur
Source SetsDiVA Archive at Upsalla University
LanguageSwedish
Detected LanguageEnglish
TypeDoctoral thesis, monograph, text

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