A Sustainable Future for the Historic Urban Core - SHUC
Lead Research Organisation:
Newcastle University
Department Name: Sch of Architect, Planning & Landscape
Abstract
The historic urban cores of European towns are a major European cultural asset. (J. Pendlebury, 2009; J. Pendlebury & Strange, 2011) However, their planning and management vary significantly because of different institutional conditions and social models (V. Nadin & D Stead, 2008). For example, in the Netherlands the state is the primary actor with municipalities acting directly in managing the built heritage (Janssen, Luiten, Renes, & Rouwendal, 2012), whereas in England the state largely regulates the private market and NGOs play a more important role. These different approaches have consequences for changes of use of property and space in the historic core.
Although countries use different management approaches they face similar pressures arising from the effects of the banking crisis and increasingly neoliberal government policies which tend to impose public spending constraints together with privatisation and deregulation.(Council, 2009; Dafflon, 2010, 2002) (P. Allmendinger & Haughton, 2012) (Nadin and Stead 2013). This presents serious challenges for the management of the cultural asset of the historic urban core, especially since past studies have pointed to the weakness of strategic approaches to coordinating the actions of a wider set of public, private and civil society actors in urban heritage management. There is a demand for a better understanding of the trajectory and impacts of planning and management approaches.
This project proposes to establish a collaborative network of researchers with a common interest in changing practices in urban planning and management of historic cities. It brings together research on planning practices for the historic urban core from three countries to apply a common theoretical framework. It will develop new comparative understandings of evolving practices and their consequences.
This project proposes to establish a collaborative network of researchers with a common interest in changing practices in urban planning and management of historic cities. It brings together research on planning practices for the historic urban core from three countries to apply a common theoretical framework. It will develop new comparative understandings of evolving practices and their consequences.
The project asks:
How have varying management approaches influenced patterns of functions in, and the economic role of, the historic urban core? How can these relationships be captured in a common conceptual framework?
How are approaches being reformed in each country in response to changing political values, in particular the role of the state, and to what extent do underlying socio-economic and historical factors shape responses to heritage management?
To what extent are models and methods of managing the historic urban core transferable between countries, and what scope is there for effective policy transfer?
The method of analysis is primarily to bring existing research and scholarship in the three countries into a common cross-national conceptual framework. The provisional framework is already in place and draws on theories of strategic planning and area life cycle management (Lindgren & Bandhold, 2009; Henry Mintzberg, 1994, 1996; H. Mintzberg, Ahlstrand, & Lampel, 2005) and has been employed in pilot research on managing the historic urban cores of twenty cities in the Netherlands (Toorn Vrijthoff, 2011).
Although countries use different management approaches they face similar pressures arising from the effects of the banking crisis and increasingly neoliberal government policies which tend to impose public spending constraints together with privatisation and deregulation.(Council, 2009; Dafflon, 2010, 2002) (P. Allmendinger & Haughton, 2012) (Nadin and Stead 2013). This presents serious challenges for the management of the cultural asset of the historic urban core, especially since past studies have pointed to the weakness of strategic approaches to coordinating the actions of a wider set of public, private and civil society actors in urban heritage management. There is a demand for a better understanding of the trajectory and impacts of planning and management approaches.
This project proposes to establish a collaborative network of researchers with a common interest in changing practices in urban planning and management of historic cities. It brings together research on planning practices for the historic urban core from three countries to apply a common theoretical framework. It will develop new comparative understandings of evolving practices and their consequences.
This project proposes to establish a collaborative network of researchers with a common interest in changing practices in urban planning and management of historic cities. It brings together research on planning practices for the historic urban core from three countries to apply a common theoretical framework. It will develop new comparative understandings of evolving practices and their consequences.
The project asks:
How have varying management approaches influenced patterns of functions in, and the economic role of, the historic urban core? How can these relationships be captured in a common conceptual framework?
How are approaches being reformed in each country in response to changing political values, in particular the role of the state, and to what extent do underlying socio-economic and historical factors shape responses to heritage management?
To what extent are models and methods of managing the historic urban core transferable between countries, and what scope is there for effective policy transfer?
The method of analysis is primarily to bring existing research and scholarship in the three countries into a common cross-national conceptual framework. The provisional framework is already in place and draws on theories of strategic planning and area life cycle management (Lindgren & Bandhold, 2009; Henry Mintzberg, 1994, 1996; H. Mintzberg, Ahlstrand, & Lampel, 2005) and has been employed in pilot research on managing the historic urban cores of twenty cities in the Netherlands (Toorn Vrijthoff, 2011).
Organisations
People |
ORCID iD |
| John Pendlebury (Principal Investigator) |
Publications
Nadin V
(2015)
A Sustainable Future for the Historic Urban Core
Pendlebury J
(2015)
Regiones metropolitans, centros históricos y patrimonio cultural: el caso del Reino Unido
in CyTET - Ciudad y Territorio Estudios Teritoriales
Pendlebury J
(2019)
After the Crash: the conservation-planning assemblage in an era of austerity
in European Planning Studies
Veldpaus L
(2023)
Planning reform and heritage governance
in Planning Practice & Research
| Description | The historic urban core is a critical repository of cultural heritage in its buildings, monuments public spaces and townscape. It has been formed through incremental change over many years in response to changing pressures on the role of the city to produce a complex, highly differentiated urban fabric in terms of urban structure, ownership, and the historic periods represented. The characteristics of the historic cores many of which are shared across many cities make them a primary European cultural asset. But fundamental reforms in urban governance and planning in the wake of major shifts in political, social and economic conditions, present great challenges for the management of this cultural heritage. Three partners collaborated on the SHUC pilot project to investigate how these challenges were being met in north-west Europe: the Urbanism Department in the Faculty of Architecture and the Built Environment at Delft University of Technology, the Netherlands; the Global Urban Research Unit of Newcastle University, UK; and the School of Architecture, Planning and Environmental Policy of University College Dublin, Ireland. Outline of the pilot project The project has taken into account that the methods used to manage and regulate change in the historic urban cores vary from country to country (or even region to region) because of very different institutional conditions and social models (Nadin and Stead 2008). In continental Europe under a corporatist social model, there has been a tendency for the state to take a more direct role in urban development with provincial and municipal governments playing an active role in urban development as well as regulation. In the Anglo-Saxon countries under more liberal social model there is a tendency for the private sector to be more important in urban development with local governments playing a more facilitating role (Janssen, et al., 2012). There are nevertheless similarities, especially in the trajectory of changes in approach in Western Europe. Public policy on the historic core has changed to accommodate different social and economic demands and evolving public and professional attitudes to their importance in the social and economic life of the city. For example, after the Second World War and during a long period of steady economic growth, the service sector became much more important in city employment. Housing to meet growing demands was concentrated in the urban fringe in many countries. These changes had varying effects on the historic cores, but often led to decline and a loss of heritage value. From the 1950s to the 1970s there were many attempts to redevelop historic cores to make them more 'attractive' for investment urban core more accessible to the motor car and more suitable for commercial and retail uses. In some cities this led to wholesale redevelopment of parts of the historic cores, but generally they have proved remarkably resilient. In the Netherlands, economic investments moved to bigger buildings and more accessible locations. Vacant buildings in the core were taken over by small- scale commercial activities and the housing function became stronger, with a good fit between function and the close-knit organic street pattern. At the same time, public and professional attitudes embraced heritage conservation and its associations with cultural identity, authenticity, sense of place and historic continuity. From the 1980s the forces of globalization and European integration led to increasing competition between cities as investment became more footloose. In this context government has begun to recognize the economic value of the historic urban core as a characteristic that lends 'quality of place' and distinctiveness - which may be important in attracting and retaining investment. As a result, policies and regulations for conservation of the core (especially at the building level) have been strengthened and supported with sometimes generous government financial incentives. The historic urban core has been rediscovered and is often now considered essential in promoting a city and creating a shared identity. However the conservation planning approach has generally not been framed in a long-term vision concerning its functions in the context of the city as a whole. 'While there are clear, authorized sets of principles for managing monuments or sites-the conservative repair approach - no such clarity exists for the management of places, with their multiplicity of buildings' (Pendlebury, 2009, p. 210). The planning perspective has considered the historic urban core more as a collection of interesting buildings, and has tended to lack an overall strategy for the management of an urban area with highly valued characteristics. The historic core now faces a new round of challenges arising from increasingly neoliberal public policy, a less direct role for government in urban development (whether under continental or Anglo-Saxon social models), and the effects of the banking crisis and the 'roll-out' of austerity policies, (Council, 2009; Dafflon, 2002, 2010). In particular, the ability of local government to support historic urban core strategies is fading away as spending cuts, privatisation and deregulation take hold in different degrees (Allmendinger & Haughton, 2012). Local government can do less in a direct sense through the funding available to undertake maintenance and improvement, and even indirectly through high-level professional knowledge available for policy making and interventions. The tasks and responsibilities of public, private and civil society partners are being adapted, alongside modification of regulations and incentives. The rules of the planning, conservation and transformation game are being re-written to take into account a fundamentally altered political, social and economic framework. These changes present difficult challenges for the planning and management of the historic urban core, indeed it is seen as a significant threat to the integrity and authenticity of urban heritage by some, especially where the public sector has played a dominant role and now is no longer able to do so. However, there is evidence of very effective heritage management in places where the market plays a significant role. There are planning approaches and mechanisms that can effectively regulate market actors whilst harnessing private investment, but these approaches require adaptation to current policies. In this context the provision of strategies for the historic urban core become particularly important, bringing together a portfolio of tools that can together help to steer change. Strategic approaches can help to build and communicate a common approach and shape the actions of other public, private and civil society actors. In the project we compared the approach of nine cities in three northern European countries (The Netherlands, United Kingdom and Republic of Ireland) in the planning and management of the historic urban core. Each partner applied a common conceptual frame- work to empirical evidence within a particular country, which enabled constructive comparison. The main research questions were: • How are varying management approaches influencing the historic urban core and how can we capture this relationship in a common conceptual framework? • How are approaches to the management of the historic core being reformed in each city and country? • To what extent are models and methods of managing the historic urban core transferable between countries, and what scope is there for effective policy transfer? The findings begin to uncover a much-needed understanding of how approaches to managing the historic environment are changing and the likely consequences for the cultural heritage. In this task, the comparative approach is especially useful because it has enabled consideration of the influence of underlying conditions, and also comparison of approaches and methods employed. It has helped in mutually beneficial lesson drawing. Past developments and historic urban core characteristics The historic urban cores of cities in the Netherlands, the United Kingdom and Ireland have had, and to a large extent continue to hold, specific characteristics alongside differing social and economic conditions, which are decisive for the management approach chosen by local government. Netherlands In the Netherlands the housing function of the core historic area grew rapidly starting in the 1960s and 1970s. The people original living in the historic cores tended to move out but they were replaced generally by a younger population of starter families, students and entrepreneurs. During that same period large-scale urban functions in need of more floor space like supermarkets, schools and hospitals, moved to cheaper, bigger and car-accessible locations outside the core. Small-scale specialty shops, cultural functions, bars and restaurants moved in. These uses fit very well in the small-scale structure of the historic urban core. Since the 1960s general public interest in the cultural heritage has grown and the historic urban core has become a major tourist attraction and thus a marketing tool for local government to give the city a stronger profile in the growing competition between cities. In the Netherlands responsibility for safeguarding the urban built heritage, mainly to be found in the city core, was assigned to and claimed by the municipalities. In their role as guardians and regulators of the historic urban core, local government developed policies and strategies to help guide decision-making. The municipality was the competent and accountable authority to manage urban change with a range of mechanisms or tools at its disposal for the management task, including formal legal powers of regulation, detailed plan-making, project investment and development and other non-statutory powers and intangible assets in building support for the strategy. In the context of heritage as a public good, the local municipality financed its planning and management through its own resources drawn from central government funding and local taxes. Municipalities were also able to make financial gains by playing the role of land developer. Until 2008 it was common practice in the Netherlands for the municipal development company to obtain land for future building sites and sell it at a considerable profit. United Kingdom The UK has seen the process of the passing of public assets, public services, and the civil service itself on to private and voluntary sectors since the 1960s. The processes of privatisation and deregulation of public services have formed the core of neo-liberal restructuring for a long time, and were accelerated in the 1980s and again more recently since 2010. Over recent years this has been accompanied with the rhetoric of 'localism' that seeks to emphasise the involvement of the voluntary and community sectors in urban governance networks. This was evident in the formulation of the doctrine of 'Big Society' that was designed to encourage citizens and local communities to take powers and responsibilities into their own hands, and in more concrete ways through the instigation of a statutory form of neighbourhood planning in England. Localism has informed law and policy such as in the National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) and the Localism Act. New relatively small streams of funding available from the governmental departments and the Homes and Communities Agency (HCA), have opened up new avenues for strengthening the role of local communities, amenity societies and private companies in the governance of the historic urban core. At the same time there are considerable challenges for planning cities in the UK. Compared to other European countries the UK finds itself in a quite unique position given its relatively sharp demographic growth coupled with long-lasting undersupply of housing. But the experience of cities varies greatly across the country with a concentration of investment and development in the south of England and a few pockets of prosperity in the north. In the last 20 years, much city centre visioning has been done through non-statutory master plans that aim at elaboration of new visions for the historic urban core, city branding, building investor confidence and real estate management. The turn towards non-statutory design-led master plans in the governance of urban cores has rebalanced the governance networks in the UK. First, it allows local authorities to bypass a slow central government endorsement process. Second, the new generation of master plans enables stronger involvement of the private sector - urban design firms, private consultants, landowners and real estate development companies - in shaping the urban core. Ireland During the Celtic Tiger period (1995- 2007) Ireland experienced very high levels of economic growth. During that time, the country transformed from one of Europe's poorer countries into one of its wealthiest. The crisis of 2008 was a bombshell. In early January 2009, The Irish Times, in an editorial, declared: 'We have gone from the Celtic Tiger to an era of financial fear with the suddenness of a Titanic-style shipwreck, thrown from comfort, even luxury, into a cold sea of uncertainty'. The economic crisis has had significant negative impacts on the historic cores. Poor economic conditions have led to lack of private investment in built heritage, while the perilous condition of public finances has meant that the state has not been in a position to invest in the built environment either. Underlying this have been longer-term trends such as the movement of population and housing from the historic core to the suburbs and beyond, with the development of out-of-town retail space compounding the issue. Taken together, this has led to underuse and dereliction in the historic core. While a comprehensive built heritage conservation system in Ireland was enacted in 2000, a lack of resources has undermined it to some extent. The economic crisis in Ireland has led to high vacancy rates in the historic urban core (between 20 and 30% in some cases). Former tax incentive schemes led to the migration of office uses out of the historic core. Built heritage in the core has suffered from long-term neglect and lack of basic maintenance. That also indicates that the built heritage assets have not been used to their full potential. Future vision and objectives The vision and objectives stipulating the future function and characteristics of the core continue to have many similarities in the three countries. Without defining the time perspective and taking a general perspective the following main aspects are the most important: 1. a fully occupied or used area, with a strong residential function; 2. full use the economic potential of the area, and the specific cultural assets it offers; 3. a local policy in which the function of the core is related to that of the other urban areas in the city; 4. a management approach in which there is optimally balanced efforts of public, private and civil society stakeholders. Route to the future, challenges and preferences The impacts of the financial crisis on the management and planning of the historic urban cores in the Netherlands, England and Ireland are profound and relate to predominantly the same processes: • cuts in public funding for conservation and heritage-related regeneration initiatives; • a slow response from the private sector that may hesitate to invest; • decreasing capacity of local authorities to actively manage urban change. These factors vary, both between countries and between the case study cities, in terms of the symptoms, their severity, and the capability of multi-scalar governance networks to address them. Their effects are reinforced because the economic shockwave rippled through cities at a time when their economic growth was significantly linked to real estate development. Netherlands In Dutch historic urban cores it is very hard to find a spot or a square metre of building floor space that is not fully used. Living in the historic urban core is considered highly attractive by a considerable part of the population. Also small scale enterprises, specialty shops, restaurants, art galleries and other cultural services favour the historic urban core to locate their business. The retail function of the historic core is adjusted to the limitations of the existing buildings, urban fabric and accessibility. Function follows form is accepted as a restriction. The function of the historic urban core has taken shape over a period of several decades under careful supervision and management by the municipality, and is well balanced with specific attention to the historic cultural values of the place. The challenge for the Netherlands is centred on the balancing of contributions from different stakeholders in the public, private and civil sectors of society. The crisis of 2008 shuffled the division of roles among the stakeholders at the local level. The search for a new balance is still going on. The budgets of local governments are strongly reduced and therefore the planning and management capacity of what has been the leading stakeholder has become very limited. To maintain the qualities of the historic urban core at its current level will undoubtedly require private and civil society stakeholders to take over more tasks and responsibilities. To cope with changing roles and circumstances there is a general emphasis on the following actions: • an emphasis on a more 'flexible' zoning plan for the historic urban core; • the selling of publically-owned real estate, mostly in the historic urban core; • the shift in role of the municipality from 'caretaker' to 'facilitator'; • private sector cooperation initiatives like BIDs embracing the whole historic urban core with the aim of public space maintenance and improvement. In summary, the emphasis in the Netherlands is on consolidating the spatial, functional and economic situation with a different team of players, a much smaller public budget, and a shift in legal rights and responsibilities, in new development policies, regulations and other arrangements. United Kingdom The English cities considered in this project have sought to sustain some continuation of the 'public realm' legacy of the 'Urban Renaissance'. While generous regeneration schemes from the late 1990s and early 2000s were depleted and discontinued after 2008, local authorities across the UK can access modest funding designated to transport improvements, in particular those that promote sustainable mobility. For example, the Reinvigorate York Project builds on synergies between removal and reduction of car traffic in parts of the walled city, improvements to the public realm and landscaping. The philosophy of the project dwells on a vision of the city as a network of public spaces connected by pedestrianised spine routes and "shared slow traffic spaces' used by privileged vehicles, cyclists and pedestrians. In the UK local government has played a central role in managing the historic urban core but there has long been involvement of a wider partnership of stakeholders and particularly the use of private investment funding and value capture in maintenance of the heritage. The challenges revolve around maintaining a balance of public, private and voluntary efforts whilst also seeking more full use of building assets and functions in the historic core. Ireland The strategy chosen in Ireland is characterised by very ambitious set of objectives that go beyond what the market can absorb and what can be planned and managed by local stake- holders. In order to tackle the high vacancy rates and stimulate the housing function of the core the Irish 'Living Cities' fiscal initiative was launched in 2015, targeted at owner occupiers in Limerick and Waterford, Cork, Galway, Kilkenny, and Dublin. This initiative is very recently put into action and it is therefore difficult to judge its potential, success or failure related to the objectives. The historic urban core is seen as the principal retail and leisure destination for the city. In relation to that the objective is to accommodate large-scale use within the historic urban core of older buildings and plots which are or become available. In addition there are plans to continue to develop sites at the edge of cities. For example, the Viking Triangle in Waterford is an historic urban core development which has been very successful in facilitating and stimulating tourism. It is an attraction framing the historic urban core as a former Viking stronghold. This project was pushed forward by an ambitious local government, using creative funding, and private sector convinced of promising tourist status and related benefits. The 'Built Heritage Jobs Leverage Scheme' launched by the National Lottery and co-funded by the private sector can support private initiatives aiming for restoration and upgrading historic buildings and areas. Some local authorities in Ireland also used the crisis as a window of opportunity to buy land at cheaper rates and, by doing so, increased their own bargaining power in negotiations on potential future developments. In the context of a very damaging crash in the Irish economy and relatively less attention to the maintenance of the historic urban core in the past, the Irish cities face wide-ranging challenges today. The cities face significant challenges across all four objectives - maintaining full use of assets, connecting the function of the core to the wider city and enabling contributions from the public, private and voluntary sectors. Given the slowly recovering economy, in combination with weak capacity in government initiatives are most dependent on watchful waiting for opportunities. |
| Exploitation Route | The SHUC pilot project has provided an important springboard for the creation of a wider international network that will contribute to theoretical understanding of heritage planning and management, and the development of principles and practice for the heritage conservation in the historic urban core. The findings from this project are being taken forward in a second project on planning and heritage with additional partners in Norway and Italy and funding by the JPI Heritage Plus: PICH: The impact of urban planning and governance reform on the historic built environment and intangible cultural heritage. Questions for future research Cocktail funding Public funding for conservation and heritage-related regeneration initiatives is much reduced. New funding schemes based on a mix of public and multi private funding need to be developed. Tax incentives are, in this context, a promising and not fully explored component. Long term benefits in social and financial/economic terms for the different stakeholders willing to support need to be specified and secured in contracts and regulations. Inevitably, funding, incentives and sanctions will be more mixed in future a cocktail of tools. Components of a cocktail identified in this project provide a starting point for the creation of a categorisation and catalogue of available tools. The retail function of the historic urban core There are wide differences in the experiences of countries in coping with the impact of successive waves of retail innovation on the historic urban core. The Netherlands has generally fared better than the UK and Ireland. Future changes in shopping provision will continue to present challenges and opportunities for the historic core. There is a need to anticipate and understand future demand developments in the retail market and the potential of the historic core to meet them. What will be the function of the historic urban core in the total framework of retail supply facilities? The role of the private and civil society sectors Governments expect the private sector to play a more active role in managing the historic urban core. There is experience of this, for example, in the business improvement district (BID), where businesses pay a levy in order to fund projects in the core, sometimes drawing on other public, private and voluntary funding streams. There are also examples of civil society organisations taking on tasks formally led by municipalities. BIDs (or other forms such as business revitalization zones, community improvement districts and the like can provide a wide range of services from street cleaning to capital improvements, to marketing. Experience in BIDS over 10 years has demonstrated that they, and similar initiatives, have potential to assist in management of cities. More investigation is needed of their specific contribution to the management of historic cores and how stakeholder partnerships can operate successfully to achieve common objectives. Heritage-led education The future of the historic urban core depends to a large extent on changing public opinion. The need to conserve the built heritage, and the public's support for this in the three countries studied here, tends to be taken for granted. But there is a continuing need to ensure that heritage objectives are integrated with wider cultural, social and economic concerns in society and that public awareness and understanding of the importance of heritage is maintained. One example of a project that delivers on this is the UK 'Old Newcastle' project which seeks to combine tangible and intangible dimensions of the heritage together with education and social activities. The project is delivering a heritage-led education and interpretation centre involving a wide range of interests from the City Council, the Cathedral, the University and other. The potential of heritage-led education and social action has much potential and is certainly a subject for further investigation. Public good, common good, club good The SHUC project has concentrated on gathering empirical evidence on the changing approaches to planning and management of the historic urban core. The conceptual framework for the study concentrates on the type of instruments that can be used in planning and management. This project has demonstrated that in the context of the radical reforms in the role of government and planning, reinforced by austerity measures following the banking crisis, local government in the three countries is seeking and experimenting with new ways to maintain this common good - the shared heritage. But there is a need to consider the nature of the historic urban core and its role in society more fundamentally, especially its role in the collective memory and place identity of communities. The historic core is the place where traces of long gone times are mingled with change in the recent past. The access to experience of the history of the place is a common good. We propose to investigate the role of the historic urban core as a common good or more precisely following Buchanan (1965) - a 'club good'. The concept of club good offers a valuable framework to approach the management of a city's historic urban core and will be related to notions of 'place identity' as a valuable asset that needs careful management. |
| Sectors | Creative Economy,Leisure Activities, including Sports, Recreation and Tourism,Culture, Heritage, Museums and Collections,Retail |
| URL | https://planningandheritage.wordpress.com/ |
| Description | As a networking project, it is not intended that this project will have a significant non-academic impact. However, policy makers and related professionals were an integral part of the network. The umbrella organisation for historic towns and cities, Heritage Europe was an integral part of the project team, as was the heritage consultant Dennis Rodwell. Furthermore, efforts were made to share information across the municipal case studies in terms of local authorities and related heritage organisations. Thus in the case of the UK all three cities were invited (and expenses paid) to the Newcastle workshop (Newcastle and York attending) and the final conference in Delft (Newcastle and Norwich attending). A range of other heritage NGOs, including English Heritage, were invited to and attended the Newcastle workshop. In this way the transnational research outcomes were shared with non-academic participants and others. They were further shared through a widely distributed final report. In these ways we believe there will be some impacts on the practice of heritage professionals. |
| First Year Of Impact | 2015 |
| Sector | Culture, Heritage, Museums and Collections |
| Impact Types | Cultural,Policy & public services |
| Description | Joint Programming Initiative |
| Amount | € 172,000 (EUR) |
| Organisation | Research Council of Norway |
| Sector | Public |
| Country | Norway |
| Start | 07/2015 |
| End | 06/2018 |