A European Symposium
promoted by the Planning Studies Centre
in cooperation with the Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche (National Research Council) - T argeted Cultural Heritage Project –
and the European Commission - Raphael Program

 The Symposium, hosted by the Società Geografica Italiana (Italian Geographical Society) was held in Rome on the 26th and 27th of January, 1999

1. Object and motivation of the Symposium
The cultural heritage conservation policies have found many applications and implementations in several countries, especially in the countries that have more of such a heritage.
Minor attention has been given, in these mere conservation policies, to the problem of the valorization of the cultural heritage good as a necessary requirement for the conservation policy itself, and a factor of its success.
Moreover, minor attention has been paid – for a conservation and valorization policy of the cultural heritage – to the analysis of the urban planning requirements on which any valorization policy of the cultural heritage good must be based.
In fact, without appropriate territorial and urban planning policies, the valorization of the cultural heritage, either anthropic or natural, meets difficulties which make vain the policy implementation and valorization itself.
Nevertheless, some policies and experiences of the cultural heritage valorization, taking account of those urban-planning requirements, have been applied in several European countries. They didn't find, however, sufficient diffusion and debate, in order to introduce a sort of permanent presence of its warning in all cultural heritage conservation policies.
The European Symposium promoted by the Planning Studies Centre has been motivated by the objective to contribute to such a diffusion and debate (See the symposium programme).

2. The Planning Studies Centre's previous experience
The Planning Studies Centre has elaborated - on several occasions - the analysis and evaluation of the urban-planning requirements of any cultural heritage conservation policy.
In particular, in a research developed by means of a National Research Council grant, in cooperation with the Ministry of Environment, from 1992 to 94, aimed at the building of a Territorial Framework for a Long-term National Environmental Policy ("Quadroter" project), the PSC has studied and proposed the identification of special "areas for environmental and cultural heritage recovery" (named "Utras"), within which the conservation and valorization policies of the cultural heritage (anthropic and natural) should be the main and priority function of the area itself, in the more general development of the "Urban System", to which they could belong. The findings of such a research are in print.
That research has identified (throughout all of the Italian territory) about 300 "Utras", belonging to the less intensive areas of each "Urban System". The "urban systems" taken in consideration by the "Quadroter" project, were 37 over the whole national territory.
More recently, the Planning Studies Centre has initiated (1996), also with a grant from the National Research Council (CNR), and within its "targeted project on the cultural heritage" (“Progetto finalizzato beni culturali”), a research on: Identifications and Management Guidelines of the "Territorial Units of Environmental and Historical-cultural Recovery and Valorisation' . This last project is considered the CNR (Italian government) participation to the organization of this Symposium.
The "Quadroter" research, which concerns the national urban settlement and the identification of the mentioned "urban systems" on a national scale, has found an occasion to be applied - in its methodology - to other European countries' territories (like France, Germany and the United Kingdom), through another research funded by the European Community, within the Research-Framework- Programme III (a research named "Actville 2"). [The Research Report has been published by the Planning Studies Centre among its Publications ].

3. The aims of the Symposium
The symposium has aimed to diffuse and debate mainly the PSC research findings, together with possible analogue initiatives and results found in other European countries.
The best way to obtain this diffusion and debate was estimated to be that of organizing a Symposium of experts, coming from appropriate scientific and operative institutions, and offering to the Symposium a survey and assessment of their own country's initiatives, according to an approach and a thematic - for the Symposium as "background papers" carefully elaborated and prepared by some well-known specialists of the subject from different countries (the participants of the initial network of this proposal).
Therefore the Symposium has only occurred after some preparatory work: the elaboration of the background papers; these papers - provided for all the participants - gave them the occasion to share with the Symposium their own papers of comments and of information on possible national experiences.
The Symposium's performances should have been published by the European Community directly or by an appropriate commercial publisher.
From it was supposed to spring a natural European Network on this subject, aimed to be extended to other experts and experiences and aimed at the future implementation of the urban-planning requirements of cultural heritage conservation policies.

4. The Symposium Steering Committee
The papers introduced to the Symposium was:
Franco Archibugi, Cultural Heritage: Valorization and Planning. Background Paper
The Symposium has been prepared by the following panel of scholars:
1. Nathaniel Lichfield, Emeritus of the University of London
2. Xavier Greffe, of the University of Paris I (Pantheon Sorbonne)
3. Peter Nijkamp, of the Free University of Amsterdam .
4. Franco Archibugi, of the University of Naples , and Chairman of the Planning Studies Centre

5. The Symposium questions
Among other questions developed by the Steering Committee for the Symposium debate, the following have also been considered:
1. What kind of interrelationship can be established between a cultural heritage value and its territorial environment ?
2. Which phenomena , or variables , or indicators , can be assumed to be an expression of the interrelationship (under point 1) between cultural heritage and its territorial environment?
3. How can land-use planning have an impact on a conservation and valorization policy of the cultural heritage? What kind of impact could be expected: economic, technical, organizational?
4. Are there certain categories of cultural heritage properties which are subject to different (and conflicting) impacts with respect to possible conservation and valorization policies? If so, how can these differences be articulated by category of property?
5. Are there good examples of the implementation of a land-use planning with positive results on conservation and valorization policies? (Or, simply said, which are examples of the modalities under points 3 and 4?)
6. Is it appropriate and feasible to assume a mix of cultural heritage characters, belonging to a territory as instruments to conceive and define a Cultural-heritage Territorial Unit , such as the Ultras (Italian “Quadroter” experience)? In which extension is this application possible?
7. If so (to point 6), how would one list the requirements for becoming a Cultural-heritage Territorial Unit ?
8. Is it possible and appropriate to define an a priori mix of characters which could be assumed as a minimum requirement for the identification of a Cultural-heritage Territorial Unit ?

6. The available papers of the Symposium
The preparation of a book which would collect the papers of the Symposium has met some difficulties since not all of the papers have been delivered in their final version by the respective authors. For the moment, only the following papers are available in the archives of the PSC:

Franco Archibugi , University of Naples , Department of Planning and Territorial Science
The urban planning requirements of a cultural heritage conservation policy (Background paper) and its Appendix: The Urban system concept and the role of the heritage Cultural territorial units within its context.

Xavier Greffe , University of Paris I (Pantheon-Sorbonne)
The economic value of heritage (Background paper)

Nathaniel Lichfield , Emeritus, University College London
The urban and regional planning requirements for a cultural heritage conservation policy: the British scene (Background paper)

Peter Nijkamp (with Franz Bal and Francesca Medda ), Faculty of Economics and Econometrics, Free University of Amsterdam
A survey of methods for sustainable city planning and cultural heritage management

Roberto Camagni, Department of the Science of the Territory, Polytechnic University of Milan
Cultural heritage and its territorial environment: a network approach and planning strategy

Annalisa Cicerchia , Institute of Studies for Economic Planning (ISPE), Rome
Land use planning and the evaluation of the cultural built heritage

Harry Coccossis , Department of Environmental Studies, University of the Aegean
Issues of the urban and regional planning requirements for a cultural conservation policy

Christian Dupavillion , Inspecteur General de l'Administration, Ministere de la Culture , Paris
The reintegration of the built heritage in the urban environment

Klaus Kunzmann, Jean Monnet Professor for European Spatial Planning, University of Dortmund
The urban and regional planning requirements for a cultural heritage conservation policy

Giuseppe Munda, Department of Economics and Economic History, UAB (Free University of Barcelona )
Multicriteria approaches for tackling complexity in the integrated assessments of urban and regional planning issues

Christian Ost, Head of the Economics Department, ICHEC, Brussels Business School
Spatial indicators for the economic valuation of the cultural heritage

Uwe Schubert, Interdisciplinary Institute of Environmental Economics and Management, IUW (Economic University of Vienna )
The preservation of historic buildings and monuments in the maze of complex urban development policy