ECONOMICS UNIQUENESS

18 ■ THE ECONOMICS OF UNIQUENESS
toward rigorous economic analysis of development projects. It is also hoped that
it can help local authorities in developing countries as they struggle to modernize
their cities in ways that support economic growth without (completely) undermining
cultural values.
Basic Concepts and Notation
To cover the entire spectrum of urban upgrading projects, it is convenient to consider
an intervention area with a diverse set of features. Standard urban upgrading
projects implicitly ignore architectural or cultural value, as if all the dwellings
and buildings in the area were indistinct or generic. Most of the intervention area
may indeed match this assumption. At the other end, heritage projects focus on
landmarks of unquestionable historic, cultural, or architectural value. Th e typical
intervention area may include one or several of such landmarks; for the purpose
of this chapter, it could also include none. In between these two extremes, many
old cities include dwellings and buildings that would not qualify for protection on
their own merits, and individually do not make much of a diff erence, but taken
collectively have enough character to be a recognizable feature of the intervention
area. Continuing with the Asian examples, Haveli mansions in Ahmedabad
and French villas in downtown Hanoi would fall into this category. A simplifi ed
representation of a typical intervention area can be found in fi gure 2.1.
FIGURE 2.1
Key Features of a Typical Intervention Area
a
Dwellings or buildings
with some architectural
or cultural value
Source: Author.
Indistinct dwellings
and buildings
a
a
a
a
a
a
a
Heritage
landmark (A)
a
a