ECONOMICS UNIQUENESS

62 ■ THE ECONOMICS OF UNIQUENESS
for example, in the area of design or safety standards governing public access
to buildings and sites. In these situations, it may be desirable to leave nothing
to chance, but rather ensure compliance for certain tough regulatory means.
• Another advantage of regulations is that they may be invoked and removed
relatively speedily. Th us, direct controls may be a useful supplement to other
measures, such as a system of charges, for the continuing maintenance of
acceptable environmental conservation or preservation conditions. Th eir usefulness
arises because of the infl exibility of tax rates and other instruments,
and the relative ease with which certain types of regulatory controls can be
introduced, enforced, and removed. Some crises can at best be predicted only
a short time before they occur, and it may be too costly, for example, to keep
tax rates suffi ciently high to prevent such emergencies at all times. Th erefore,
it may be less expensive to make temporary use of direct controls, despite their
static ineffi ciency. Th is point is acknowledged in the fi eld of urban conservation
through the use of temporary preservation orders; that is, controls that can
be introduced at very short notice to forestall the demolition of historic properties
until some due process of consultation or consideration can be pursued.
Th e principal regulatory device that governments or other public authorities
use in the heritage arena is “listing”; that is, the establishment of lists of properties
within a given jurisdiction—international, national, regional, or local—that
are regarded as being of cultural signifi cance. Criteria are generally laid down to
specify the characteristics that defi ne cultural signifi cance such that any property
meeting these criteria will be eligible for inclusion on a particular list.
In most jurisdictions, the inclusion of privately owned buildings or groups
of buildings on an offi cial, publicly sanctioned heritage list is compulsory, and
the owners have no alternative but to comply with whatever requirements the
list carries with it. In some cases, however, accession of properties to an offi cial
heritage list is voluntary; in these cases the representativeness and comprehensiveness
of the list is dependent on the willingness of private owners to comply
with the set of obligations the listing process imposes on them. In addition to lists
maintained and enforced by public-sector agencies, there are oft en “unoffi cial”
lists maintained by interest groups, nongovernmental organizations, and so on,
such as National Trusts and local history societies.
Fiscal Incentives
Governments can also employ fi scal measures to implement heritage policy,
using both direct and indirect means to do so. Th e most visible direct approach
is through government fi nancing of the conservation of heritage assets owned or
controlled by public authorities at national or local levels, such as historic government
buildings, public monuments, and so on. (See box 3.5.)