ancient cities

360 Historic Cities
renovation of Carcassonne owed more to his imagined
medieval city than to the actual historical
experience of the place.
Dual Definitions of the Historic City
Historic cities can be defined in two significantly
different ways, which, while not mutually exclusive
as both meanings can coexist in the same city,
are not describing the same phenomenon.
First, the term can refer to the city as a whole,
its essence or genius loci. The city conceives of
itself as historic or projects an image of being historic
for internal or external consumption. This
place identity does not necessarily imply that all or
even most of the existing physical structures are
themselves historic, in the sense of possessing an
ascribed historicity. It can be little more than a
state of mind, whether felt by insiders or imposed
by outsiders.
Second, the term historic city may relate to a
specific district of the city and may be used to differentiate
it from other districts that compose the
modern city. The second sense of historic may contribute
to, or be the justification of, the first sense,
but equally is not a condition of its existence. This
may be no more than a reflection of the evolution
of the urban form through time as the older city is
physically expanded by the addition of later newer
districts. However, it normally means more. The
older part of the city may serve a significantly different
function and be treated in a different way.
The historic city in this sense is a functionally specialized
district within the city in which historicity
is expressed through both the built environment
and by the uses to which the district is put. History
becomes a function that can be regionalized in
much the same way as other such districts, such as
the shopping city, the administrative city, or the
residential city. The creation, evolution, and management
of historic districts within cities have been
modeled in the tourist–historic city, a concept that
has been applied globally to many different types
of city, within many different cultural and political
environments.
Why Have We Created Historic Cities?
The reasons why historic cities are created and the
criteria used for selecting appropriate elements in
their creation can be divided into two categories,
intrinsic and extrinsic.
Intrinsic values are those that are purported to
be intrinsic to the object, whether the structures or
the site itself. These values are regarded as existing
independently of the observer and thus waiting to
be discovered. The three most commonly used
intrinsic criteria, which have often been inscribed
into the protective legislation in most countries,
are age, aesthetic beauty, and place associations
with historic personalities or events. These criteria
are assumed to be capable of objective determination
and verification, usually by dispassionate
experts. The concept of authenticity becomes central
to these decisions and the benchmark against
which the objects and sites are judged. There is a
quite fundamental distinction between the authenticity
of the object, building, or site and the
authenticity of the historical record as a whole.
The first would question the authenticity of the
buildings, ensembles, associations, and location
itself. The second argues that the total of what is
preserved together represents an authentic reflection
of what has occurred.
Extrinsic values by contrast are ascribed to the
structures and areas of the city for a wide variety of
contemporary reasons, which are neither inevitable
nor immutable. The benchmark for assessment is
not the intrinsic qualities but the extent to which
extrinsic needs are satisfied. These needs may be
sociopsychological, relating to the identification of
individuals and social groups with a heritage;
political–ideological, legitimating a jurisdiction or
dominant ideology; or economic, in which heritage
becomes a resource to be commodified for sale on
many economic markets, of which tourism is only
one. Few heritage cities have been created to serve
a single purpose. Most are as multifunctional in
their heritage component as in their other functions,
serving many different heritage markets,
internally and externally, for a variety of motives,
political and social as well as economic. Even
“epitome historic cities,” that is, those that are
selected to represent and symbolize wider, often
national cultures and their values, such as
Rothenburg ob der Tauber (Germany), Eger
(Hungary), or Telč (Czech Republic), have major tourism
functions as well as their symbolic cultural–
political roles. Historic cities performing multiple
heritage functions are more typical than aberrant,