ancient cities

ut this condition of serving multiple markets
raises the possibility of conflict and thus the necessity
for continuous heritage management.
Historic Cities Are Also Cities
Most of the above discussion has focused on the
meaning and importance of the adjective historic
rather than the noun, city, to which it is applied.
However, it needs to be simply stated that historic
cities must also be cities. The danger is that the
process of “heritage-ization,” that is, creating historicity
for contemporary purposes, can threaten
the existence of the city itself. Historicity may be a
threat to urbanicity. The conceptual problem is
that the conferring of historic status turns what
was a functional building, ensemble, or city into a
monument. The very act of preservation, through
its interference with the process of change and
decay, replaces what was with something new. The
related planning problem is that of fossilization,
that is, the denial of the right and capacity of the
city to change. This raises the question: Can a preserved
city remain a city rather than an extended
museum exhibit?
It is easy to distinguish in theory between historic
cities that are functioning cities with an historic
component and heritage theme parks that
have been created solely as a vehicle for the transmission
and selling of heritage. Few would confuse
a Disneyland creation of a streetscape with a settlement.
However, the line between the two can
become very blurred indeed. There are many
reconstructed and usually relocated open-air museums
(following the Hazelius archetype of the
Skansen), some of which are urban, being not just
located in cities but endeavoring to express urban
life. These may be animated by a costumed population
engaged in activities suitable to the period
being reenacted. Den Gamle By near Aarhus
(Denmark), begun in 1909, is one of the oldest,
but other well-known cases would be Williamsburg
(Virginia, United States), Louisbourg (Nova Scotia,
Canada), or even the Blist’s Hill Victorian Town
in the Ironbridge Gorge museum complex
(Shropshire, United Kingdom). Although these
heritage theme parks try to represent cities of the
past, they clearly are not cities, having no permanent
population or modern urban functions: They
are theatrical stage sets.
Historic Cities
361
However, in the town of Shelburne (Nova
Scotia, Canada), the older central part of the town
has been fenced off to become a museum experience
with the inhabitants remaining in situ and
behaving, at least within the defined heritage area,
in costume and in period while the rest of the town
functions normally. Then there are the fossilized
“gem cities,” usually small and compact historic
towns, whose historic fabric has survived more or
less intact and whose subsequent preservation has
been total. These are often fortress towns, such as
Willemstad or Naarden (Netherlands), Cittadella
(Italy), and Mont St. Michel or Neuf-Brisach
(France). The strict and complete preservation of
the historic town expels modern facilities from the
city. The dilemma is clearly that such functions are
disruptive to or discordant with the historic town
but necessary for its continuing functioning,
including those serving the needs of the heritage
industry itself.
The management of historic districts within
multifunctional cities poses similar dilemmas and
necessitates similar compromises. Many cities contain
heritage action spaces that are little more than
open-air museums mono-functionally serving heritage
industries. Elm Hill (Norwich, United Kingdom),
for example, is a historic street renovated, substantially
rebuilt, and enhanced with period paving and
street furniture in the early 1960s. It functions as a
heritage tourism experience and is dominated by
tourism shopping and catering businesses. It became
an archetype for the reconstruction of the medieval
streetscape, as expected by the tourism industry,
and has been globally replicated, from Vancouver’s
Gastown to Sydney’s Rocks, all of which both
house specific heritage-related functions and help
designate the city concerned as historic.
Thus the historic city is not the totality of its
preserved artifacts from the past nor the spatial
setting in which remembered events and personalities
acted. It is a phenomenon created by the
present, which like the study of history itself, will
be re-created anew by each generation according
to the needs and attitudes that then prevail. The
historic city may often freely make use of the
preserved architectural forms, morphological patterns,
and promoted historical associations, but it
remains a creation of the present in the service of
contemporary needs. Authenticity, defined as the
accurate representation of the past through the