Pursuing a Historic Urban Landscape Approach to Heritage in Edmonton

ASSESS VULNERABILITY TO SOCIO-ECONOMIC STRESSES AND CLIMATE
CHANGE
Heritage planning can often feel reactive and motivated by recurring crises as heritage resources are put under
threat by development. As we have noted above, overcoming reactive planning, and the positioning of
planning in a purely preservationist and negative mode of operation, is central to HUL. The HUL guidebook
thus advocates for a holistic approach to horizon scanning which looks forward to explore the vulnerability of
landscape values as designated by communities.
Liverpool, United Kingdom: Liverpool, a port city once connecting the United Kingdom to a global empire, is
home to a wide array of mercantile, industrial, urban and cultural heritage resources. Long a city characterized
by a diminishing population and urban degradation, recent decades have seen the city seek to redevelop and
redefine its image. The city’s extensive inland dock and warehouse systems are key elements of the city’s
historic downtown and were recognized by UNESCO in 2004. Development of an adjacent shopping centre, a
new city museum, and plans to rebrand the city’s image with the development of a modern skyline challenge
the viability of UNESCO’s designation within the current heritage regime. Liverpool is thus faced with the
challenge of balancing heritage preservation against much-needed development and resiliency planning.
Flexible approaches to heritage planning may be beneficial to proactively addressing these tensions and could
involve an assessment of vulnerabilities against the benefits of redevelopment. As planning scholars Olivier
Sykes and Catherine Ludwig (2015: 30) note:
“The extent to which the heritage sector is able to sustain the expansive role attributed to it in policy and theory rather than
the narrow role it is often constrained playing and practice, and how far it can demonstrate synergies with and value to, wider
place-based policy agendas, will be key questions in the field over coming years.”
INTEGRATING HUL VALUES WITHIN PLANNING AND DEVELOPMENT
While HUL prefaces engagement as a necessary constituent of heritage planning, city administrations and
political leaders remain central. On the one hand, this implies integrating engagement outcomes, including
value based landscape definitions, within heritage planning activities. On the other hand, it is also important to
recognize the need to integrate heritage planning within the wider array of municipal and planning functions of
the city.
Vienna, Austria: With their new urban development plan, Step 2025, the City of Vienna is committing to: a
farsighted and holistic approach that unites policy areas, and which is oriented towards creating a liveable,
resilient, participatory, and knowledge oriented city in a context of ongoing growth. Adopting a similar
language to HUL governance is identified as a key factor for successful urban development and partnering with
private and public sectors; promoting cooperation with districts and regions; valuing public participation, are all
key to good planning 9 . The Austrian Council of Ministers further, through a review of guidelines for building
culture, proposes an integrated approach to policy connecting ecological, economic, social and cultural factors,
for instance in constructing, restoring its own properties. For instance, the retrofitting of heritage-protected
buildings to be more energy efficient is valued both in terms of sustainability, as a means of protecting those
resources, and as a source of innovation for the building industry 10 .
9 https://www.wien.gv.at/stadtentwicklung/studien/pdf/b008379b.pdf
10 https://www.kunstkultur.bka.gv.at/documents/340047/394470/Baukultur_Leitlinien_EN.pdf/ea8781a5-d550-45a5-
8685-2a6c761cddf7
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