Abstract
Cultural Heritage Monuments are unique and invaluable, cannot be replaced, reproduces, relocated, replicated or recreated. Yet, they are undervalued, constantly underfunded and therefore underperform. This paradox is largely due to the partial and inadequate instruments used to fund heritage and to contextualize its interaction with society. Heritage conservation and protection require adequate financial resources and knowledge support. The instruments typically used in these two important areas, although important on their own merits, fall short to deliver good results: On the funding side, public sector budgets and donor funding have serious limitations, while on the knowledge and analytical support side, architectural design, building guidelines and history alone, however sophisticated, are also insufficient to inform resource mobilization and public policy decision making. There is a resource gap and an information deficit which need to be addressed by an economic approach to heritage which is missing. A There is need for a coherent economic approach to contextualize heritage as an economic asset class and help the inclusion of heritage into the local economy and social structure, to move beyond the old notion of heritage as a ‘public good’ funded from taxes and shift the focus from budget dependency to include mainstream market based financial instruments. The presentation will aim to explain: (a) the meaning, the importance, the applications and the outcomes of an economic approach to heritage, (b) the scope of instruments for proper valuation of heritage benefits, (c) the importance of monetary valuation of heritage assets and how it contributes to a broader outreach to funding sources, (d) the role of economic knowledge supports in increasing resources for effective protection of heritage to enable it to offer higher performance, and (e) the applicability of the economic approach to urban redevelopment strategies and actions for sustainable regeneration. Will also present theoretical and empirical research material from important case studies which elucidate (a) how simple but important economic methods can be applied to coalesce with technical and historical material (b) the scope for business sector engagement in heritage protection, (c) the meaning of a complementary view of ‘smart cultural city’ as the city that values properly its heritage assets and mobilizes sustainable resources for sustainable cultural service to society, and (d) insights into the design of funding plans linking heritage to regeneration strategies and the local economy promoting initiatives for preserving urban memory that lasts. Conclusions will be drawn concerning: (a) the lessons learned, and the research methodologies applied for further development and use, (b) a broader understanding of smart cities as people, activities, places and markets that ensure investment in the ‘invaluable’ giving economic value not only heritage sites but also to old industrial buildings and obsolete inner city areas by increasing jobs, incomes rents and spending in a market area beyond the boundaries of the actual heritage sites themselves bringing history closer to local economic forces, and (c) making the quality of invaluable cultural and heritage assets of broader social and economic policy concern. Theoretical and empirical research and case studies on ‘economics of heritage’ are growing as reflected in the material included in publications: - The ‘Economics of Uniqueness: Investing in Historic City Cores and Cultural Heritage Assets for Sustainable Development. Urban Development’, 2012, Licciardi, Guido; Amirtahmasebi, Rana, Washington, DC: World Bank. – ‘Historic Cities and Sacred Sites: Cultural roots for urban futures’, 2001, Ismail Sarageldin et.al., World Bank. - ‘Valuing Cultural Heritage: Applying valuation techniques to Historic Buildings, Monuments and Artifacts’, Stale Navrud and Richard Ready, ed. 2002, Edward Elgar. – ‘Economic value and Sustainability: The Case of Famagusta’, 2016, G. Constantinides, Internal document of the Technical Committee on Cultural Heritage, Cyprus.
