Cultural heritage and ordinary landscapes : keys for their valorization and protection

Abstract

Nowadays, historic city centres play two important roles in our cities: On the one hand, as a source of knowledge about “sustainable city” design; on the other hand, as a subject to develop sustainability strategies. We have received a complex and valuable legacy: It has arrived the time to think about our cities, the way they were designed, built and inhabited, and the way we are going to leave them to future generations. Medium-sized cities are a distinctive element of the Andalusian territory and they act as a structural net in the sixty percent of its surface; further-more, they are, as an urban model, an Andalusian heritage value. The study of the key points of historic city centres sustainability comes to the conclusion that we must develop specific parameters in order to permit researching about the ancient city from a sustainable point of view. In their historic city centres, the environmental issue is limited to a few ecological actions, whereas the economical and social aspects have a special significance to sustainable development. This paper aims to express the fact that the social aspect has become an important issue in small and medium-sized cities, where the highlights are the dichotomy inhabitant-tourist and the discussion about the conversion of historic city centres into commercial products at the expense of the citizens’ quality of life.