The conference will mainly focus on the outcomes of the SHUC project (A Sustainable Future for the Historic Urban Core). This research project is the outcome of the two years (2013-2015) collaboration between three universities in three countries (The Netherlands, UK and Ireland), in which three cities in each country have been studied.

Major challenges face the management of the historic urban cores of European towns, a major European cultural asset. Although countries use different management approaches they face similar pressures arising from the effects of the banking crisis and increasingly neoliberal government policies which tend to impose public spending constraints together with privatisation and deregulation. Past studies have pointed to the weakness of strategic approaches to coordinating the actions of a wider set of public, private and civil society actors in urban heritage management. There is a demand for a better understanding of the trajectory and impacts of planning and management approaches. Planning and management of historic cores vary significantly because of countries’ different institutional conditions and social models.

further details…