ABSTRACT
The metropolitan landscape is characterised by irreconcilable tensions; how we manage them will shape the future liveability of cities. Economic competitiveness, climate change adaptation and more responsible resource consumption are clear imperatives for urban sustainability, but holding them in equitable balance with the transmission of inherited cultural and biological diversity, whilst ensuring wellbeing and social equity, is a significant challenge which will require new forms of urban conservation practice. This chapter explores how urban characterisation may be used to help maintain these interdependent but often intangible aspects of urban space, and influence the management of tensions such as those between preservation and change, commerce and culture and too much (or too little) design and planning control.
