ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the themes that emerge from the studies and question whether they do indeed represent a common definition of heritage values. The timing of official concern for cultural heritage can be related to both specific needs and threats but also to more vaguely felt and experienced trends. The conservation of the heritage of built environment is viewed as a planning process in which new valuations of historic forms are part of a process of urban change. The three cases grouped under the heritage sites as attraction shifts the focus not only of scale from the multifunctional city to the heritage site but also introduce a major consumer of the past, tourist, and economic justification for its conservation, tourism. Heritage can be seen as a policy option for strategic development at various spatial scales. In practice aspects of historicity, including both fostered historic site associations and restored historic structures can be incorporated as key catalytic elements in development plans.
