ABSTRACT
Active management of common repairs in 19th century urban housing across Europe should become a priority even if it concerns ordinary heritage. This chapter explores the merits of pro-active management of common repairs in 19th century urban housing across Europe using Edinburgh as a model due to the historic variety of its approaches and its uniform urban heritage. The holistic approach in Edinburgh highlights at the same time the immense volume of work required, hampered by the fragmentation of ownership and the small size of the repair industry, contrasted however by the less widespread repairs in the other European models. It is useful to reviews similar systems across Europe to exchange good practice and feed to the discussion for alternatives in Edinburgh: they reveal that their management is much lighter and focuses in encouraging owners with incentives. The City Council on the other hand has unique powers that stem from the 1991 "City of Edinburgh District Council Order Confirmation Act".
