ABSTRACT
The core urban areas in many Asian cities have been transformed by globalizing forces since the 1980s, diluting the cultural identity of their residents and diminishing their distinctive urbanism (Logan 2002). A subject of key concern for heritage professionals and heritage community groups is the extent to which this process has been allowed by local regulatory frameworks to alter the cities in Southern China, in relation to the newly emerging task of conserving urban intangible cultural heritage. How legislation works (or does not work) to protect and conserve heritage assets is crucial to an analysis of a city’s cultural heritage management (CHM) system. This chapter highlights the key issues relating to a few major conservation debates in Guangzhou, Hong Kong and Macau that pertain to their struggle to retaining a sense of Asian urbanism.
