ABSTRACT
Since the 1970s sustainability has evolved as a significant mode of thought in nearly every field of intellectual activity. As we know, decisions concerning conservation of the built environment have in the past been the domain largely of architectural historians, urban planners, conservation specialists, and related professionals. But conservation cannot remain a closed and solely self-referential profession, and indeed it has not (Macinnes 2004). With particular regard to the conservation of historic neighbourhoods and city centres, as well as individual monuments and sites of unique beauty, the challenge facing the conservation community is to develop a set of strategies and priorities that will permit it to focus its efforts on the conservation of those resources where the benefit-cost ratio is most favorable (Matero & Teutonico 2001). In this case sustainability means controlling change and choosing directions that capitalize most effectively on the inheritance from the past. In any decision about change and about the impact of the future on the remains of the past, therefore we should be conscious of two separate questions: the first is how to reconcile minimizing loss with the needs of the present; the second is how to ensure that the balance we strike does not reduce too greatly the options for future generations when they come to understand and enjoy their inheritance. Actually, built environment and heritage conservation should provide a dynamic vehicle by which individuals and communities can explore, reinforce, interpret and share their historical and traditional past and present, through community membership as well as through input as a professional or nonprofessional affiliate.
