CONSERVATION AND REHABILITATION OF URBAN HERITAGE IN DEVELOPING-COUNTRIES

This paper addresses rehabilitation and conservation of old inner-city areas and historic monuments in the cities of the developing world wh ich have so far received very little attention in urban development po licy. The need for urban rehabilitation and adaptive re-use is discuss ed with reference to a number of cases, i.e. Cairo, Tunis, Sana'a, Ale ppo, Delhi, Bombay, Bhaktapur, Galle, Penang, Singapore, Shanghai, Bei jing, Quite, Cartagena, Rio de Janeiro and Havana. A delineation of th e concept is provided, and some key aspects of rehabilitation are disc ussed. The paper concludes with considerations on the need for area re habilitation and revitalisation approaches which maintain the typical urban tissue and essential qualities of the historic areas and of the life of the communities residing there, but which can also adapt the p hysical structures and activities to some of the present day requireme nts. In terms of monuments, it is stressed that these need to be seen as part of conservation areas, and that their sustainability and revit alisation will be most feasible if they are integrated into new concep ts of use: Copyright (C) 1996 Elsevier Science Ltd.