What does cultural heritage bring to urban life?

Urban life is itself a kind of cultural heritage. The obvious examples are things like historic buildings, museums, parks. But there are many less obvious examples, like infrastructure. So Lisbon’s trams would be a great example, Lisbon’s pre-war trams. Another example would be the manhole covers over the sewers in Kinshasa, which still have the name of Leopoldville on them, therefore telling a colonial history, a colonial heritage, and a problematic one. My background is Eastern Europe, close East-Central Europe, where the identity and the essence of cities or regions has been in the decades of communist period in shadows.

So it is now rediscovery which is taking place in a number of countries about the cities rediscovering and finding, redefining their own identity and essence. And that is where heritage, traditions as memory are essential. So cities are always a historic product. And, therefore, cultural heritage, of course, has great meaning for cities and for urban development. The main reason for this is that cultural heritage is part of who we are, where we are going to, both individually and collectively. And, of course, heritage has a profound impact on our social and individual life. And this is the reason why we are discussing so much about heritage in cities.