No abstract

This paper aims to discover why and how accessibility is fundamental to sustainable local development in heritage settings. We discussed the dimensions and variables of accessibility that control the development. Correspondingly, we proposed an interpretative framework for sustainable development planning and management of low urbanized spatial settings and accessibility for the Iglesiente Geo-mining heritage in Sardinia (Italy). The Iglesiente area is affected by a deep post-mining crisis that is reflected in poor socioeconomic conditions and an evident space oriented set of problems (a disorder in landscape matrix, low readability of space, scarce infrastructure and low accessibility). To revert negative trends of space-related problems, the paper proposes a theoretical model acting as an anticipatory landscape planning tool. The model copes with the context-specific problems in combination with theoretical findings. It acts at various scales through the definition of boundaries and variables of the internal and external environment, providing the territorial matrix of equity and cohesion. Furthermore, we argued the limitation and advantages of the model to its implementation capacity for the Geo-mining heritage and low-urbanized spatial settings. The empirical findings from an ongoing project about accessibility to territorial knowledge and services in the Iglesiente area, currently in progress, allow us to test and adjust the methodological framework in the next steps.

A growing urban population, a new social dynamism, and fast-changing urban contexts, together with a lack of urban planning, lead to intensifying contradictions that threaten to harness urban prosperity, cohesion, and sustainability. All this creates a need for reframing the perspective on the city and its management. By analysing connecting concepts to the plural city in literature, the paper offers new ways of understanding and reading the city. We describe plural qualities of an inclusive city from the perspective of urban design—a city as a plurality of unique places and subjectivities in time—i.e. the plural city. Following the case study methodology, we critically discussed and evaluated the case of Belgrade as a plural city due to its lasting diversity and heterogeneity in both urban matrix and social tissue. As a result, we defined the elements, relationships, and plurality of views within the plural city in multiscale. Based on 18-years of experience gained through the Public art & Public space program, we have shown that public art strategies can be used as a method and tool to initiate spatial transformations and offer different ways of experiencing the urban landscape.

Instead of narrowly protecting the heritage, the UNESCO World Heritage Convention promotes a holistic development approach to respond to new societal challenges [...]