Heritage and urban regeneration: Towards creative tourism

Abstract

The question of how cities can capitalise on cultural legacy hybridisation to activate effective and sustainable urban regeneration has still not been fully answered. This chapter presents a conceptual framework based on public-private participation in cultural legacy hybridisation, designed to interpret the determinants and forms of urban regeneration and consider their possible implications for urban tourism. The framework’s application to a multiple case study analysis, focusing on three small and medium-sized Italian cities, has validated its interpretative capacity. In Pompei public investment in culture has proved to be almost entirely unproductive; in Trento public-driven regeneration has allowed for value creation through cultural heritage hybridisation; in Lecce stakeholder engagement in communities of practice is the driver of socio-economic value and innovation. Urban tourism in these cities is closely connected to the nature of their urban regeneration: cultural tourism in Pompei, its combination with creative tourism in Trento and innovative forms of tourism in Lecce.