Cultural Heritage as a Right to Well-Being and an Engine of Urban Regeneration

Abstract

The post-pandemic emergency is a valuable opportunity to encourage and promote the right to culture as a driver to counteract social and environmental vulnerability and to promote well-being, new sustainable lifestyles and processes of urban and landscape regeneration. The cultural heritage not included in regimes of protection or public use can accommodate actions with an experimental and innovative character to promote the creativity of new generations and the definition of places of economic, social and cultural promotion for the disadvantaged. Conventional cultural assets, such as museums, libraries, archaeological sites and parks, archives and deposits, regardless of their administrative status, geographical location and number of users, must now, more than ever, be interpreted as principals of well-being. This contribution analyses some recent experiences in Italy that enhance the role of culture in local development policies in pursuing not only economic but also social impact. From the study of various experiences, it can be deduced that more ready than the institutions in charge of the management of cultural heritage, seem in fact - and perhaps unconsciously - some communities of citizens who live in the places of culture and show the ability to recognize their values and potential. The thesis presented here consists, therefore, in the belief that public policies should make the places of culture look like places of well-being for the communities of inhabitants who assume a role of concrete responsibility and actively participate in the construction of new models of correct consumption.