Old Buildings Are Now Economic Engines, Not Just Museums
A new framework shows that preserving historic sites generates measurable returns across jobs, sustainability, and community development—making cultural heritage a strategic investment for regional economies. Policymakers are shifting from viewing heritage as a cost center to treating it as infrastructure that drives circular economy benefits.
Originaltitel: Multidimensional Spillovers of Cultural Heritage Through Regional Development and Circular Economy
<p>In the phase of the advancement of conservation as a science and process, defined as Conservation 3.0, conservation of historic environments is observed as a source for development and shall be envisaged as a production factor, and as investments that are anticipated to be central to the returns in the future (Ost 2009). In line with that, an enlarged significance has been determined in evaluating social environmental and economic spillover effects of cultural heritage that could be understood as a vector with focus on development and continuity (Janssen et al. 2017). This indicates that the consequence, or the spillover effects, from investing in cultural heritage are comprehended as contributors to sustainable development and are used as starting points for planning the priorities for cultural heritage management (Gustafsson 2019). The importance for the cultural heritage sector is no longer solely on preservation and protection- to be able to identify new actions to take place in historic buildings has become more essential. Adaptive re-use is defined as “any building work and intervention aimed at changing its capacity, function or performance to adjust, reuse or upgrade a building to suit new conditions or requirements” (Douglas 2006). These activities and actions are expected to bring spilovers at the regional level.</p>