Public perspective as a framework to manage urban heritage in the city of Shiraz, Iran

Abstract

Since the last two decades, citizen participation (CP) has become a global phenomenon of mobilising untapped human resources, and it has spread into the field of Urban Heritage Conservation (UHC). There have been many issues on conducting CP in UHC programmes in the city of Shiraz. They include overlooking CP in the process of planning and executing urban projects as a contributing variable by relevant organisations, and, as a result, the tremendous loss of cultural heritage in the urban historic districts. This study explores the issues and deficiencies related to UHC programmes in Shiraz and establishes strategic planning guidelines to resolve the issues, and the connection with evaluating CP in the UHC plans in the city. The study uses mixed methods including site visit observation, a review of all plans and reports, and interviewing 27 experts. The experts were interviewed to establish strategic planning guidelines for resolving the issues. Finally, the study uses a survey to evaluate views of 384 local residents to confirm the impact of 15 factors of CP on the residents’ willingness for participating in the UHC programmes in Shiraz. The data were analysed using descriptive and inferential statistics, and Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats (SWOT) analysis. Results revealed the different percentage of experts’ agreement on the issues regarding CP in urban historic districts in Shiraz. They referred to the quality of life (24.74%), the lack of public awareness (21.77%), lack or low participation (20.08%), gentrification (19.03%), and the influx of low-income family (14.37%). The experts’ view analysis offers four key SWOT strategies for conducting CP in UHC programmes in Shiraz. They consist of the need to enhance an effective CP mechanism, to develop an integrated heritage conservation approach in urban projects, to develop economic sustainability within local people, and to enhance public services quality in historic districts. Finally, results of evaluating factors of CP in UHC programmes in Shiraz emphasise that residents’ willingness to repeat their experience for participating the group discussion depends on the fair and agreeable interactions among the participants. The findings demonstrate that out of 15 factors, only 3 factors of the evaluative factors of CP including reciprocity, networks and influence got less than 30% agreement based on residents’ views. This case study provides support for the inclusion of CP practices in UHC programmes of Iranian apparatuses such as municipality of Shiraz.