Inadequacies of heritage protection regulations in an era of shrinking communities: a case study of Valga, Estonia

Jiří Tintěra, Zenia Kotval, Aime Ruus and Epi Tohvri

European Planning Studies, 2018, vol. 26, issue 12, 2448-2469

Abstract: Valga is a small shrinking town in Estonia where the heritage conservation area acts as the business, administrative and cultural centre of the town. Compared to the overall socio-economic situation of the town, the heritage conservation area suffers due to substantially faster depopulation and higher vacancy rates. Revitalization of the urban centre is a key part of the small town's strategy. This paper addresses the question: In an area of urban shrinkage, what role does heritage protection play in revitalization of a town centre? Drawing on a qualitative case study of the Valga heritage conservation area, the findings show that the current heritage protection system does not support revitalization efforts. There is a need to develop a new set of heritage conservation rules for shrinking cities and to adapt the current heritage conservation system to urban shrinkage. The paper further proposes some possible aspects of such system adaptation.

Date: 2018
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/09654313.2018.1518409 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:taf:eurpls:v:26:y:2018:i:12:p:2448-2469

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.tandfonline.com/pricing/journal/CEPS20

DOI: 10.1080/09654313.2018.1518409

Access Statistics for this article

European Planning Studies is currently edited by Philip Cooke and Louis Albrechts

More articles in European Planning Studies from Taylor & Francis Journals
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Longhurst ().