Integrating Policy: The Historic Urban Landscape Approach in Amsterdam

Abstract

This chapter focusses on the question of how the Historic Urban Landscape approach influenced Amsterdam’s conservation planning policies. The research made use of a policy analysis tool (Fig. 6.1) developed to cross-relate policies in a multilevel governance setting. This tool supported the analyses of local heritage policies and policy practices (Veldpaus, Historic urban landscapes: framing the integration of urban and heritage planning in multilevel governance. Eindhoven. Retrieved from http://www.tue.nl/en/publication/ep/p/d/ep-uid/482697/, 2015; Veldpaus, Pereira Roders, Learning from a legacy: Venice to Valletta. Change Over Time 4(2):244. Retrieved from http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/change_over_time/, 2014) in a series of three workshops (May 2014) and a set of six follow-up peer interviews (December 2016). The tool relates heritage management processes to heritage concepts, following the HUL recommendation (UNESCO, 2011). The tool is based on an analysis of international guidelines and offers a systematic way to assess and reflect on policies and practices in relation to the used definitions of heritage. The aim of this tool is not designed to judge the appropriateness of local policies or rate their successfulness, but rather to understand which concepts of cultural heritage are used and how they are applied in order to discuss them more in depth.

The chapter focusses on the insights from the workshops and interviews that emerged by revealing differences between HUL and local policy, as well as differences in the used heritage concepts between Amsterdam’s urban planning and heritage management officers. While the focus of this chapter is on HUL in Amsterdam, the wider aim of the research is to develop a tool to support systematic comparative policy analysis.