What do Cuba, Myanmar, Syria, Iran, North Korea and Somalia have in common? All countries with terrible human rights records and on the US list of villain countries? Well, maybe, but that’s not the connection I was looking for. All of them are full members of UNESCO, the United Nations Educational, Social, and Cultural Organization. …
Read more »On March 5th, I had the honor of testifying at a European Parliament hearing on the Economic Role of Heritage in a Time of Financial Crisis. Below is my testimony. Thank you Dr. Gutiérrez-Cortines for inviting me here for this important hearing. Europeans generally understand the components of sustainable development: environmental responsibility, economic responsibility, and …
Read more »Seven years ago Marc Weiss, former college professor and official in the Clinton administration, founded Global Urban Development (GUD). The organization describes itself as a worldwide network of expert thinkers and practitioners. The accomplishments of GUD over this relatively short period are impressive. GUD has a Board of Directors composed of men and women from 25 countries as …
Read more »Recently I had the privilege of participating in an international symposium in Paris organized and hosted by VMF, Les Vieilles Maisons Francaises. VMF was celebrating its 50th anniversary as an organization committed to preserving France’s incredible built heritage. The theme of the symposium was “Heritage and Sustainable Development: a Question of Education”.“ As I have written …
Read more »Almost since the beginning of the heritage conservation movement, there has been a resistance by activists and scholars to discussing heritage in the context of economics. Somehow it was seen as diminishing the importance of cultural heritage to have it tainted with quantification as Euros, Dollars or Yen. Fortunately, in my mind, that is changing. …
Read more »As I’ve written before (May 31, 2008) much of the world has a better understanding of whatSustainable Development means than we do in North America. Graphically Sustainable Development looks like this: Sustainable Development requires environmental responsibility, economic responsibility, and social/cultural responsibility. Further for a community to be viable there needs to be a link between environmental …
Read more »For twenty- five years I’ve had a consulting practice which is now known as PlaceEconomics. The firm provides consulting services to public and non-profit clients dealing with issues of downtown and neighborhood business district revitalization, and the reuse of historic buildings. But with only a few exception, the vast majority of the work was in the …
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