URBAN VALUES

Cities are just like people; if a human being may seem complex and difficult to understand, a city is often even more complicated.

It has usually developed over a long time span and from the contributions of generations.

Cities are like documents of cultural and historical values, layer upon layer, house by house and street after street. Not to mention squares.

In fact, the built environment is the most substantial and the most clearly spoken memory for society. Tangible and intangible cultural values in the built environment are important, in particular for individuals as carriers of meaning and identity.

In short, a city is on one and the same time, a place and many places where people meet, talk, share ideas and where identities and lifestyles are formed. And today 80% of the Europeans live in urban landscapes.

The city takes place!

Cities are not just like people, they are people. The culture of the city is the expression. Here culture and urban values far from confronting people as something being produced by others are produced by themselves.

The definition of tourism has widened considerably in the past two decades and it now includes most aspect of leisure and recreation and more than touches significant elements of shopping, business, travel and educational activities. In particular, the role of “atmosphere” and “popular culture” are becoming more important as the definition of culture broadens. And tourism with all its dimensions will more and more be a strategic part of community planning.

This new approach to tourism is in fact a positive urban force. But there is also a new competition between cities not to forget.

So now to one of the key questions for our common project. How can urban values and urban tourism integrate and contribute effectively to a sustainable development, especially with regards to local economy?

As tourism grows, it becomes increasingly part of all our lives. One can say that traditional tourism is often very concentrated both in terms of season and location. This concentration, particularly into a few central areas, greatly limits the scope for spreading the benefits of cultural tourism. A few streets or a small area can reap the benefits, leaving neighbouring areas coping with usual inner problems as for example stagnant economy.

So if the definition of tourism has widened considerably the past two decades, so has the concept of culture.

Integrated urban tourism is something to test in our project not only in theory, but very much in practice.
So a framework is needed!

We can start with:
Flagship -------Large project with national/international significance often linked to a single point in time or event and aiming to stimulate large number of visitors and usually linked to regional regeneration strategies.

Local- ---------Small in scale, often focused on a single neighbourhood and tending to be ongoing projects. Always linked to local cultural uniqueness and aiming to raise the tourism profile of undervalued resources. Local tourism initiatives aimed at encouraging spending in neighbourhoods through interpretation of local history could be catalyst for action. There is a wealth of local history, anecdote, cultural connections and special sites appearing just under the surface.

Neighbourhoods can be selected as follows;
•  Areas with strong identity and some sense of boundary.
•  Areas which are not at present used as a cultural tourism resource.
•  Areas experiencing some form of deprivation which could benefit from additional patronage.
•  Areas with a wealth of cultural and historical interest which could be the basis for interpretation.
-   Areas with good tourist accessibility.

So,in other words Mainstream attractions and Hidden gems. We are convinced that tourism can be developed in ways that positively sustain local economic and environmental systems and celebrate local culture and heritage.

The project team suggests that you work with these questions and write down your reflections and proposals and please, hand it over as soon as possible to the project team.

There is a heritage of strong local traditions and diverse and colourful cultures as well as beauty and variety of the natural and built environment - crucial strands waiting to be weaved together in the development of an exciting new cultural tourism strategy. And of special interest as we see it is the possibility to involve locals as community guides and story tellers – establish a dialogue, that is cross bordering in practice.

We will also suggest when the four “Urban values” meet at the working seminar in April in Vitebsk , then bring with you 10 pictures, 5 with Mainstream attractions and 5 with Hidden gems.

If we are successful in our efforts and if we are visionary enough there could be very interesting and developing crossing references,

not only between different urban values but also with rural and countryside values.

Questions being asked are:

Where do we want to be in 10 or 20 years time, what is the vision, the state of environment and cultural tourism?

How can tourism demand and tourists be used creatively to achieve development targets in urban regeneration, community self-reliance, arts, culture, education and leisure?

Last but not least- How can locals be genuinely involved?

So if the goal is to make tourism work harder for the city, then tourism promotional activity has to be targeted at advancing residents perceptions, attitudes, pride and knowledge of their own home city, urban values in short. It is really a matter of “depth”.

And such values are not created once for all! That is why a holistic approach is so important for project Dvina/Daugava.

How can we do this together??