| Abstract: |
The abandonment and decay of urban historic areas, including heritage
buildings, has been a major challenge in cities. This process is the result of
the co-evolution of social, economic and technological developments
experienced by industrialised countries, in adopting the knowledge-based
economy. Some of these areas have been targeted as urban renewal projects,
while others remained vacant and abandoned. For the latter, a focus on
innovation in cities has presented an opportunity to shine again in redefined
ways. Recently, some historic areas have been brought back to life by
accommodating research and entrepreneurial activities. Based on these posted
novel views, there has been drawn upon also the recommendations by the United
Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization’s (UNESCO 2011) for
the management of historic urban landscapes (HULs) (Berg 2017) or areas. In
addition, those recommendations have been started to take into account and
successfully implement also in several EU-level topical projects (e.g.,
Horizon 2020) as a leading course of actions. Although implementing
regeneration processes has not always been successful, the transformation of
historic areas into innovation hubs seems to offer the potential to deal with
challenges such as social tension, gentrification, and over-reliance on
unpredictable sectors. The presence of creative sectors, students, start-ups,
social innovation, and cultural activities are seen as factors to reap the
potential of regenerating these areas into innovation hubs. However, more
research into these factors is needed. This paper aims to identify the
critical factors to successfully regenerate historic urban areas and looks at
the potential role of universities and other stakeholders facilitating the
transformation of these areas into innovation hubs. Thus, this paper asks:
What are the critical factors to regenerate historic urban areas and what is
the current/future role of universities in it?Through a systematic literature
review and a conceptual analysis, this paper seeks to identify the current
state-of-the-art in urban regeneration of historic urban areas, linking
various theories and fields of studies explaining the phenomenon. The outcome
of this paper is a conceptual model providing an overview of the strong and
weak foundations of urban regeneration to set the course of future empirical
research into the role of universities. |