Pingyao: The historic urban landscape and planning for heritage-led urban changes

Reconciliation of the often conflicting processes of urban conservation and urbanisation has been of academic and professional interest. The 2011 UNESCO recommendation on the historic urban landscape has provided guidelines for heritage management, but the ambiguities about its theoretical and practical bases have undermined its wider application in diverse urban contexts. The designation of Pingyao as one of the first urban World Heritage Sites in China in 1997 has stimulated tourism, and exemplified further challenges. An urban morphological investigation of Pingyao reveals the historical expressiveness, or historicity of its urban landscape forms as both spatial-temporal and representational creations. The historic urban landscape approach embodying both integrative and morphological values is fundamental to the formulation of historically-sensitive and community-based urban development and conservation plans. To achieve sustainable management of urban changes, integration of such historic urban landscape strategy into the established planning system is needed at both national and local levels.