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The article deals with the environmental consciousness emerged from the 1970's onwards, and with subsequent change in the ideology of city planning. The focus is on the development of urban conservation methods and on the maintenance of the built environment, which have marked a decisive shift away from the CIAM theses that dominated urban thinking during half-a-century. The decision to take the existing built environment as the starting point for all actions of city planning and design has been a radical stand for a new approach, corresponding to and paralleling the idea of sustainable development that crystallized in the 1980's up to the 1992 UN Conference. Grassroots-level strategies are considered important for all actions towards a sustainable way of life. The case of Finland is studied in some detail, with the conservation atlas of the historic milieu as an example of teaching a sustainable approach to environmental planning and design.

This paper is an editorial to JCHMSD's Volume 4 Issue 2 and its selection of papers.

The paper presents some of the ongoing discussions at the international level on the establishment of new United Nations global objectives for development, known as the Sustainable Development Goals, which should guide progress in the world for the next 15 years. Two agendas for wise heritage management are discussed, one for the protection of nature and the other for better use of culture, which taken together could make a significant difference in stewarding the world's precious resources.

While the previous Millennium Development Goals, established in 2000 as a set of eight goals with 19 targets, have been criticised as too broad, the current proposed Sustainable Development Goals, containing 17 goals and 169 targets to measure progress, are perhaps too many and too detailed and thereby risk failure of implementation. It also illustrates the ambition and the challenges of a pluralistic world with widely divergent priorities, reinforcing the idea of context-specificity of heritage conservation and resources management.

This editorial further extends on the discussion that was started in the inaugural Editorial, of 2011, which stated that “the international debate is expected to intensify as regards a re-orientation of the concept of sustainability and to re-emphasise its meaning in clear and unambiguous terms” (JCHMSD, 1.1:9).

The following classified, annotated list of titles is intended to provide reference librarians with a current checklist of new reference books, and is designed to supplement the RSR review column, “Recent Reference Books,” by Frances Neel Cheney. “Reference Books in Print” includes all additional books received prior to the inclusion deadline established for this issue. Appearance in this column does not preclude a later review in RSR. Publishers are urged to send a copy of all new reference books directly to RSR as soon as published, for immediate listing in “Reference Books in Print.” Reference books with imprints older than two years will not be included (with the exception of current reprints or older books newly acquired for distribution by another publisher). The column shall also occasionally include library science or other library related publications of other than a reference character.

The rediscovery of the medieval routes of Norman origin in Sicily readvocates a system of interconnection between small villages, towns and cities which can be compared to the circulation system: ancient paths and roads are like veins and arteries which are ready to reanimate a body in need of resilience and exciting experiences. The slow tourism of historical routes in a new ecology of tourism currently contributes with increasing significance to the creation of green sustainable tourism, compatible with the territory and respectful of local identities.

This chapter aims to highlight the potential of the slow tourism of the historical routes in order to revive the internal areas from an economic and social point of view. The analysis is focused in particular on the Magna Via Francigena: this route links Palermo and Agrigento through the rural heart of Sicily touching 18 small towns inland. The creation of this route has rewoven broken territorial wefts, restoring dialogue and collaboration between the towns involved. It has revitalized the place consciousness of the territories. It has also encouraged place-based production chains and micro-economies, boosting new income. This route makes a definite contribution to placing marginalized area, towns and territories on the geographical map again.

Therefore the historical routes outline new ways of endogenous development based on the recovery and enhancement of identity assets and local resources.

This paper aims to propose an alternative strategy for preparing, recovering and conserving cultural built heritage (CBH) in the context of natural disasters. It presents the idea that disaster preparedness is integral to CBH protection and conservation.

Building upon a review of existing scholarship on CBH, resilience and disaster management, a conceptual model is proposed to assist key stakeholders preparing for the recovery of CBH after natural disasters. It is argued that the protection and recovery of CBH in the wake of natural disasters require a holistic approach and that the theoretical framework of resilience thinking can support such an approach.

The paper discusses how the process of adaptive cycles has a role to play in the development of a holistic understanding of the conservation process. It proposes an adaptive cycle model that is supported by four critical factors: reordering, conserving, shifting and transforming.

Through exploration of systems thinking and resilience theory, the research presented in this paper explores a new approach to the conceptualisation of CBH. The paper presents the first stage of a research project that aims to develop strategies that can support the protection and recovery of CBH in the wake of natural disasters. The proposed model represents a holistic approach for reconceptualising CBH and may, as such, have potential implications that extend from the field of post-disaster recovery into the domain of CBH conservation and protection.

Depending on the research approach one uses, the development of particular bodies of knowledge over time is the result of a combination of agency, chance, opportunity, patronage, power, or structure. This particular account of the development of geographies of tourism stresses its place as understood within the context of different approaches, different research behaviors and foci, and its location within the wider research community and society. The chapter charts the development of different epistemological, methodological, and theoretical traditions over time, their rise and fall, and, in some cases, rediscovery. The chapter concludes that the marketization of academic production will have an increasingly important influence on the nature and direction of tourism geographies.

As the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan celebrates its first centenary, this paper presents a critical reading of the development of architecture in the Kingdom reflecting the transformation of national identity.

The paper achieves this aim by performing an analytical diachronic survey of the main architectural styles and trends that emerged in Jordan and links the architectural styles and trends to four main historical periods that characterize the national temporal trajectory, supported by examples of buildings, projects and architects that represent each period.

The results show the impacts of different forms of architectural modernism on local practice and explore attempts to create a national architectural identity that range in their ideological drive from Pan-Arabism to Jordanian localism.

The research adds to the discourse on Arab cities and architecture and shows the development of architectural trends in an Arab Muslim country, focusing on the interaction of architectural modernism with local variables. The research aims to supplement literature on Arab architecture with a critical and nuanced historical account of Jordanian architecture in the English language to serve a global audience.

L'UNESCO dans le cadre de son programme de la Décennie Mondiale du Développement Culturel fait la promotion du renforcement de l'identité culturelle et du maintien de son patrimoine par les groupes ou les individus qui sont les plus fragilisés par des changements brusques et drastiques. Elle suggère une réflexion sérieuse sur le développement du tourisme culturel et la conservation du patrimoine. Ceci nécessite la conservation de ressources inestimables et exceptionnelles tout en améliorant la gestion touristique et par là mme le niveau et la qualité de l'expérience touristique afin de permettre au site d'être partie intégrante de la localité, de la région et ainsi de remplir son mandat.