With a provocative title Michiel van Iersel responds to last week's op-ed by Marco D'Eramo "Urbanicide in all good faith" on effects on cities..

"Instead of holding UNESCO responsible for the alleged death of our great historic cities, D’Eramo could instead help to improve the vitality and relevance of the organization. One way to rectify the shortcomings of the current system, which inadvertently but systemically favours certain types of heritage from only a small part of the world, is by adopting new ways to select and manage properties. Although national governments are encouraged to prepare their nominations with the participation of stakeholders such as local communities and NGOs, in the end only official States Parties can make new nominations. With grassroots initiatives and popular movements emerging all around the world,1 UNESCO should open the nomination process to more parties, increase their transparency, improve their communication and actively promote public engagement."

  • 1. Most critics ignore the fact that heritage protection regulations in most European countries are stricter than those advocated by UNESCO. Fears that regulations will be progressively tightened to the point where public authorities interfere on every level have no real foundation. It is not UNESCO, but national governments who nominate new sites. Ironically, only heritage sites that are already well protected make it to the List.

    UNESCO’s rules leave a lot of space for interpretation and specification per case. Even the claim that World Heritage status will cause a rise in the number of tourists is false. The PwC consultancy has calculated that, on average, UNESCO recognition had a very low impact on tourist numbers, causing an increase of only a few percentage points. Only relatively unknown sites experienced a modest growth in visitor numbers.

    Sometimes, locals react to and take control of their own situation. Last week, the Turkish Council of State ordered three luxury apartment blocks in Istanbul to be bulldozed due to widespread outrage and following repeated threats by UNESCO to put the historic areas of Istanbul on the notorious Endangered Heritage list. The soulless towers were the result of a dodgy real-estate deal and destroyed the city’s skyline with its iconic spires and domes. The landmark court ruling was applauded by large parts of the population and will have far reaching effects for other developments.