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Valuing Cultural Capital in the Smart Cities Era

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A special issue of Sustainability (ISSN 2071-1050). This special issue belongs to the section "Sustainable Urban and Rural Development".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (31 December 2021) | Viewed by 11496

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Dr. Patrizia Riganti

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School of Interdisciplinary Studies, University of Glasgow, Rutherford/McCowan Building, Bankend Road, Dumfries, DG1 4LZ
Interests: cultural tourism; cultural economics; non-market valuation of cultural capital; contingent valuation method; stated preferences methods; heritage-led sustainable development; smart cities; cultural diversity; urban design; participatory planning

Special Issue Information

The future of our contemporary world is urban, with the majority of the world’s population currently concentrated in urban areas. The upwardly urbanization trend witnessed by both developed and developing countries, coupled with the remarkable progress of smart technologies and social media is changing the landscape of urban management and cities’ policymaking. Cities are facing new, unprecedented challenges and whilst becoming “smart” thanks to the current technological advances, they still have to deal with their built legacy in a sustainable manner. The urban context, with its opportunities and contradictions, is the place where the battle for a sustainable conservation of heritage needs to be won in the first place.

The UN Agenda 2030 for Sustainable Development has proposed a “paradigm-shift” towards the “humanization” of our cities. In particular the UN Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 11: Make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable has highlighted the importance of safeguarding the world’s cultural heritage.

How can we measure progress towards such a Goal? What is the role that cultural capital has in the progress towards sustainable, resilient cities and inclusive communities? What are the valuation techniques and management tools currently available to assess the value of cultural capital and its impacts on local economies? To what extent does the progress towards smart cities call for a change in our valuation techniques? Is there the need to develop new, more innovative, smart, inclusive ways of assessing the economic value of cultural capital? These are some of the questions underpinning the challenge of sustainable heritage conservation.

The objective of this special issue is to disseminate the latest high quality, interdisciplinary research in the field of the economic valuation of urban cultural heritage as capital asset. We welcome contributions shedding light on the nexus among cultural capital valuation, smart technologies, and the progress towards inclusive, sustainable cities and communities. In this perspective, the special issue seeks to uncover and present the newest developments in the economic valuation of cultural capital in the smart cities era.

We welcome both applied and theoretical papers presenting innovative research in the above field. Examples of topics of interest include:

Innovative valuation methods to assess progress towards sustainable development
Stated preferences methods applications to cultural assets
Biases in valuation methods
Tool and methods to assess impacts of heritage policies on economic growth
E-preferences for cultural capital
Innovative methods to assess the economic value of cultural heritage
Social media and valuation techniques
New, inclusive governance tools for cultural heritage
Open smart democracy

Dr. Patrizia Riganti
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Sustainability is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

Cultural Capital
Economic Valuation of Cultural Heritage
Contingent valuation method
State Preferences Approach
Biases in economic valuation methods
Hedonic Pricing
Sustainability
Sustainable Cities
Smart Cities
Smart applications to economic valuation
Economic Growth
Inclusive communities
Smart Technologies
Smart Innovation

Published Papers (4 papers)

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Research

17 pages, 276 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Embedding Effects in Contingent Valuation Applications to Cultural Capital: Does the Nature of the Goods Matter?

by Patrizia Riganti

Sustainability 2022, 14(9), 5685; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/su14095685 - 08 May 2022

Cited by 3 | Viewed by 1750

Abstract

The paper’s argument is that the specific characteristics of cultural heritage goods help minimise insensitivity to the scope, also known as the embedding effect, of contingent valuation (CV) estimates. This bias happens when estimates of willingness to pay (WTP) do not increase with the quantity of the goods presented, as expected from economic theory. The presence of such effect has been actively debated in the literature since it raises major concerns about the validity of the method itself and its uses within a social cost benefit analysis framework. The research presented in this paper discusses one of the few methodological studies testing the embedding effect within and across samples for cultural heritage goods. The research uses empirical data gathered from three independent and comparable samples focusing on the archaeological park of Campi Flegrei in Italy and two of its components: the Castle of Baia and the archaeological park of Cuma. Findings successfully prove that CV estimates relate to the quantity being valued and could be used with confidence by policy makers concerned with an inclusive, sustainable approach to cultural capital management. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Valuing Cultural Capital in the Smart Cities Era)

20 pages, 568 KiB

Open AccessEditor’s ChoiceArticle

Valuing Intangible Cultural Heritage in Developing Countries

by Godwin Kofi Vondolia, Albert Mensah Kusi, Sylvana Rudith King and Ståle Navrud

Sustainability 2022, 14(8), 4484; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/su14084484 - 09 Apr 2022

Cited by 6 | Viewed by 2472

Abstract

The disappearance of intangible cultural heritages (ICHs) together with associated symbols and meanings in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) undermines 2003 UN Convention for Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage. To contribute to reversing this trend, the present study estimates the economic value of preserving traditional kente weaving and interpretation of kente symbols by establishing national demonstration centers in Ghana. Contingent valuation (CV) surveys of both the public and kente weavers are used to elicit their preferences for these national centers. As CV surveys of cultural heritage have often been criticized for lacking both policy and payment consequentiality, we have used a specific preservation measure and a non-voluntary payment vehicle to make the decision context realistic and consequential. Households show significant, positive mean willingness-to-pay (WTP) for establishing national centers to preserve both the kente weaving technique and the interpretation of kente symbols. Furthermore, we find no distance decay in WTP for preservation of this ICH; indicating that people have strong preferences for preserving this ICH independent of how far they live from the center of kente weaving activities. This leads to larger aggregated benefits of preservation compared to built cultural heritage and local environmental goods, for example, where strong distance decay occurs in many cases. This makes the net present value of centers for demonstration of kente weaving and interpretation of kente symbols positive and an economically worthwhile investment. The policy implication of these results is that higher investments in preserving ICHs can be justified not only from a cultural heritage perspective, but also from an economic point of view. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Valuing Cultural Capital in the Smart Cities Era)

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19 pages, 269 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Spatially Disaggregated Cultural Consumption: Empirical Evidence of Cultural Sustainability from Austria

by Michael Getzner

Sustainability 2020, 12(23), 10023; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/su122310023 - 01 Dec 2020

Cited by 8 | Viewed by 1977

Abstract

The determinants of cultural consumption are rarely explored by means of travel demand (i.e., travel cost) models. In this paper, the empirical results are presented in regard to the frequency of attendance to cultural events as an indicator of cultural sustainability. Approximately 50% of the respondents who participated in a representative household survey in Austria stated that they would participate in cultural events at least once a year. The average frequency of attendance came to about 3 to 4 times a year, depending on the kind of cultural event (e.g., drama/opera performances, museum visits, concerts in schools of music). The estimations support the notion that the distance from the respondent’s residence to the cultural event is negatively correlated with the frequency of attendance. Other determinants include the typical socio-economic characteristics of respondents (e.g., education, income). However, the availability of cultural infrastructure in urban or rural areas, as well as municipal cultural spending, are the main spatial and public finance variables influencing attendance frequency. Based on the econometric estimations of the travel cost model, the economic value of attending a cultural event (consumer surplus) varies from EUR 38 (cinema) to EUR 55 (theater, opera) on average. The results suggest that local and regional cultural infrastructure are significant contributors to cultural sustainability. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Valuing Cultural Capital in the Smart Cities Era)

21 pages, 855 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Cultural Heritage Appraisal by Visitors to Global Cities: The Use of Social Media and Urban Analytics in Urban Buzz Research

by Karima Kourtit, Peter Nijkamp and João Romão

Sustainability 2019, 11(12), 3470; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/su11123470 - 24 Jun 2019

Cited by 8 | Viewed by 4506

Abstract

An attractive cultural heritage is an important magnet for visitors to many cities nowadays. The present paper aims to trace the constituents of the destination attractiveness of 40 global cities from the perspective of historical-cultural amenities, based on a merger of extensive systematic databases on these cities. The concept of cultural heritage buzz is introduced to highlight: (i) the importance of a varied collection of urban cultural amenities; (ii) the influence of urban cultural magnetism on foreign visitors, residents and artists; and (iii) the appreciation for a large set of local historical-cultural amenities by travelers collected from a systematic big data set (emerging from the global TripAdvisor platform). A multivariate and econometric analysis is undertaken to validate and test the quantitative picture of the above conceptual framework, with a view to assess the significance of historical-cultural assets and socio-cultural diversity in large urban agglomerations in the world as attraction factors for visitors. The results confirm our proposition on the significance of urban cultural heritage as a gravity factor for destination choices in international tourism in relation to a high appreciation for historical-cultural amenities. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Valuing Cultural Capital in the Smart Cities Era)

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