Imagine the Old Town of Lijiang: Contextualising community participation for urban heritage management in China

The UNESCO 2011 Recommendation on the Historic Urban Landscape (HUL) states community participation is a pivotal tool for integrating heritage practices into sustainable urban development. While significant but limited in China, various participatory methods have been developed, tested and evaluated worldwide. For example, inspired by HUL, Ballarat Imagine Australia has successfully used public engagement development of vision local conservation This paper aims to contextualise testing adapting method, (Ballarat) Imagine. was Old Town Lijiang as an academic scoping exercise, critically examine its viability potential contextualisation Chinese context. During fieldwork, three workshops were organised with residents Dayan, Shuhe Baisha, which are housing clusters constituting World Heritage property. In workshops, responded sets questions focussing their feelings about historic landscape well ideas future management. discusses contextualised approach tailored management Lijiang, also China whole, seeking find balance between top-down bottom-up processes. exercise confirmed that Imagine, can be further adapted Further research could test it other cities, better face challenges rapid urbanisation.