Urban Heritage: Critical Theoretical and Methodological Perspectives II

Cities are growingly being faced by social, economic, cultural and environmental challenges imposing health and social risks. Rapid urbanization, population growth, climate change are only some of the major global challenges that a 21st century city needs to respond to. The current challenging global environment has led to the development of new approaches to the concept of "sustainable city" a city that caters for current and future generation. For instance, the idea of smart city (a city that is technological, digital and interactive) and the idea of green city (a city that is environmentally friendly) has emerged to address economic, social and environmental global challenges. However, the temporal focus of such models of "sustainable cities" is narrowed down on the present and the future.
Although the role of heritage, and culture in general, in forming sustainable cities is growingly emphasized, heritage still stands in the periphery. Heritage is often viewed as "something" that can benefit from wider sustainable models and projects rather than as an agent of change.
In this session, we would like to introduce the concept of deep cities, a concept which refers to a city’s long-term history and heritage. The session will explore how this concept can offer new ways of thinking about sustainable cities. The underlying idea of the session is that heritage is not just "something that is subject to change," but a driver of change. However, for heritage to hold such an active role, we contend that participatory approaches in developing deep cities need to be adopted.
The introduction of the novel concept of deep cities will open new research avenues for the field of critical heritage studies. By bringing together architecture, archaeology, ethnology and conservation, this session invites contributions from a wide range of geographical regions that illustrate examples where sustainable cities have been the result of the adoption of deep cities.  The session would welcome papers that discuss theoretical and methodological issues related to one of the following (or related) themes: 
• Urban environments and planning;
• “Imagined communities” of heritage;
• Critical sustainability perspectives on heritage and the Anthropocene;
• Diaspora, diversity and cultural citizenships;
• The future of heritage;
• Participatory approaches to urban heritage.
Selected papers will form the basis of the edition of a special volume on "Urban Heritage."