"The main context of this book focuses on Cultural Heritage and its preservation, maintenance, and sustainability and its great importance in the context of the adoption of Territorial Innovation and Development, Public Policies,and Digital Media and Technology "--

Cultural heritage is perceived as the glue that keeps individuals together and makes them feel a part of something larger. It is the past that allows individuals to understand their present and move towards the future. In networked society, it is impossible to think about cultural heritage and its preservation and maintenance without including the digital processes and ICT systems, as well as its impact on territorial innovation. The Handbook of Research on Cultural Heritage and Its Impact on Territory Innovation and Development is a critical and comprehensive reference book that analyzes how preservation and sustainability of cultural heritage occurs in countries, as well as how it contributes to territorial innovation. Moreover, the book examines how technological tools contribute to its preservation and sustainability, as well as its dissemination. Highlighting topics that include public policies, spatial development, and architectural heritage, this book is ideal for cultural heritage professionals, government officials, policymakers, academicians, researchers, and students.

The book explores the relationship between cultural heritage and local economic development by introducing the original idea that one possible mediator between the two can be identified as creativity. The book econometrically verifies this idea and demonstrates that cultural heritage, through its inspirational role on different creative talents, generates an indirect positive effect on local economic development. These results justify important new policy recommendations in the field of cultural heritage.

This book explores and substantiates the role of cultural heritage as an engine for local socio-economic development. Starting from the assumption that cultural heritage represents a valuable, unique and irreplaceable resource for European regions, it identifies and quantitatively analyzes tourism and territorial identity as two different channels through which cultural heritage can influence local socio-economic development. The book highlights the fact that cultural heritage not only has a positive influence on local cultures, societies and environments, but also plays a role in the process of local economic growth. Providing comprehensive empirical evidence that explains and discusses whether and how the endowment of cultural heritage benefits local socio-economic growth, it will appeal to scholars and students of cultural economics and regional science, and anyone interested in sustainable socio-economic development.

This book examines the roles of communities in the general framework of territorial innovation, particularly in the context of less developed regions. With a specific focus on Portugal, it offers conceptual improvements that will be of use to other European regions. The book will appeal to scholars and students of regional governance and politics, from public administration to economics, sociology, geography and political science, as well as to practitioners.

This book seeks to enhance the cultural dimension of sustainable development and particularly focuses on minor historic centers and their natural and rural landscapes. In a society becoming ever more globalized, without territorial restrictions in the production of goods and able to reproduce in China the goods and product characteristic of South American crafts (to mention just two extremes), the only element that can still be contextualized is heritage identity: the result of close integration between cultural assets, intangible assets and settled communities. Thus, heritage identity is one of the few elements, together with natural resources, which has the potential for economic development that is still firmly rooted in places and local populations. These towns are often the centerpiece of urban landscapes and geographical areas with original features, not always but often as individual places within networks of minor historical centers linked by shared history, traditions and/or natural elements (rivers, forests, river systems or other natural elements). They are outside the major tourist networks, even if now there is a budding interest in the touristic exploitation of these environments. So, they are the right places to pursue a sustainable and local development with a cultural perspective. This book is a product of the VIVA_EASTPART project (Valorisation and Improving of management of Small Historic Centres in the eastern PARTnership region), under the EU-funded “ENPI Eastern Partnership” program. It complements the more practically-focused work that is in production from this group, more focused on empirical approaches to the development of minor historic centers of the nations involved. Though the book has been influenced by this research and working experience, the authors are solely responsible for the content and opinions presented.

Using empirical evidence, this book argues for a more comprehensive view of the diversity of local resources and well-being from a territorial perspective. The first part of the book addresses the contrasting nature of local resources: in connection with proximity and governance, the ground, the past, cultural heritage sites, the snow, and energy. Well-being from multiple perspectives is examined in the second part, shedding light on sociabilities vs. income level, accessibility for pedestrians, health via urban design, life course trajectories as indicators of quality of life, and the connection between amenities and social justice.