Mitigating the Pandemic Through Creativity: UNESCO's Responses and Cities' Reactions

Introduction

Cities are hubs of innovation and inventiveness, places where nowadays most of the world’s population live, thrive, and try to accomplish their hopes and dreams (Huybrechts, 2018; Lee & Rodríguez-Pose, 2014). Creativity is an essential part of people’s and community’s existence, helping to attain and strengthen a common identity based in shared memories traditions and experiences, thus forging the ‘spirit of the place’ that enlivens historic urban landscapes (Colavitti & Usai, 2016; Rodwell, 2018; Rogers, 2017).

Due to their interactive networks of people, markets and activities, cities are considered important development fields for creativity (UNESCO & UNDP, 2013). In 2011, the Recommendation on the Historic Urban Landscape assembled in a single regulatory document the dispositions in previous charters, conventions, declarations, memorandums and recommendations on the subject of the conservation of historic areas (UNESCO, 2011, footnote 2), thus formalizing and improving the reflections and works initiated four decades before, prompted by reactions to decontextualized urban renewal (Davidoff, 1965; Jacobs, 1961) resultant from the modernist movement (Bandarin & van Oers, 2012; González Martínez, 2017; Jokilehto, 2014; Taylor, 2020; Veldpaus, Pereira Roders, & Colenbrander, 2013). This shift to a broader awareness of the city that recognized the need to manage both the historic buildings and its surroundings, as well as the importance of heritage, cultural diversity and creativity for society (Council of Europe, 2005; Fojut, 2009; Stenou, 2002; UNESCO, 1976), also valued the benefits of listening to the residents’ demands, launching the seeds for the development of heritage participatory processes that would gradually became highly recommended in the following decades as enhancers of human rights, inclusiveness, social responsibility, sustainability and democracy (Rosetti et al., 2022).

The expanded attention to the contribution of people to the urban environment’s sustainability and the safeguarding of cultural heritage entailed the growing awareness that creativity and creative industries are also essential to achieve not only the inclusive regeneration of cities, but also the well-being of its residents, a way to foster diversity, a source of income and economic development, and an incentive for tourism activities (Capello et al., 2020; Cerisola, 2019; Jelinčić, 2021; Lenzi & Perucca, 2020; UNESCO, 2016). The interlinkage of cultural heritage and creativity as a source of innovation (Cerisola, 2019; Cominelli & Greffe, 2012), the growing requirement and acceptance of bottom-up approaches to urban cultural heritage and creativity involving a multitude of stakeholders (Della Lucia & Trunfio, 2018), as well as demands for a more diverse and creative urban tourism sensitive to, and respectful of, the local context (Richards, 2020) are issues that should be taken into consideration and addressed by those involved in decisions regarding cities’ management towards sustainable development.