- Historic centers, regenerated urban areas and innovative urban landscapes in Europe: how can they function as a development engine?   265 kb by    Michailidis, Triantafyllos & Zaire, Danai | triantafyllos@yahoo.com    Short Outline The paper focuses on contemporary aspects of urban planning as a tool of sustainable urban development, including historic centers, regenerated urban areas and innovative urban landscapes, while certain case studies are presented. Abstract This article aims to examine the conditions under which historic centers, regenerated areas and innovative urban landscapes can turn into creating jobs and income. The paper starts with a literature review of definitions of the basic keywords. Secondly, the international experience of profitable exploitation of historic centers, gentrification, urban regeneration and fictional urban landscapes is presented. Urban design has undertaken an important role in urban economic development for both cities and countries. The culture industry is nowadays one of the major components that cities use for promoting economic growth and to be competitive. Remarkable tools that are supporting the revitalization of the economic, social and cultural infrastructure, enhancing place identity of cities and built heritage like the sustainable re-use of historic urban industrial buildings are represented. Although the case of European cities is under examination, there is also a comparison with cases of cities from other continents. Moreover, contemporary policies and theories are described so that the most important motives behind this common practice be clarified. By clustering major players and factors in Europe, an outline of success stories and the public discussion on this topic is available. Additionally, certain case studies are presented including quantitative data. The case studies need to verify or reject the policies and theories. The process aims to evaluate the maintenance of the identity of the historic centers, to meet environmental needs and to ensure consistency with sustainability principles. Finally, conclusions are proposed, concerning the viability and effectiveness of the exploitation of such urban elements. Keywords historic centers, urban regeneration, innovative urban landscapes Case Study presented on the ISOCARP Congress 2011: LIVEABLE CITIES: URBANISING WORLD, Meeting the Challenge   Click to open the full paper as pdf document   Click to send an email to the author(s) of this paper