European regions and their cultural capital. Approximation to the study of the territorial effects of heritage

Abstract

Today, the cultural dimension is considered an integral element for the description of the main trends and effects shaping the European territory, not only as a key vector for the construction of a European identity, but also as a cornerstone of key social and economic processes. However, until recently it has not been possible to integrate exhaustively culture and heritage in the knowledge base that is needed for a European spatial planning, owing to various conceptual and epistemological difficulties related with the ineffable substance of culture and the incommensurable value of heritage, as well as with the practical problem of a lack of a unique European registry of protected assets and sites. In any case, the ESPON project 1.3.3, has set out to deal with – and devise solutions to – some of these problems, and has produced a data base of various cultural dimensions at regional scale, among which tangible heritage, also proposing a number of analytic concepts which could be developed in a planning framework considering culture. This paper presents the main methodological problems faced by the researchers, and advances some directions for analysis.