Heritage and cultural mega-events: backgrounds, approaches and challenges

Cultural heritage is not simply the stock of a given culture's material assets, but also the sum of our memory and identity – and this is part of the increasing significance of cultural heritage. Cultural heritage today is not only a resource in need of protection, but also a potential that must be exploited for future development. The three issues of significance for the future condition of our historic resources should be emphasized. The first is the rapidly accelerating process of transformation of the entire built heritage stock. The second is the increasing need for heritage. The third issue is the clear shift in emphasis from the value of the heritage to the needs of society. This breeds an increasing need for us to redefine ourselves and open up to others, so promoting the interaction between social capital and heritage is becoming vital for the rebuilding of social cohesion. Social capital should be nurtured as an opportunity both for the protection of cultural heritage and for its exploitation as a pro-development resource. It is also a big challenge for the Cultural Mega-events that may, and should, be well melded into a policy of building a broad base of heritage awareness.