I can see through the waters eyes. COVID-19 in Heritage Cities: Citizen Participation and Self-Organization for greater Conservation and Sustainability

Abstract

Heritage cities and communities have been hit with pandemics throughout history, however COVID-19 represents an unprecedented challenge in terms of scale and impact on the built environment. Communities with a strong sense of place attachment have been self-organizing and raising their voices over their city’s sustainability. How can heritage cities achieve greater conservation and sustainability post-COVID-19? What are the social and environmental impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic in the built environment? What is the role of social and ecological values in decision-making and design and redesign for a self-organizing post-COVID-19 city? Research is needed in bottom-up initiatives to
assess the role of cultural and sustainability values and impacts in architectural and urban attributes. By analyzing social media, we investigate the case of Venezia Pulita (Clean Venice) to obtain an insight in the level of public engagement with regards to social practice, public formation and/or sense of place, the societal actors involved, and the characteristics of critics and of initiatives in terms of values and attributes. A review of posts by inhabitants in Italian language will be used to validate the analysis. Results indicate a new (digital) era in which local communities play a protagonist role in the
sustainability of heritage cities.