Industrial heritage, adaptive reuse and sustainable redevelopment scenarios: including local communities’ multiple values in the decision-making process

Abandoned 19th and 20th-century industrial buildings represent a particularly vulnerable form of cultural heritage, and current evidence shows that their preservation is frequently at risk. Overall, implementing adaptive reuse interventions is generally recommended as a sustainable strategy to conserve these buildings, make them meaningful for the present society, and eventually enable their transmission to future generations. However, the lack of awareness about the multiple values of industrial heritage (IH), the scarcity of economic resources, and the presence of competing interests of different stakeholders – e.g., owners, local government, bodies for the protection of cultural heritage, potential investors, residents, etc.- make the decision-making process about the future of IH far from being straightforward. Capitalizing on the case of a recently abandoned industrial area located on the Ligurian coast (Italy), this piece of research aims to highlight that investigating the points of view of relevant communities (e.g., about the intangible values attributed to IH, perceived socio-economic needs, etc.) at an early stage of the decision-making process can contribute to reduce social conflicts and favor the development of projects able to combine the fulfillment of socio-economic objectives with the preservation of the local identity and memory. Then, as a preliminary step towards adopting a holistic approach, the paper explores communities’ willingness to pay for favorite redevelopment scenarios to elicit the intangible values associated with different subjects to IH. Finally, it advances that evaluation frameworks to be adopted in the future should be able to consider the principles of civil economy and intergenerational equity.