Examining urban design strategies in historic districts: a systematic literature review

The global community faces the challenge of balancing the conservation of historic districts with urbanisation demands. This systematic literature review explores innovative strategies for conserving and revitalising historic districts within urban design. An analysis of literature from the Scopus database highlights this as a prominent research area, supported by international reviews emphasising the critical role of urban design strategies. The findings indicate that urban designers can utilise modern geographic information technology, spatial analysis, data support, community engagement, and transdisciplinary knowledge to regenerate historic districts effectively. However, there is a notable lack of systematic, in-depth empirical research, with a predominance of conservative and repetitive descriptive case studies. Although these studies logically explore the significance of historic districts, there is an urgent need for innovative research on urban design methodologies. This study aims to identify research gaps through a comparative analysis of international findings, offering new perspectives and theoretical support for the sustainable development of historic districts.