The heritage community has long faced difficulties with the theoretical as well as practical challenges of managing continuity on the scale of historic cities. Identifying individual components of the architectural heritage and selected areas for a variety of levels of conservation, from the benign to the interventionist, has largely proved to be the limit of attainment. In the generality of situations, where the survival of the components depends on their place within the whole, urban heritage is consequently at risk of suffering unnecessary losses. This is especially the case where the culturally sensitive historic cores of towns and cities are the primary focus of pressures for major change or redevelopment and counterbalancing policies are not in place to address those pressures proactively. Recent years have seen a number of reflections on urban heritage: notably, at the international level, by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) World Heritage Centre and the...