How can we balance urban heritage and growth?

Unpacking the core dilemma: social exclusion and functional disconnection

While urban heritage sites are celebrated for their history, they frequently struggle with deep-seated structural friction. Lauren Buchanan, representing the South African case study, shares that while working on Constitution Hill in Johannesburg, the primary hurdle was unintentional social exclusion. The site failed to clearly communicate its relevance to the public, creating a barrier to engagement. Using collaborative, non-digital methods like paper, color markers, and post-it notes, Lauren and her team broke down complex problems to isolate a core challenge.

"The course allowed us to approach a complex site, with complex challenges and simplify potential solutions, that pinpointed key actors and processes to realise goals", shares Lauren. 

A similarly nuanced view of exclusion emerged in Rabat, Morocco, where Rim Yassine Kassab and her team looked at Boukroun Street in the Medina. Though centrally located, the street suffered from what the team ultimately reframed as "functional disconnection" - bypassed by everyday commerce and flows while constrained by absentee owners and short-term tenants.

Meanwhile, looking at the Forts and Castles World Heritage Property in Accra, Ghana, Natalyn Ado identified the disconnect between heritage conservation and urban planning as a major roadblock. Rather than treating physical deterioration in isolation, the course helped reframe the issue around integrated urban heritage management, emphasising that conservation must connect directly with spatial planning and community needs.

In historic Cairo, Egypt, Amr Abotawila faced a similar challenge regarding Shiyakha Al-Khalifa, where the core problem was not isolated building deterioration, but the fragmentation of heritage management and a disconnect between heritage value and residents' everyday needs. Using a problem tree, Amr and his team unpacked how physical decay, weak infrastructure, and poverty are tied to weak institutional coordination and limited community participation. Stepping outside daily project demands allowed him to view this familiar context through a broader socioeconomic lens. The exercise was a useful reminder that the conservation of heritage cannot be separated from the wider conditions in which that heritage exists.

Viable solutions and strategic tools

Translating broad challenges into actionable strategies requires robust planning instruments. For Lauren and the South African team, keeping their core problem and objective visible at every step of the process ensured they stayed on track. By integrating the "Transformative Landscape" criterion into their Goal Achievement Matrix, they accounted for national priorities and minimised personal biases to pinpoint a viable solution.

In Rabat, Rim found the Force Field Analysis to be transformative. It allowed the team to view strict heritage protection regulations not merely as limitations, but as assets that secure specialised funding. This shifted their design principle toward low-impact, reversible interventions - such as improved lighting, waste collection, and paving repairs - supported by legal frameworks to formalise resident participation. 

"I have spent several years researching the Medina of Rabat, and this course shifted my perspective from analysing it to thinking about how to act on its challenges", states Rim. 

For the Ghanaian case site, Natalyn shared that the emphasis shifted heavily toward participatory planning. The lectures and peer exchanges highlighted how bringing heritage authorities, developers, and local communities together can establish shared priorities, moving sites away from isolated management toward coordinated, action-oriented planning. 

Tools like the Goal Achievement Matrix and Strategy Development exercise helped structure solutions for the Cairo case study, leading Amr to emphasise adaptive reuse and connecting heritage directly to local economic opportunities. By combining crafts training, employment, community organisation, and participatory planning, his team's proposed strategy aimed to make heritage a catalyst for development rather than an imposed constraint. 

Bridging course learnings to real-world practice

The ultimate test of any strategic urban course lies in its application beyond the classroom. For Lauren, the learning experience has directly strengthened professional relationships between site management and the national regulator, the South African Heritage Resources Agency (SAHRA), with outcomes set to influence operational planning for the upcoming fiscal year.

In Morocco, Rim found that the course shifted her perspective from passive analysis to active intervention. She is currently integrating these strategic action-planning approaches into studio-based learning for an interdisciplinary urban studies minor at NIMAR, though she notes that the true value relies on testing these tools against real-world constraints rather than just sharing templates.

For the Ghanaian context, Natalyn plans to share knowledge through departmental exchanges and apply the acquired tools to ongoing projects. However, she notes that shifting away from established institutional habits toward inclusive, multi-stakeholder participation remains the primary hurdle - one she hopes to clear by piloting flexible, practical initiatives that prove their value on the ground. 

"The course will strengthen my professional practice by improving how I integrate multiple stakeholder perspectives into heritage conservation and urban planning", says Natalyn.

For Amr the most significant takeaway extended to the professional network built during the course - quoting the Egyptian saying that knowing people is a treasure - and the realisation that these tools can shape reports, proposals, and complex problem-solving. While conventional working habits present a hurdle to knowledge transfer, the course reinforced that heritage development is a slow, people-centered process focused on improving local livelihoods.