Abstract

The collective task towards an operative and creative management of natural and cultural heritage needs new paradigms and also a deep innovation of the tools for the spatial and economical governance. The objective is also the experimentation of methods and practices able to product more performed results about the valorisation of cultural identities and local landscapes. The paper synthesizes the first result of an applied research, conducted for the Sicilian Region, aimed to product some specific methods and tools for a more creative cultural planning, able to guarantee long term conservation and permanent management of cultural landscape, with a strong relationship between spatial planning and socio-economical development. The framework of the research used is called «territorial cultural network», that means that cultural heritage, cultural innovation and cultural policy are used both as local identity's matrix and as sustainable development tools. The «territorial cultural network» is both a theory and a method that offers some opportunities in order to answer to some important questions: the relation between local identity and global heritage, the conflict between conservation and transformation or between order and rules, in the end the positive relation between conservation and valorisation. The result of the research is the proposition of some «local cultural systems». A local cultural system is a territorial system that finds its connotation in the patterns of historical evolution and its configuration in the framework of local geographies. It is not a combination of territories distinguished by a cultural dimension, but a real system characterized by specific components, values and close connections deeply affecting the cultural background. Through specific indicators, the local cultural systems are able to set up in regional area some cultural districts. So, the research extracts from these cultural indicators some structural interpretation of the Sicilian cultural identities and therefore it suggests to the political decision, the strategic path towards a more cultural based regional development.