Abstract

In the challenge to regain the cultural dimension of development, Sicily itself is a living laboratory, an accelerator that can amplify the effects of a cultural and social experiment to resolve the conflict between heritage, a dynamic society and a human scale environment, including the burden of conservation and valorisation. The cultural and natural heritage and its contexts are demanding new cultural policies but also urban planning, new ways to live, to move and to produce. Connecting the cultural policies with human development policies can create a real «cultural dividend» of the conservation and valorisation policies on archaeological, architectural, historical, artistic and landscape heritage: one of the cultural equity instrument capable of entering authoritatively in the market of negotiation of interests, redefining priorities and development trajectories.