Cities 2020 Preface

Abstract

This year, CITIES seeks to explore the theme ‘BRIDGING THE PAST AND THE FUTURE OF URBAN LANDSCAPE IN ASIA PACIFIC. This theme highlighted the continuity in the city between the past and the future also between legacy and development. The best way to bridge the gap between the past and the future is to help the city to find its identity and what the values to move forward in the future. It is not easy to find one identity even for an individual being, and most of the time, to find their identity, they have to reflect on what happened in the past. Cities that don’t understand their identity and value, will have less ability to choose what kind of development suits them the best. Cities without identity, choose the development solely based on the trends and also the opportunity without considering to preserve their unique identities. If this keeps happening, one day we will walk in the Asia Pacific and all the city will feel the same, taste the same and even smell the same and we have lost our uniqueness that makes people come to our city. This is why, it is important to highlight the theme of BRIDGING THE PAST AND THE FUTURE OF URBAN LANDSCAPE IN ASIA PACIFIC. By bridging the past and the future, we protect our cultural heritage assets and the built expressions of culture, military, economic, and religious forces as well as creating sustainable cities to accelerate our economic and infrastructure growth in a way that will not harm our cultural legacies and societies. For over 50 years, the integral and holistic approach to heritage and urban development has been highlighted in every heritage-related cultural policy document, stressing the need to balance the benefits of socioeconomic and urban development and cultural heritage preservation, and hopefully, this seminar will be one of the key contributors of it. Therefore, the conference presented the keynote speakers from the Australian National University (ANU) and National University of Singapore (NUS) who shared the whole ideas of city’s values and reaching the sustainability in the future. We hope that this conference can stimulate communication, cooperation, information exchanges among participants across countries. List of Conference Photographs, Sponsor Funding Acknowledgements, List of Committees are available in this pdf.