Conservation and development processes in multi-cultural historic towns test cases: Stone Town and Jaffa

The transition to the era of post-modernism and neo-liberalism has defined new challenges for conservation planners. Conservation of whole sections of a city that represent the city's history has become the main means of creating symbolic economic value in urban development. These development projects are expected to be led by the private sector, which is interpreted in most cases as the production of tourist areas and activities. On top of it, aspirations to symbolize the national past as well as the cultural integrity of local populations are proposed. The present article demonstrates that these challenges cannot be harmonized in the case of Jaffa (Israel) and Stone Town (Zanzibar), which leads to the conclusion that those goals are contradictory and make the aspirations of conservation in our era unrealistic.