Culture-led urban regeneration : an example from Zong-Ye historical district in Tainan

The impacts of globalization force Asian countries face the problems of transformation, this paper aim to discuss how to keep the local identification and cultural characteristic under the wave of globalization. Taiwan has established the concept of "regional culture heritage" tries to immerge knowledge of planning and conservation. The Council of Cultural Affaires, as the highest supervised administrative unit in Taiwan, try to improve the historical district by community empowerment. However, the development process face the issues of regional recognition, construction of the relationship between people and environment, and planning strategies. This qualitative research took four years to do textural study. By establishing the basic knowledge from experts, open interviews and study the relationship between human and environment of local residents. Then turn these data into a mental map (Identifying landmarks and anonymous urban fabric). This research tries to compare and review the issue of cultural led regeneration. Our study finds out, first, the concept of regional cultural heritages has more identifications than single historical architecture. Second, local grand old mans, the head of the neighborhood, the priests have different perceptions toward cultural heritage, and these perceptions has influenced planning development. Third, we raise several key issues of regeneration in historical district.