Cultural and Natural Heritage as Inputs of Sustainable Planning: A Theoretical Framework

For some cities like İstanbul, Rome, Paris and Cairo etc. as being the ones having natural and cultural heritage intensively, the most dominant planning data is the heritage itself. If we talk of sustainable planning, we should talk of not only the true planning regarding ecological principles, but also protection and reassesment of cultural and natural heritage at circumstances regarding sustainability, therefore this has to recognized as a true sign of ecological approach. On the other hand, one of the applied tools of Sustainability; “Sustainable Planning” as a correspondence of “Sustainable Development” in planning, is meant to use the nature and resources in the name of protecting them, for the sake of caring future generations. Today, World's energy strategies based on solid fuel and petrol, unbalanced resource consumption with least sense, consuming environment negatively, increasing rates at population, consumption and urbanization, the lack of fast regeneration in nature, and many other parameters like the ones above which will remain unmentioned, threaten ‘Sustainability' in direct. The purpose of this article, instead of consuming resources in the sense above, is to show of assessing cultural and natural heritages (for being ecological resource in essence and reflecting histo-cultural aggregation of humanity) and of using it as an input, by verifying the feasibility of it to be a paremeter providing-supporting the mentality of ecological planning and cultural sustainability. Sustainable planning must be expected to create principles and decisions regarding to protect-use balance for this heritage which is under the threat and pressure of civic developments. The use of cultural and historical heritage as an argument in Sustainable planning is given as of work and reports, international contracts and reported decisions related to these all are also given as references.