Page 46 - Beyond Decommissioning

The fundamentals of industrial redevelopment 27

Fig. 2.6 Brickworks site, Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
Credit to Dennis Jarvis.

Brickworks has been preserved. The center has become a successful touristic attrac-
tion (Canadian Encyclopedia, 2015)(Fig. 2.6).
However, the relationship between heritage, redevelopment, and tourism has cer-
tain paradoxical elements. First, tourism makes use of resources and generates an
environmental impact that can (further) deteriorate the heritage sites. Besides, touris-
tic revenues do not necessarily offset redevelopment costs. When sharing culture is the
objective, tourism and heritage support each other. However, when culture is artifi-
cially created by touristic policies, commercial values will prevail over conservation
values: if so, tourism and heritage are decoupled and the heritage objectives will suf-
fer. Industrial tourism can have various benefits, including a strengthened image of the
region and a contribution to public relations. For example, tourism can make the res-
idents feel safer about the industrial sites nearby (Centre of Land Policy and
Valuations, 2014).
This debate is about the broad sustainable tourism, as the requirement for the tourist
to make a positive impact on the environment, society, and economy. There is now a
consensus that the tourism development should be sustainable; however, the question
of how to achieve remains debatable, especially in difficult case such as industrial
tourism.
A deep discussion on sustainable tourism is given in the UNESCO (2010).
Second, certain forms of industrial tourism are difficult to understand or perhaps
hard to justify. I am referring to the so-called “dark tourism.” By this phrase, one
refers to travel to places historically associated with death and tragedy. However,
while a morbid attraction or curiosity could be the reason for dark tourism in some
cases, in other cases, the main attraction is the historical value of these sites rather