As you may have seen in the media the RSA is “collaborating with the Heritage Lottery Fund to better understand the links between heritage and identity at the local scale.”
They have analysed “over 100 datasets to produce a Heritage Index to help people understand local heritage assets and activities, and access relevant data through a single site. Data ranges from the length of canals and size of protected wildlife sites, through to the number of historic local businesses and the proportion of residents visiting museums and archives.”
RSA say that “the Index is designed to simulate debate about what is valued from the past, and how that influences the identity of its current residents. This can help a place achieve its aspirations to grow and prosper, socially and economically.”
You can click on their interactive maps and download the data from this website, and have a look to see whether your local World Heritage Site, or World Heritage Sites per-se are making a difference.
Photo taken from RSA Website – all copyright RSA