Da Lat’s Threatened Urban Heritage: Causes and Solutions

In Vietnam, heritage cities are increasingly attracting tourists and are a good economic source. However, the overheated tourism development leads to difficulties in preserving urban heritage, gradually reducing the urban heritage and losing the attractiveness of the cities that have such heritage. Da Lat is a city with many heritages located on the western plateau in the central region of Vietnam that is facing such a situation. Although Da Lat is on the way to becoming a heritage city, the hot development of mass tourism along with rapid urbanization has caused the number of urban heritages of Da Lat to continuously decrease. The article focuses on analyzing the causes of the destruction of Da Lat’s urban heritage as well as learning case studies from cities that preserve the heritage. In the article, the authors made an outstanding number of field trips and conducted several interviews with experts who are very knowledgeable about the conservation of Da Lat urban heritage to draw out the main causes leading to the decline of the Da Lat urban heritage fund. From there, the authors propose solutions to preserve the urban heritage of Da Lat in a sustainable way.