Gauging social values: proposing assessment indicators and testing the indicators through a case study of the Peeland Graham Street Market in Hong Kong

Abstract

Heritage values are multivalent. To make informed decisions in conservation, a comprehensive understanding of all types of values that a heritage place holds is essential. Among these heritage values, social values have come to the foreground of heritage conservation recently. It is recognized that there is a lack of methods to assess social values. Social values have not been successfully integrated into the study of a heritage place. Neglecting the social values poses risks to the comprehensive and successful conservation.

To understand and gauge social values, several questions should be answered first: What are social values? What define them? How would they be measured? By exploring answers to these questions, this paper aims to develop some key assessment indicators for social values.

Then, these proposed assessment indicators will be tested out on a case study: the Peel and Graham Street Market in the Central District in Hong Kong. The process and the findings will also be discussed and presented in the paper. To go through the process of measuring social values is another aim of this paper.

In the concluding chapter of this paper, the importance of a comprehensive understanding of heritage values, including social values will be reiterated. Lessons learned from the assessment of social values will be presented and discussed.