York doesn’t need Unesco world heritage status

The Unesco world heritage status award is a curious kind of international beauty contest in which historic locations vie to be anointed worthy of special recognition by a committee of UN cultural bigwigs. This supposedly brings with it some form of wider symbolic cultural validation through international acclaim. In fact what it really brings — indeed the only meaningful outcome — is mass tourism, often to the detriment of the winning locations as well as the people who live there. It is a mystery why anyone thinks this is something that requires obligatory celebration, no questions asked. 

The latest places to abase themselves in an effort to win this hollow international crown include York, which boasts its world-renowned Minster and medieval architecture. Why should anyone living in this great city, one of the great wonders of the world, care about being given Unesco heritage status? Other places on the list include three ancient settlements known as the ‘zenith of iron age Shetland’; Birkenhead Park in Merseyside, which is seen as a ground-breaking model of municipal development; and the East Atlantic Flyway, a migratory bird route over western parts of Europe taking in places such as Yorkshire, Essex and Kent.