"Traditional" urban heritage. A large part of the cultural heritage assets are located in cities: archaeological remains, monumental buildings, historical gardens, etc. As centres of political and economic power for centuries, they accumulate many relevant vestiges of the past that have outstanding symbolic and functional values for today's society. For many years, this heritage has usually been labelled "historic monument", "property of cultural interest", "national monument", "listed building", "historic garden", and is already subject to different levels of legal protection. They are often the subject of priority attention in cultural policy at state or municipal level and many of these properties, which have become cultural, urban and tourist icons, even attract large volumes of visitors. Although they have been the object of preferential attention from the academic sphere, this type of heritage elements and their relationship with the city still pose many challenges in relation to aspects such as their conservation, participatory management and engagement with citizens, new heritage discourses, the "current" interpretation of cultural heritage, their sustainable management as tourist attractions.....

Further on monuments and unique buildings, if we focus on the urban space itself, historic urban spaces have overall values resulting from the integration of several components: monumental heritage of exceptional historic and cultural value, non-exceptional heritage elements but present in a coherent way with a relative abundance, and other urban elements (for instance: urban silhouette, "architecture" of the open space, urban infrastructures, equipments, etc.). Protection categories or labels such as "historic areas", "historic towns" or the more recent "historic urban landscape" appear. The recognition of this urban heritage dimension has long been present in the legislation of many countries and in a large number of doctrinal texts issued by international organisations such as ICOMOS, ICCROM and UNESCO.

However, at this scale, there are many challenges to the integrated management of urban heritage and its harmonious conservation (Colavatti, 2018). The social and economic dynamics of the cities where protected or labelled historic districts are located generate impacts that threaten the essence of the heritage values of these areas, both on a physical and functional level (Loes Veldpaus et al., 2013). On this scale, heritage management does not only concern the cultural/heritage sphere, but requires the creation of working synergies with multiple departments of the municipal/regional or state government. Urban planning, mobility, tourism or economic promotion appear as areas of work that converge when designing and executing an urban policy aimed at safeguarding the heritage values of this urban heritage; both tangible values (form and urban fabric) and intangible values (functions and social and cultural life). Safeguarding these areas now also involves activating mechanisms for social participation, development management, ethnic and social integration, etc., within the framework of an integrated management model about which much has been written and little progress has been made (Ripp and Rodwell, 2016).

The “other” urban heritage. Further on the limits of centers and historic neighborhoods, in urban peripheries built between nineteen and twenty century, other cultural heritage appear. It is a less known and understood heritage: old nucleus of population subsumed by urban growing of the past twenty century, industrial areas built more or less anarchically during the nineteen century, old factory buildings, storage areas, transport infrastructure (airports, canals, railways), social housing, modern residential architecture… But also urban peripheries posse moreover intangible heritage which reflect the mix of social and cultural of their inhabitants including migrant populations and ethnic minorities (Caffyn and Lutz, 1999). All these elements take part of recent heritagization processes which have an important role in the urban development. In general terms the urban fringes started to be important for the city in the twenty-first century. 

They attract new interest from governments, private investors and local communities and are the sites of new social processes involving formal, functional and symbolic changes. These changes include the formulation of new uses of public space, the creation of new landmarks and heritage references or symbols. De-industrialised and post-industrialised areas are re-urbanized and former factory buildings are converted into cultural and leisure spaces, attracting new residents and new visitors to previously stigmatised areas (CUTE project)¹. In these areas, for example, an "out of the beatean tracks" tourism develops, attracting visitors to less monumental but more "authentic" parts of the city. Tourists who do not want to be "tourists" arrive there in search of "authentic urban life" and contact with the resident population under the guidance of local communities and with the use of digital technologies to discover, record and share adventures (Gravari-Barbas and Delaplace, 2015). Therefore, the "other" urban heritages appear as an interesting research topic on the recent processes of heritagization and on the identity discourses that are constructed with respect to this heritage, the engagement with citizenship and the processes of social participation. It is also interesting and relevant to study the effects that the phenomena of heritagization have on the social and economic reconfiguration of urban and metropolitan spaces.

Cultural heritage in the age of the metaverse. As already stated for the previous UNA Europa Doctoral Workshop (Helsinki, June 2022), the role of digital technologies in the care, curation, preservation, sharing, and production of meanings around cultural heritage objects, practices and collections is deep and enduring (Parry, 2010) and informs many aspects of the work of contemporary heritage organizations. However, technology opens up new horizons. One of the most shocking is the metaverse environment. The metaverse is a virtual world we connect to using a series of devices which make us think that we really are inside it. The metaverse doesn't look to be a fantasy world, but an alternative reality in which we can do the same things that we do in our daily lives, but without without leaving the room and interacting with all its elements. A parallel and completely virtual universe where we can access with devices of virtual reality, augmented reality and mirror world, which help in overcoming the experience’s limitations (Kim, 2021). The metaverse is expected to offer as many opportunities as the physical real world, with the possibility of creating business or holding work meetings, where everyone shares a virtual office by connecting from their homes. The Metaverse offers a wide range of experience for different users who can co-create experiences and even design services, which increases the customer engagement, and improves communication (Kemec, 2022).

The Covid19 pandemic has been a momentous leap in its development due to the digital transformation in order to work remotely and spend leisure through digital tools (Lee et al., 2021). From an economic point of view, Metaverse is also developing its own market, with suppliers, demanders and virtual currencies that allow economic transactions and financial operations to be carried out, such as the sale and purchase of real estate, land and works of art, using NFT (non-fungible tokens), blockchain and digital currencies. Although today the metaverse is still under development (the technology that can make it real is not fully available and has a high cost of access) it is already possible to immerse oneself in a parallel reality for hours and it seems that its development in the future will be exponential. Cultural heritage is also present in this new environment.

Thus, for example, some of the first initiatives have begun to emerge, such as the purchase of (digital) land on the Next Earth platform², among which are some heritage elements as important as the Alhambra in Granada or the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela (Spain). The former has been acquired by jh87 and the latter by hm1627075. It is clear that in this context many relevant topics for reflection arise: What will be the effects of the metaverse on the relationship between citizenship and heritage, on the cultural and tourist consumption of cultural heritage or on the didactics of cultural heritage, for example? At the academic level, reflections on heritage/virtual reality/metaverse are very recent (Huggett 2020, special issue of the Journal Applied Sciences on "Virtual Reality and Its Application in Cultural Heritage II, 2022; Cuesta, Fernández and Muñoz, 2021), however there are already authors who affirm for example that the metaverse in tourism and cultural heritage sites will undoubtedly support Gen Z to cocreate transformational experiences (Buhallis, 2022).

^{1 CULTURAL HERITAGE AT THE EDGE (CUTE). Stakes and opportunities of cultural heritage revitalization in European urban fringes project. https://cute.sciencesconf.org/}

^{2 “Mark Zuckerberg's metaverse reaches the Alhambra. A single user has taken over the digital grounds of the monument through the virtual platform Next Earth". Newspaper press release “Granada digital” (23rd April 2022). https://www.granadadigital.es/metaverso-mark-xuckerberg-llega-alhambra/}