How+other+countires+balance+their+key+priorities

__**America**__ After the second World War, America faced a baby boom, where the population rapidly increased.The increase in population also led to a need to modernize, so as to improve the economy to sustain the whole of America. In order to modernize and create new buildings and increase job employment, America needed more space. With these pressings issues, America also faced a need to preserve their heritage. There were over hundreds of structures and building, all containing America's roots and heritage. However, with a urgent need to develop, the federal officers neglected these important structures, including famous urban areas. Even Yellowstone National Park, the world's first national park, was almost demolished to make room for further development.

America later saw the need to have a balance between their economic development and preservation of heritage as Americans started voicing out their thoughts. They felt that those particular structures in the city centres, urban places were what made them American, and they are integral part of the American nationality. At firsts, these American made effort and formed groups, campaigning to preserve their heritage. They were helped by the United States Conference of Mayor and National Trust for Historic Preservation and managed to prevent some high- scale projects from taking place and successfully protected some structures or places which they felt were sentimental in value. However, they only managed to prevent some of such projects from taking place but the problem was not effectively solved.

The need for preservation of America's heritage was greater highlighted by Lady Bird Johnson, the First Lady of the United States spoke up, voicing out the concerns of the general public. According to Historic American Buildings Survey, more than half of 12,000 structures listed, were destroyed. She asked for a solution to the problem. In response, the U.S. Congress passed the National Historic Preservation Act (NHPA), signed into law by President Lyndon Baines Johnson on October 15, 1966. This ensures that while economic development is important, there is also space set aside for structures which the people feel contain value. This can be achieved by the government protecting the structure and imposing laws on them, thus they cannot be moved or destroyed for other purposes such as commercial projects. Not only do these structures serve as National Monuments, many of them are also able to attract tourism, thus increasing revenue for the country, helping America balance between economic development and preservation of heritage.

The National Register Of Historic Places was also created to register places which the public feel contain historical importance and need to be protected. It contains a list of places in America, where the government will protect and maintain. It promotes nation building by creating a sense of national identity when large masses of people and groups agree to select a structure and nominate it to be in the National Register Of Historic Places.



**__ Italy __**
Italy is a country which is rich in its historical heritage as it has a very rich history. This results in many famous architectual structures in Italy, all representing Italy's history, such as the Leaning Tower Of Pisa, The Florence Cathedral, The Milan Cathedral and the Colosseum. With so many important artefacts and structure to preserve, there is a need for more resources pumped in. In an earthquake incident in 2009, more than 10,000 such stuctures were either damage and destroyed, causing a major problem. However, in order to effectively solve the problem by making structure more reseliant to earthquakes, metal poles had to be placed inside the walls and rooves but the estimated cost of doing so is high.

Another issue Italy faces is its poor economy. In the current recession in Europe, Italy was hit hard and currenlty holds a debt of 116% of its GDP in 2010, which is the second highest after Greece. These figures suggests that Italy has a poor economy, and thus do not much revenue to help in economical preservation. What made matters worse was that Silvio Berlusconi decreased the budget for historical preservation by half, and thus a lot less funding would to allocated to it.

With Italy being so cash- strapped now, it would be a near impossible task to improve on both the economy and preservation of heritage at the same time. Thus, Italy regards the economy of the country to be a more pressing issue at the moment, or they would face bankcruptcy. Hence, they decided to pump in more resources on improving its economy, before spending efforts on preserving its heritage. Italy is currently setting realistic targets to improve its debts, such as adopting austerity measures on 15 July 2011 and 14 Septemeber, saving 124 Billion Euros. Also, Italy is targeting a public budget deficit of 1.5% in 2012 and 0.1% in 2013, which would hopefully improve its economy. Meanwhile, Silvio Berlusconi resigned, meaning the removal of a corrupt Prime Minister of Italy. Berlusconi has been charged with many offences, such as soliciting minors for sex and bribery cases. All these shows that he is a corrupt minister and his removal would probably cause a change for the better in Italy's economy. Italy's plan is that after their economy becomes more stable, they would imput more resources into preserving its resources. Meanwhile, Italy is looking for partnership with corporate businesses and other private companies, in hope that they would sponsor money for Italy to improve on its historical heritage.

Through this methods, Italy is balancing their key priorities to get help them economic crisis as well as the need to preserve their heritage. While Italy is not in an advantage, it is still able to balance its key priorities.

**__France__** Currently, Europe is facing a recession where the economy of most European countries are facing a severe crisis. France is no exception. However, fortunately France is one of the countries that is less affected by the recession. This can be seen as France's GDP has grown by 0.9% from January 2011 to March 2011, even when other European countries GDP are declining rapidly. Although the GDP growth rate later became a negative 0.1% from April to June, it went back to 0.3% from July to September. This is a remarkable feat compared to other neighbouring European countries such as Greece which had a negative growth rate throughout. Also, personal debts are 12% of household assest, which is considered a very low amount.

France pays close attention and highly values the importance of preserving the country's heritage. Restoration and maintenance work on classiﬁed historic monuments may be eligible for state grant aid of 40 to 50% of the cost of approved conservation works. Work on monuments owned by communes is funded 50% by the state (25% by the department and 25% by the municipality). The state may also pay 100% of the cost of research studies in connection with the preservation of historic monuments and their surroundings. There are three types of protected area in France, namely the Conversation Areas, Architectural Urban and Landscape Heritage Protection Zone and the land-use plans can make special regulations to take account of the heritage features of parts of towns. Regulations for these three types of protected area may provide for operations to assist restoration and rehabilitation. The state is now short of funds and rarely gives grant aid in this context, but many communes are able to provide grant aid assistance. In particular, communes sometimes provide grant-aid assistance of up to 20% of costs in relation to the rehabilitation of houses for sale or rent.

So how does France actually balance between economic development and preserving the country's heritage? One of the main methods is to use tourism as a method to make use of the country's rich history and national monuments, to attract tourists into the country and increasing the country's revenue. This can be seen as yearly, France attracts the most number of tourists at 78.95 million in 2010, making ithe the world's most popular tourist destination. By pumping in resources to constantly restore, maintain and protect the national monuments, more tourists would want to visit them, thus effectively increasing France's GDP. Popular tourists destination in France include the Eiffel Tower and the National Museum. Thus, through tourism, France is able to successfully improve its economy while preserving its heritage.