NARA — One way of preserving Nara's culture and history is by riding bicycles to tourist areas instead of boarding smoke-belching tour buses. The city's traditional industrial culture can also be maintained by logging less onto Twitter and Facebook and writing more letters and postcards using sumi ink and calligraphy brushes, two local industries in severe decline.
These were just two of the ideas for preserving history and culture suggested by participants at the three-day World Conference of Historical Cities meeting, which opened Tuesday in Nara.
Nearly 250 people from 55 cities around the world, many of which contain UNESCO World Heritage sites, gathered to discuss issues ranging from proper disaster measures in old city centers to how to integrate the preservation of historic monuments in modern urban planning.