THE BRIDGE ON THE RIVER ELBE: WORLD HERITAGE IN A MODERN CITY Carla Almeida Santos, Kari A. Zobler University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, United States To date, UNESCO’s Convention Concerning the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage has served to successfully inscribe over 900 sites into the World Heritage Site (WHS) program. Central to the program is the protection and pres- ervation of sites of outstanding universal value (OUV); namely, sites deemed so exceptional that they transcend regional and national boundaries of significance. Once selected, UNESCO assumes these sites as being of universal human impor- tance and ownership, and their preservation as central for present and future gen- erations of all humanity (UNESCO, 2008, II.A). While embracing OUV as a principle is certainly admirable, it is also problematic given divergent ideas regard- ing shared legacy and world cultural heritage. Such ideological divergence is par- ticularly significant to contemporary tourism discussions given that WHS designation is increasingly sought as a tourism development tool (Li, Wu, & Cai, 2008; Yang, Lin, & Han, 2010). A growing body of literature has examined the role of UNESCO and the WHS program in heritage protection and tourism development (Adams, 2010; Bruner, 2005; Leask & Fyall, 2006; Russo, 2002; Silverman, 2008). Largely, this work pro- poses that while designation can contribute to heritage conservation and tourism development, it can also threaten heritage preservation. Against such threats, UNESCO has two recourses: (1) placement on the List of World Heritage Sites in Danger; and, (2) delisting action. Sites are deemed endangered when the char- acteristics which determined their inscription change as a result of causes such as acute threat of deterioration, rapid urban or tourism change, alterations in owner- ship or use, or natural disasters and military conflicts (UNESCO, 1972, III.11). While placement on the List of World Heritage Sites in Danger is frequently implemented, the same is not true for delisting. This changed in June 2009 when the cityscape of Dresden, Germany became the first site to ever be delisted against its will; a decision which centered on urban change in the vicinity of the WHS, spe- cifically the construction of the Waldschlo ¨ sschen Bridge as threatening the OUV of Dresden’s cityscape. While the Arabian Oryx Sanctuary in Oman had been delisted in 2007, unlike Dresden, the delisting was done entirely at the request of local authorities who reduced the sanctuary by 90 percent so that oil procurement could begin; leaving the impetus and power of delisting squarely within local government control. Therefore, the delisting of Dresden provides a fertile ground to examine the nexus of OUV, heritage protection and tourism development. UNESCO added Dresden’s cityscape and its surrounding Elbe Valley region to the World Heritage List in 2004 due to its leading role in science and art in Central Europe, as well as its mixture of Baroque and modern industrial architecture. While during World War II the Allied forces leveled much of the city, the architec- tural survival of this historic district as well as re-building efforts in the post-War and Cold War periods figure prominently in narratives of local and national pride centering on German cultural resilience. Admission to the list conferred interna- Annals of Tourism Research, Vol. 39, No. 1, pp. 484–486, 2012 0160-7383/$ - see front matter Ó 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Printed in Great Britain 484 Research notes and reports / Annals of Tourism Research 39 (2012) 480–502