On a local and international scale, urban heritage is a powerful vector for development and the enhancement of identities, as well as a lever for the tourist economy (Gravari-Barbas, 2020) and many aspects of regional planning. The enhancement of urban heritage has mainly been studied from the point of view of public policies, and of the public sector (Guinand, 2015). However, representations of urban heritage can be greatly influenced by private stakeholders (Berthold & Mercier, 2015). In the scope of this presentation, we would like to introduce the project HerEntrep which aims at shedding light on the role played by property developers in the process of urban heritage preservation, Taking the historic districts of the City of Quebec and Bordeaux, this research projects aims at casting light on the recent socio-spatial transformations of cities characterized by real-estate interventions, the growth of tourism which enters in competition with the needs of the permanent residents and the place sustainable development may hold. To do so, we look at the multiple strategies, particularly land strategies, as well as arrangements that are deployed by property developers and seeks to situate the role that urban heritage occupies within them. The project pays particular attention to the relationship between heritage and sustainable development within the strategies and discourses of property developers 

In the scope of this presentation, we would like to present our preliminary results on the identification of stakeholders (city government, other private stakeholders and the inhabitants), next to real estate developers, involved in heritage projects and transformations in the historic districts of Bordeaux and Québec and give a first overview of the type of relations (contestation, facilitator, etc.) that are established; This analysis is based on an approach to preservation of urban heritage according to which public policies and public orientations in terms of heritage development are in tune with a multitude of private actors, and the configurations of exchanges between all these stakeholders are characterized by a series of tensions and negotiations (Guinand, 2015; Berthold & Mercier, 2015; Gravari-Barbas & Violier, 2003).