The main goal of this paper is to explain, on the one hand, how protected townscape designations evolved due to new theoretical lines and new policies, while on the other hand, explaining how this evolution allowed some townscapes to enter the denken chiku designation, while it would have been unlikely for them to have entered that same designation back in 1975. The main hypothesis is that the shift has driven the denken chiku designation system from tourism and economic development viewpoint to a local, community based model, in which tourism is not seen as the goal itself but, at the most, as a booster for local life. For this purpose, a comprehensive documentation and on-site research has been conducted. Starting from laws related to cultural protection and economic growth, every townscape designated denken chiku has been analyzed in terms of location, townscape typology, designation year, urban or rural nature and accessibility to traffic infrastructures developed over the last 40 years.
