Delphi-based authenticity indicators for historic urban areas: Khadia, Ahmedabad

Rapid urbanisation and redevelopment pressures in Indian historic cities increasingly threaten urban heritage character, often prioritising physical redevelopment over historically layered cultural values. Conventional conservation approaches focused on individual monuments remain inadequate for assessing authenticity at the scale of historic urban areas, where physical, functional, and temporal attributes collectively shape heritage value. This study develops a context-sensitive framework for identifying and validating authenticity indicators for historic urban areas in India, using the Khadia II precinct of Ahmedabad as a case study. A multi-stage methodology combining systematic literature review, contextual refinement, and expert validation through a modified Delphi technique was adopted. Indicators were refined through two Delphi rounds and statistically validated using Lawshe’s content validity ratio (CVR) and Cronbach’s alpha. The process resulted in eight validated indicators representing physical, functional, and temporal dimensions of the built environment, with CVR values ranging from 0.60 to 0.87 and reliability coefficients between 0.64 and 0.89. The study demonstrates that authenticity can be systematically assessed through empirically grounded, expert-validated indicators and provides a replicable framework to support urban-scale heritage conservation and informed planning in rapidly transforming historic cities.