For the first time in history, more humans live in towns and cities than a rural environment. The seven-part Heritage Heroes series tells the story of how, in the midst of the rush to modernise and expand our urban landscape, individuals, neighbourhoods and organisations have managed to salvage a part of our endangered built inheritance.

Heritage Heroes takes the viewer on a journey across the world, to Asia, Africa, Europe, North and South America, the Middle East, and Australia.

We see traditional wooden homes in Norway prevented from becoming a shopping mall and car park, decimated post-Katrina houses in New Orleans saved from demolition and restored, and a derelict railway line in New York transformed into a plush green walkway.

Heritage Heroes shows how people from all walks of life – from princes to prime ministers, archivists to activists – have succeeded in carving out a place for the past in our increasingly urbanised present.