I´ve just found out about a certain pattern: some cities that pursue a WH nomination do so repeatedly regardless of the nomination itself. Here are some examples:

Dresden: First in 1989 there was a proposal of the Baroque ensemble of Dresden. It was rejected for lacking OUV. A second proposal included the same city centre but additionally encompassed the surrounding cultural landscape of the Elbe Valley. As we all know this successful nomination ended with the construction of the intervening Waldschloesschen Bridge and the removal of Dresden from the WHS list in 2009. This, however, did not stop the city council from attempting a new nomination. Germany is now in the course of compiling a new T-list. One of the candidates suggested by Saxony is Hellerau which is a suburban district of Dresden. Hellerau is supposed to be representative of the first comfortable suburban settlements of the early 20th century.

Marburg: Church of St. Elizabeth in Marburg was proposed and rejected in 1983. This did not stop the city from running a second proposal: the serial nomination of early German university towns (together with Tuebingen). This is a proposal to be included in the next German T-list, which as far as I know does not include the Church of St. Elizabeth previously proposed.

Bayreuth: We have recently learnt from Solivagant that in 1984 Germany had Bayreuth's Festspielhaus on its T-list. This is a famous opera where Wagner is regularly performed. This was later neglected in favour of a new nomination that proved successful in 2012 - the Magravial Opera House, also an opera where Wagner is regularly performed...

Gibraltar: As one of the British overseas dependencies Gibraltar submitted its defenses on the 1996 T list. It was never further submitted. The new British T-list from 2012 includes Gorham's Cave from Gibraltar instead of the defenses.

Montevideo: Montevideo's attempt to gain inscription for its parliament failed in 1996 and although it is technically still on the T-list it has been stated there will be no further attempts to promote it. This didn't prevent the city from proposing two new sites in the Uruguayan 2010 T-list: the Rambla and the Art Deco complex both separate from the parliament.

Under this category I wouldn't include Berlin which had a failed attempt with Spandau but later managed to nominate three other sites (and a new promising one is now on the run) and Manchester which (hopefully temporarily) ceased to promote its industrial heritage application and replaced it with Jordell Observatory.

What I thought might be worth highlighting is that these cities don't really care about nominating world class sites, but rather their own sites. It is at least problematic that the consideration leading to promote a certain candidate depends on what certain cities think might fit in with the current trends of Unesco and crown them with the aspired title.

In fact this change from "Defenses" to "Gorham's Cave" didn't take place without some controversy - in Gibraltar at least! See this article from the Gibraltar Chronicle
http://www.chronicle.gi/headlines_details.php?id=21417

I also have grave worries about Gorham's Cave - Israel recently gained recognition for Mt Carmel Caves which have Neanderthal remains and later. Some years ago, ICOMOS did a thematic strudy of early hominid fossil remains and didn't rate Gorham's Cave very highly in relation to other sites (Particularly to Mt Carmel regarding Neanderthal remains). The UK evaluation which led to Gorham's Cave being placed on its T List commented as follows "It was noted that the existing ICOMOS Thematic Study looking at early hominid fossil remains would be revised and updated and it would be important to make use of the revised study". It made no mention however of that earlier study's view that Gorham's Cave wasn't a strong contender. I have been unable to find any reference to a revision of this thematic study and whether any conclusions it might reach are likely to be more favourable to Gorham's Cave (e.g as a result of more study of the site where investigation has been ongoing)

In fact, there are some cities that work persistently on an inscription. Marburg is one example, the recent approach is the third or fourth, I think. Now the focus is on the „unity between university and town" and „the university town as a developing cultural space". I have doubts that Marburg and Tübingen are really unique among university cities in Europe and that they have enough outstanding value to justify an inscription. Maybe, a transnational serial nomination of European university cities could be a more promising approach, comparable to the European spas. However, there is a positive expert opinion from a Dutch historian. But that's no surprise, at this stage almost all suggestions for the new German T-list are supported by one or more experts.
For those who are interested in more details, the expert report is available (also in English, in the second part of the pdf-file):

http://www.uni-marburg.de/profil/Geschichte/unesco/broschuere.pdf

Other German cities changed their nomination over the years, like Bayreuth and Kassel. Both initially included several palaces, buildings and parks, but upon the advice of the national ICOMOS they focused their nomination on the most outstanding parts. Bayreuth was successful, next year we will see whether Kassel also succeed.


The real "world class sites" in Europe are already on the list (with only a few exceptions). So I think it's understandable that countries like Germany, France, Spain, and Italy try to find thematic niches for their future nominations.
I try to follow the ongoing discussions in Germany to create a new T list. In most cases, the local authorities are well aware of the fact that cathedrals, palaces and historic town centers are overrepresented and they refer to the Unesco Filling-the-gap-report. Nevertheless, there are some palaces and monasteries on the preliminary list. But I hope that the evaluation committee will make a reasonable selection.
For example: In North Rhine-Westphalia, they selected only one out of nine suggestions because the others failed to provide evidence for OUV: the extension of the Zollverein WHS (in my opinion one the best proposals of the preliminary list). So, there is some reason to be optmistic.

Coimbra (in Portugal) is a university town nominated for inclusion in 2013. I visited it a few weeks ago, and also wondered if this is special enough to warrant a nomination of its own.