The field of historic preservation is becoming more socially and culturally inclusive, through more diversity in the profession and enhanced community engagement. Bringing together a broad range of practitioners, this book documents historic preservation's progress toward inclusivity and explores further steps to be taken.
This interdisciplinary volume illuminates housing's impact on both wealth and community, and examines legal and policy responses to current challenges. Also available as Open Access.
At its most basic, historic preservation is about keeping old places alive, in active use, and relevant to the needs of communities today. As cities across America experience a remarkable renaissance, and more and more young, diverse families choose to live, work, and play in historic neighborhoods, the promise and potential of using our older and historic buildings to revitalize our cities is stronger than ever. This urban resurgence is a national phenomenon, boosting cities from Cleveland to Buffalo and Portland to Pittsburgh. Experts offer a range of theories on what is driving the return to the city—from the impact of the recent housing crisis to a desire to be socially engaged, live near work, and reduce automobile use. But there’s also more to it. Time and again, when asked why they moved to the city, people talk about the desire to live somewhere distinctive, to be some place rather than no place. Often these distinguishing urban landmarks are exciting neighborhoods—Miami boasts its Art Deco district, New Orleans the French Quarter. Sometimes, as in the case of Baltimore’s historic rowhouses, the most distinguishing feature is the urban fabric itself. While many aspects of this urban resurgence are a cause for celebration, the changes have also brought to the forefront issues of access, affordable housing, inequality, sustainability, and how we should commemorate difficult history. This book speaks directly to all of these issues. In The Past and Future City, Stephanie Meeks, the president of the National Trust for Historic Preservation, describes in detail, and with unique empirical research, the many ways that saving and restoring historic fabric can help a city create thriving neighborhoods, good jobs, and a vibrant economy. She explains the critical importance of preservation for all our communities, the ways the historic preservation field has evolved to embrace the challenges of the twenty-first century, and the innovative work being done in the preservation space now. This book is for anyone who cares about cities, places, and saving America’s diverse stories, in a way that will bring us together and help us better understand our past, present, and future.
Throughout history and around the world, community members have come together to build places, be it settlers constructing log cabins in nineteenth-century Canada, an artist group creating a waterfront gathering place along the Danube in Budapest, or residents helping revive small-town main streets in the United States. What all these projects have in common is that they involve local volunteers in the construction of public and community places; they are community-built. Although much attention has been given to specific community-built movements such as public murals and community gardens, little has been given to defining community-built as a whole. This volume provides a preliminary description of community-built practices with examples from the disciplines of urban design, historic preservation, and community art. Taken as a whole, these community-built projects illustrate how the process of local involvement in adapting, building, and preserving a built environment can strengthen communities and create places that are intimately tied to local needs, culture, and community. The lessons learned from this volume can provide community planners, grassroots facilitators, and participants with an understanding of what can lead to successful community-built art, construction, preservation, and placemaking.
The surge in local interest in historic preservation laws has been accompanied by a new wave of planning for the preservation and protection of historic resources. This report examines the 10 essential elements of a good preservation plan. The authors explain the legal justification for historic preservation and the pitfalls that one can encounter when drafting a plan. Case studies show how various communities have modified these elements to fit individual circumstances and needs. A look at Atlanta, for example, illustrates how that city was able to build a preservation planning consensus among preservationists and developers. The appendices include a summary of growth management laws in 11 states that shows how these laws address important historic preservation issues.
Culled from the records of the National Register of Historic Places, a roster of all types of significant properties across the United States, African American Historic Places includes over 800 places in 42 states and two U.S. territories that have played a role in black American history. Banks, cemeteries, clubs, colleges, forts, homes, hospitals, schools, and shops are but a few of the types of sites explored in this volume, which is an invaluable reference guide for researchers, historians, preservationists, and anyone interested in African American culture. Also included are eight insightful essays on the African American experience, from migration to the role of women, from the Harlem Renaissance to the Civil Rights Movement. The authors represent academia, museums, historic preservation, and politics, and utilize the listed properties to vividly illustrate the role of communities and women, the forces of migration, the influence of the arts and heritage preservation, and the struggles for freedom and civil rights. Together they lead to a better understanding of the contributions of African Americans to American history. They illustrate the events and people, the designs and achievements that define African American history. And they pay powerful tribute to the spirit of black America.
In this volume, some of the leading figures in the field have been brought together to write on the roots of the historic preservation movement in the United States, ranging from New York to Santa Fe, Charleston to Chicago. Giving Preservation a History explores the long history of historic preservation: how preservation movements have taken a leading role in shaping American urban space and development; how historic preservation battles have reflected broader social forces; and what the changing nature of historic preservation means for efforts to preserve national, urban, and local heritage. The second edition adds several new essays addressing key developing areas in the field by major new voices. The new essays represent the broadening range of scholarship on historic preservation generated since the publication of the first edition, taking better account of the role of cultural diversity and difference within the field while exploring the connections between preservation and allied concerns such as environmental sustainability, LGBTQ and nonwhite identity, and economic development.
