Historic preservation is not the answer to every urban problem. But it is part of the answer to most of them.

Cities and urban issues deserve priority consideration in this presidential race, and preservationists should help frame both parties' urban agendas.

Preservationists have already become active in the Obama campaign as evidenced by the website below.

http://my.barackobama.com/page/community/group/HistoricPreservationforObama

This task force HPfO (Historic Preservation for Obama) was started by Washington attorney Andrew Potts. For those of you who don't know Andrew, he formerly worked at the National Trust where he mastered the obscure procedures to get the Trust active in the New Markets Tax Credit program.

If and when the McCain campaign has a similar preservation advocacy group within the campaign, I'll let you know that as well.

Labels: election, historic preservation, Obama

Well, today I got all excited. From one of my news searching systems I got this: "The Green Building Council chair made a presentation on the Green Building Program that focuses on the areas of sustainable site development, improving of indoor air quality, water management, energy management, solid waste management, green materials and to promote heritage conservation."

"Hooray", I thought, "Those green building people finally get it."

Alas, once again I was wrong. Well, not wrong, the green building people DO get it...but those are the green building people in the Philippines. That quotation came from a press release from the Philippine Department of Energy.

So the third world gets the connection. It would be nice if the EPA and the US Green Building Council would catch up with the developing world one of these days.

Labels: green buildings, historic preservation, sustainable development

In Part 1 and Part 2 of Historic Preservation and America in the World, I tried to lay out twenty reasons why historic preservation ought to be a key component of US foreign policy.

In this last entry in the series are 10 ways the US government could do that. Others, of course, have more, different, and perhaps better ideas. But maybe these could be a starting point.

1. Follow-up services for visitors. Eight or ten times a year the State Department funds a multi-city tour for a visiting delegation whose primary interest is cultural heritage. Washington is nearly always on the travel itinerary and these groups are typically given briefings by US/ICOMOS, the National Park Service, the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation, the National Trust and others. Every indication is that the trips and the information received is appreciated and welcomed by the participants. In almost every instance members of the delegations will spontaneously say, "We could certainly use some on-site assistance on ..." Sometimes the need is on the policy side, sometimes education, sometimes legal framework, sometimes other issues. But there is no follow up. The State Department should fund through US/ICOMOS, the National Trust or other entities follow-up services for visitors composed of teams of expertise in the specific areas that were defined by the visitors.

Heritage training in Medan, Sumatra, Indonesia

2. Conference scholarships. American preservationists have abundant opportunities to learn. Each year the National Trust, the Association for Preservation Technology, US/ICOMOS, the National Main Street Center and other organizations hold conferences, all of which are rich with educational sessions. Each year there are perhaps a dozen other preservation related national conferences on specific subjects. Through embassies, funds should be made available to pay for travel expenses and registrations for heritage conservationists from other countries to attend these conferences.

3. Short-course training. Related to #2 is the range of short courses for preservation professionals and advocates annually in the US. Included are courses put on by the National Preservation Institute, the National Park Service, the National Trust and others. In most parts of the world this type of training and information is simply not available. Again the funding could come through US Embassies, but reaching potential international participants could be done through efforts of ICOMOS, the International National Trust Organization (INTO) and other cross-border preservation organizations.

4. Development banks. Three items are high on the agenda of nearly all of the international and regional development institutions such as the World Bank, the Inter American Development Bank, the Asian Development Bank, and others. Those items are: urban development, small and medium size enterprises (SMEs), and sustainable economic development. The United States should use its influence within those institutions to make the protection and reuse of recipient countries' historic resources as a central element in addressing those three issues.

5. Department of Interior international office. As the Federal agency most responsible for the implementation of historic preservation policy in the United States, the Department of the Interior as developed great expertise in a wide range of heritage conservation activities. The International Office within the Department of Interior should be fully funded and staffed in order to provide technical assistance internationally to countries in need of specialized expertise.

6. Federal agency expertise. Similarly other Federal agencies have in-house expertise in areas related to historic preservation. The Department of Housing and Urban Development, the Environmental Protection Agency, the Department of Commerce, the Department of Defense and others deal with issues where historic preservation is a vehicle, if not necessarily an end. This expertise could be provided to parallel departments in other countries. As an example, in 2003 then Secretary of HUD, Mel Martinez and his counterpart in the Spanish government hosted an exchange program in Spain involving experts from both countries in historic preservation. That effort was broadly deemed useful to both nations and similar activities should be undertaken regularly by other agencies.

Torzhok, Russia

7. Specific line item in foreign assistance. International aid programs at USAID and elsewhere should include historic preservation as a specifically targeted activity. What is often missed by donor agencies is that rarely is funding for historic preservation an end in itself. Rather there should be historic preservation funding where heritage buildings are the means to broader ends. These could include: job training, job creation, center city redevelopment, small business incubation, neighborhood stabilization, economic integration, affordable housing, education, and others. For example, instead of having a program that says, "We will build you a new school" have a program that says, "We will pay for the rehabilitation of a heritage building for a school." Thus more than one outcome results from a single expenditure.

8. Ambassador's Fund expansion. Although modest in total dollars, the Ambassador's Fund has been used by many US Embassies with great success and is held in high regard by local recipients. They very much view it as the type of modest support that demonstrates respect for the local culture by the US Government. This program should be expanded significantly.
9. Taking the lead on Habitat Agenda item IV C-8. There are many elements of the United National Habitat Agenda with which the US government - rightly or wrongly - has significant dissent. There is, however, a specific portion of that agenda (Section IV C-8) that deals specifically with the conservation and rehabilitation of the historical and cultural heritage. The United States should step forward and commit to be a major proponent and funder of that element of the Habitat Agenda.

10. Trade negotiations. For decades the United States has actively negotiated numerous international, multilateral, and bilateral trade agreements. In spite of the recent collapse of the Doha Round of negotiations, more trade pacts will no doubt be ratified in the future. Trade negotiations are inevitably complex and as a result often produce unintended consequences. Among those could very well be the challenge to programs encouraging historic preservation through direct financial assistance or investment incentives. These could be interpreted as a violation of free trade provisions. Every trade agreement, therefore, should spell out that no country's programs, the primary purpose of which is the preservation of heritage resources, will be interpreted as a violation of the given agreement. In some trade pacts, for example, it is spelled out that assistance to artists through the National Endowment for the Arts will not be considered a protectionist measure for a specific industry which might otherwise be considered a violation of the agreement. Language preserving the right of every country to have specialized programs for heritage conservation needs to be incorporated into every trade agreement.

Even if every one of the above were fully implemented, the total cost of the US taxpayers would be negligible relative to many of the expenditures currently being made to advance American interests internationally. Yet I firmly believe that the cost-benefit of such initiatives would be vastly superior to almost any current activity.

Finally, when was the last time that virtually every country in the world was on the same side of the same issue - India and Pakistan, Israel and the PLO, Africa and Europe, North America and South America? It was in the condemnation of the wanton destruction of the Buddhist statuary in Afghanistan by the Taliban - a historic preservation issue.

Conversely, in recent years perhaps the best example of the impact of symbolic healing was the restoration of the Old Bridge in Mostar, Bosnia and Herzegovina funded by the Aga Khan Trust for Culture and the World Monuments Fund.

If there is one adjective that describes the impact of historic preservation it is that one - healing. Healing our cities, healing our neighborhoods, healing our downtowns, healing our small towns, healing our economies - all by healing our historic resources.

If historic preservation has proven to be such a healing tool in America, it needs to be a healing tool supported by America in the rest of the world.

Labels: historic preservation, US foreign policy

The Habitat Agenda Goals and Principles, Commitments and the Global Plan of Action

Below are the Goals and Actions established by UN Habitat as they relate to heritage conservation. It is a good check list for all of us to see if we are addressing the issues that need our attention. The section and paragraph numbers are the same as in the original Habitat document.

8. Conservation and rehabilitation of the historical and cultural heritage

152. Historical places, objects and manifestations of cultural, scientific, symbolic, spiritual and religious value are important expressions of the culture, identity and religious beliefs of societies. Their role and importance, particularly in the light of the need for cultural identity and continuity in a rapidly changing world, need to be promoted. Buildings, spaces, places and landscapes charged with spiritual and religious value represent an important element of stable and humane social life and community pride.

Conservation, rehabilitation and culturally sensitive adaptive reuse of urban, rural and architectural heritage are also in accordance with the sustainable use of natural and human made resources. Access to culture and the cultural dimension of development is of the utmost importance and all people should be able to benefit from such access.

Actions

153. To promote historical and cultural continuity and to encourage broad civic participation in all kinds of cultural activities, Governments at the appropriate levels, including local authorities, should:

(a) Identify and document, whenever possible, the historical and cultural significance of areas, sites, landscapes, ecosystems, buildings and other objects and manifestations and establish conservation goals relevant to the cultural and spiritual development of society;

(b) Promote the awareness of such heritage in order to highlight its value and the need for its conservation and the financial viability of rehabilitation;

(c) Encourage and support local heritage and cultural institutions, associations and communities in their conservation and rehabilitation efforts and inculcate in children and youth an adequate sense of their heritage;

(d) Promote adequate financial and legal support for the effective protection of the cultural heritage;

(e) Promote education and training in traditional skills in all disciplines appropriate to the conservation and promotion of heritage;

(f) Promote the active role of older persons as custodians of cultural heritage, knowledge, trades and skills.

154. To integrate development with conservation and rehabilitation goals, Governments at the appropriate levels, including local authorities, should:

(a) Recognize that the historical and cultural heritage is an important asset, and strive to maintain the social, cultural and economic viability of historically and culturally important sites and communities;

(b) Preserve the inherited historical settlement and landscape forms, while protecting the integrity of the historical urban fabric and guiding new construction in historical areas;

(c) Provide adequate legal and financial support for the implementation of conservation and rehabilitation activities, in particular through adequate training of specialized human resources;

(d) Promote incentives for such conservation and rehabilitation to public, private and nonprofit developers;

(e) Promote community based action for the conservation, rehabilitation, regeneration and maintenance of neighbourhoods;

(f) Support public and private sector and community partnerships for the rehabilitation of inner cities and neighbourhoods;

(g) Ensure the incorporation of environmental concerns in conservation and rehabilitation projects;

(h) Take measures to reduce acid rain and other types of environmental pollution that damage buildings and other items of cultural and historical value;

(i) Adopt human settlements planning policies, including transport and other infrastructure policies, that avoid environmental degradation of historical and cultural areas;

(j) Ensure that the accessibility concerns of people with disabilities are incorporated in conservation and rehabilitation projects.

16. Developing historic preservation as a key component of our international policy provides a useful vehicle for our learning about other cultures on an in-depth and sustained basis. The most vociferous cheerleader for American policies today would hardly claim we're the most culturally aware nation on earth.

Labels: foreign policy, historic preservation

I was in Las Cruces, New Mexico this week for work with the downtown organization. If you wish you can read about that assignment and Las Cruces in the previous blog.

But among the coolest part of the work I do is the absolutely serendipity nature of the people I meet and the lessons I learn. And Jim and Cleda Hawman and their company The Truck Farm are great examples.

Jim's a farmer (at least that's how he bills himself) although for over twenty years he also worked for Sara Lee. Both Jim and Cleda are Las Cruces natives. In 1996 they began The Truck Farm in the fertile Mesilla Valley west of Las Cruces. Jim experimented with specialty crops finally deciding to specialize in berries. As production increased by 1998 it made sense to buy a local fruit and gift shop.

Well, as happens when entrepreneurs establish a differentiated market and meet customer demand, the business grew. By the end of 1999 The Truck Farm acquired two other small firms. The first was Tia Rita Products which produced chile-based products and gourmet spices and flavorings as well as packaged, easily prepared southwest dishes. Before the end of the year the Truck Farm bought the Desert Farms line of chile-based jellies, honey and other condiments.


But even though now their product range was substantial Jim continued to experiment. Here's what Cleda told me. "In 2000 we had a bumper crop of blackberries, there were tons of them. So I said to Jim, 'you've got to figure out something to do with all those berries!'" So Jim did. He experimented with mixing berries and chiles until he finally came up with Besito Caliente which means "A Hot Little Kiss". It's a syrup-like product that you can use for everything - flavoring margaritas, pouring on ice cream, spreading on pancakes, adding to cake batter, using as fruit dip, mixing with cream cheese...literally a hundred uses. They once entered Besito Caliente in a salsa contest as a joke but ended up as the winner. Another time they came in second - but there were 900 entrants. By last year Besito Caliente constituted over 40% of the sales of the Truck Farm. Well I brought half a suitcase of Truck Farm products home with me and have already dipped into the Jalapeno mustard and Cierra's Gourmet Mustard.

But I'm not in the food review business (although I found at least one source - the Hot Sauce Blog blog which raved about Tia Rita's products) and I'm not a shill for some small company in New Mexico. Rather what excited me about meeting Jim and Cleda and seeing their business was what a great economic development story it is.

Here is this small enterprise in relatively rural New Mexico that has built up a national, specialized market for their products. The majority of sales are wholesale to restaurants and gourmet food shops who use and/or resell their products. They do have a limited internet presence through the online market New Mexico's Own but Jim promises to have their own website in the not too distant future. And there is a small retail store attached to their production facility in Las Cruces.

They are selling their products nationally, thus bringing dollars into the local economy. But their purchases of both labor and materials are almost exclusively local - recirculating those dollars into the region's economy. That is effective economic development.

But here's what else impressed me. Every Wednesday and Saturday morning there is a farmers' market in downtown Las Cruces. Jim is always there with a range of his products. But he also uses that as an opportunity for first hand market research -- having people taste new products, compare different iterations, make recommendations and state preferences. Talking about getting input from your customers! And Jim takes it one step further. He says "I know how to grow things, and how to mix things as a product, but I don't know about naming the product after I've developed it." So what does he do? He asks his customers what he should call the product. The name Besito Caliente came from customer suggestions.

The small production facility (which Jim describes as very low tech) is viewable through windows from the retail section - you can literally see your product being prepared. If you ask nicely, Cleda will give you a couple of recipes for use of some of the products and suggestions on how to use others.

This is one great business...and even a better business model. The good news is that their son has now joined them at the Truck Farm.

So buy their products if you like spicy southwestern cuisine (and I definitely do). But more importantly learn from Jim and Cleda Hawman. They are what great small business and great economic development are all about.

Labels: economic development, New Mexico, small business

I spent the first half of this week in Las Cruces, New Mexico (population ~90,000). Las Cruces is New Mexico's second largest city and is located in the south of the state 40 miles west of El Paso, Texas. I was there for a technical assistance visit paid for by the Las Cruces Downtown organization and the City of Las Cruces.

My assignment was two-fold - to keynote the kickoff of a three day charette to design La Placita, a small plaza in downtown Las Cruces, and to have one-on-one meetings with 12 or 14 owners of downtown properties. I was there at the invitation of Cindi Fargo, executive director of Downtown Las Cruces which is a New Mexico Main Street affiliated organization. I've known Cindi for some years and worked with her when she had similar assignments in Escondido, California and Livingston, Montana.

Well, in Las Cruces, Cindi has her biggest challenge yet.


I'll start with the bad news first. Twenty five or thirty years ago the city fathers (I can't believe that any city mothers would have been so foolish) decided they would "revitalize" downtown Las Cruces. And in doing so the opted for not one or two but all five of the biggest, most expensive mistakes in downtown revitalization:

1. Build a pedestrian mall. Well, here it is, rarely a human being in sight, except for the great farmers' market Wednesday and Saturday mornings and when the historic Rio Grande Theater has productions.


In fairness a hundred or so communities built these pedestrian malls - invariably with Federal Urban Renewal dollars. Pedestrian malls are as close to a 100% urban design failure as there is. The rare exception success stories nearly all have the same variable - a million students next door who use the mall as their front yard. But unlike Las Cruces, most cities realized their error within five or ten years and tore the damn things out. I'm not a believer in "instant solutions" in downtown revitalization, but taking out pedestrian malls is as close to one as I've ever seen.

2. Tear down historic buildings.


It was decided that the historic buildings were useless, so around two-thirds of all structures were demolished. There are less than a handful of historic buildings left in downtown Las Cruces, but in a business district that has to be 80% vacant, it was notable that all of the historic buildings that remain are occupied.

3. Create lots of surface parking.

There are still fools who say, "If we just have enough parking, downtown will be successful". Well if that were the case downtown Las Cruces would be the most vibrant downtown in America. There's no shortage of surface parking spaces...on the sites of demolished historic buildings.

4. Listen to the traffic engineers and build one-way couplets to move cars fast.

Surrounding the downtown are three lane, one way streets. I thought of them as a moat of automobiles but locals referred to them as the "race track". Either way they encourage drivers not only to go right past the island that downtown has become, but do so apace.


5. Physically disconnect downtown with the nearby residential neighborhoods.

On both sides of the Isle of Downtown are great residential neighborhoods, with a variety of housing stock and wonderful historic resources. One of them would probably be called middle class and the other working class, but they are great places to live. But between the one-way streets noted above, and vehicular oriented developments between downtown and the neighborhoods, there isn't any sense of connectivity. And that's a shame, because those neighborhoods should constitute the major customer base (the other being the 4400 workers whose jobs are downtown) that could support a vibrant downtown economically and culturally.

But now the good news

The biggest part of the challenge in Las Cruces is that to get back up to zero, downtown advocates have to undo (at no little cost) the very expensive mistakes their predecessors made. But there are lots of reasons to hope that the Las Cruces downtown of tomorrow will be substantially better than the downtown of today. Here are some of those reasons:

1. There is almost universal recognition of the errors that were made, and a firm commitment particularly on the part of city government to undo them.

2. The middle section of the pedestrian mall has already been removed and plans on the board to remove the rest.

3. The one-way couplets will be returned to two-way streets.

4. The City adopted a Tax Increment District that includes both property and gross receipts taxes to help fund improvements.

5. The city council seems to "get it" in regards to downtown. Notably the Mayor Ken Miyagishima and Council Members Miguel Silva (whose district includes the downtown) and Sharon Thomas spent their Saturday attending the Main Street conference in Raton at the other end of the state. The city staff also understand the particular importance of downtown.

6. City government is committed to staying in the downtown and is building a new city hall there.

7. Unlike many other places with declining downtowns, the financial institutions remained at the core, providing an important institutional presence upon which to build future economic activity.

8. The Federal Government is building a new Court House downtown (although I may quibble about its scale, siting, design, massing, and orientation another time.)

9. There is a solid customer base of downtown workers and nearby residents whose needs could be met downtown.

10. Cultural institutions do exist in the otherwise nearly vacant downtown including the earlier mentioned Rio Grande Theater, a couple of other theaters, and the Branigan Cultural Center from whom I lifted the historic photo above and the aerial photograph of downtown.

11. While there aren't many businesses in downtown (only 2% of the retail volume in Las Cruces comes from downtown) those that are there certainly add character and differentiation, including a book store, a music store, several galleries and a couple of restaurants.

11. Business and professional firms that have been the core of what business there has been in downtown are part of the revitalization effort and for the most part well maintaining the buildings they are in.

13. Pending the awarding of New Markets Tax Credits a phased series of mixed use developments, including housing, are scheduled to be built on the surface parking lots.

14. There are several relatively young property owners who seem willing to incrementally risk their capital in both rehabilitating existing buildings and infill new construction. Most of them aren't burdened with the mis-impression that a successful downtown strategy is the same as a successful strip center development strategy.

15. There is an excellent, committed board of directors of the downtown organization.

16. By in large there is a realistic expectation of the time frame required for the turn around, with most understanding that while some reinvestment is taking place already, downtown revitalization is an incremental, long term process.

So those of you who are students of downtown revitalization, take a look at Las Cruces today for the mistakes of the past (and to make sure your city isn't still planning to make them). But also keep your eye on Las Cruces to see how well and how quickly a committed city can move past those mistakes and build a prosperous downtown for the future.

Labels: downtown revitalization, New Mexico, pedestrian malls

A couple of times each year I get to attend the awards ceremony of a state Main Street program somewhere, most recently in Raton, New Mexico. Under director Rich Williams, the New Mexico Main Street Program has become one of the best in the country. The program is particularly strong at providing very high level technical assistance to Main Street communities. The office in Santa Fe is a two person (although soon to become three) operation consisting of Rich and his "handle every detail imaginable" administrative program coordinator, Julie Blanke.

The technical assistance is provided through a cadre of contract consultants. While this isn't unique to New Mexico, Rich has managed to assemble very competent people with incredible experience in Main Street on a national level. Included among these are Stephanie Redman, former assistant director of the National Main Street Center in Washington, Keith Kjelstrom, who at one time headed the California Main Street Program, Elmo Baca who himself earlier ran the New Mexico program and was a preservation fellow at the American Academy in Rome, and Lani Lott former Main Street Manager in California who now operates her consulting practice out of Arizona. I've known, worked with, and learned from all four of these professionals for years. In addition to this talent a half dozen other experts in a variety of fields are part of the assistance available to New Mexico Main Street communities. I don't know of another state where this much experienced talent is so readily available to local programs.

But this entry isn't really about the New Mexico Main Street Program. Instead it is about an erroneous argument that I hear from someone almost every week -- "That historic preservation stuff might be fine if you have a lot of money, but it's all so expensive, who could afford it." Two of the award winners in Raton demonstrate what nonsense that claim really is.

Example 1: The Colfax County Society for Art, History, and Archaeology. This sixty year old organization is better known locally as the Raton Museum. When in 2004 the museum's board recognized they were out of space, they made the decision to acquire a large vacant building in downtown Raton. So they held fund raising events, did excellent planning, worked hard, and hired the right professionals to assist them. The result? A wonderful facility for the museum where it can both benefit from the activity in downtown Raton, but also importantly directly contribute to revitalization efforts there. The cost? Around $60 a square foot! What can you build today for $60 a square foot? Maybe a quonset hut on a concrete slab decorated with z-brick and Styrofoam beams. Instead they have a wonderful facility to house their collections as well as traveling exhibits. (while I was there, by the way, the exhibit was the New Deal Treasures, photographs of WPA and CCC projects - buildings, structures, and art - created in New Mexico during the depression).


How did they rehabilitate these historic buildings so cost effectively? Three things helped: 1) they bought the building at the right price; 2) they put in thousands of man/woman hours of hard labor scraping, painting, sanding, and hauling; and 3) they hired an architect and general contractor who knew what they were doing. The result? A great museum building at a price per square foot you probably would have to pay to build a new garage for your car.

Example 2: The Main Street Award for Excellence in Historic Preservation. This annual award went to the City of Santa Rosa (population 2500) and Guadalupe County (population less than 5000 including the 2500 in Santa Rosa). The school board decided they needed a new middle school so made the decision to abandon the 20,000 square foot facility which was originally built as the high school. Faced with seeing a large, vacant white-elephant in the middle of the downtown, Mayor Joseph Campos and city manager Timothy Dodge decided that was not an acceptable alternative. They met with the school district and the county commission and devised a plan to turn the school into the city/county administration building. This is such an obvious solution you'd think lots of places would be doing it - after all there are lots of vacated historic schools. Alas, it isn't that common. Far more frequent is when city government and county government don't even talk to each other, let alone cooperate on capital investment projects. And involving the third level of local government - the school district - is rarer still.


When I congratulated Mayor Campos on the success of the partnership he said, "Well, we are small. When you're as small as we are you have to cooperate like that." But Mayor Campos is wrong - in spite of being small and with scarce resources, the vast majority of places don't do what Santa Rosa and Guadalupe County did.

The project maintained the most important historic features of the building while adapting it to meet the 21st century needs of city and county government. The total cost of the project? Less than $420,000 - or just over $20/square foot. YES YOU READ THAT RIGHT - JUST OVER $20/SQUARE FOOT.

Now, certainly, the building had to be in pretty good shape when the city and county took it over, and not every vacated school could be put back into use that inexpensively. But here's the point - Virtually every horror story about the costs of historic preservation are of the vignette version. "Well I know of a project that cost a trillion dollars." And it's not that there aren't sometimes hideously expensive historic preservation projects. But it is nearly always the ridiculously expensive vignettes we hear about, not the extraordinarily cost effective projects like the Santa Rosa school. (By the way, the expensive horror stories in historic preservation are nearly always attributable some combination of three variables: 1) a building that had already suffered from years of deferred maintenance; 2) a general contractor who didn't know what the hell he was doing; and/or 3) an architect inexperienced in historic preservation who insisted on putting his/her stamp on the building instead of letting the building tell what it wanted to be).

Now Mayor Campos is also a state legislator, and I don't know if he's a Republican or Democrat and don't care. But politicians of all stripes ought to be concerned with fiscal responsibility, with prudent use of scarce taxpayers' dollars, with stretching public resources. Mayor Campos and his allies in Santa Rosa did exactly that -- through the adaptive reuse of an important historic building. THAT is what fiscal responsibility is all about.

And Santa Rosa hasn't stopped there. The former County Court House is undergoing restoration.


And the city has recently acquired a wonderful warehouse structure that it saw was too important to be left to deteriorate.


So don't leave unchallenged the spurious claim that historic preservation is too expensive. For every example of the out-of-control restoration budget, there are dozens of stories like Raton and Santa Rosa where smart people are being "conservative" in the best sense of the word -- conserving heritage assets and conserving scarce financial resources.

Labels: fiscal responsibility, historic preservation, Main Street

Last week I made a quick visit to New Orleans en route to New Mexico. The purpose of the New Orleans stop was to attend the board meeting of US/ICOMOS. But the treat of the day was taking a quick tour of the Holy Cross neighborhood with Patty Gay.
As anyone who as been at all active nationally in historic preservation knows, Patty is the Executive Director of the Preservation Resource Center, (PRC) the local preservation advocacy and education organization in New Orleans. Well, "advocacy and education" don't nearly do the organization justice. They have been working for over 30 years to make sure that the historic resources of one of America's most historic cities, aren't lost through demolition by bulldozer, demolition by abandonment, or demolition by neglect. And in New Orleans all three represent an ongoing threat.


There may be no place in the United States where the tangible culture (historic buildings, squares, street patterns) and the intangible (food, music, Cajun and Creole culture, art) are so directly connected. Somehow in that troubled city much of the business and political leadership has never understood that. The "culture" of New Orleans is widely appreciated, but there is too often the self-delusion that the intangible will hang around while the tangible is lost.

So this is the challenge that PRC has been facing for three decades. They haven't just talked about historic preservation, they've done historic preservation. And one of their targeted neighborhoods is Holy Cross. PRC had been working in Holy Cross prior to Katrina. But since then, of course, their efforts have had to be multiplied. In a strong partnership with the National Trust and others, PRC is acquiring, rehabilitating and reselling dozens of properties in the Holy Cross neighborhood and elsewhere.

While you can't understand the magnitude of the challenge without actually being there, taking a look at the Before and After photos will give you an idea.

One might make the case that the "landmarks" of New Orleans are safe from the wrecking ball. But the quality and character of the city is much more defined by its neighborhoods and vernacular buildings than by monumental structures. That's why PRC's major efforts are on the neighborhood level. Why Holy Cross? It is a neighborhood that meets several tests: 1) it is certainly historic with some structures dating to the middle of the 18th century; 2) a compact neighborhood with a great variety of architectural styles; 3) a neighborhood that has suffered from neglect and abandonment; 4) a neighborhood with long time residents (primarily African-American) who are committed to their neighborhood but with scarce financial resources; 5) a neighborhood of affordable housing; and 6) if not PRC, who?

Even though the impact of Katrina on Holy Cross was serious, it was not catastrophic. But residents there were precluded from returning to the neighborhood for six months after the hurricane. Take the best neighborhood in the country, and forcibly vacate it for six months and nothing good can result. But the residents have begun to return. They are occupying and beginning to reinvest in their homes. And the neighborhood is becoming active and vocal -- with community meetings nearly every week. And PRC is there -- making strategic investments hoping that their projects can serve as catalysts to first stabilize and then revitalize the Holy Cross neighborhood.

One of PRC's priorities in Holy Cross and elsewhere is economic integration and they are absolutely right in this. After working in inner city neighborhoods myself for 25 years, I've reached the conclusion that economic integration is perhaps even more important than racial integration at the neighborhood level. And here's my argument - make up your own list of what you think is essential for a healthy neighborhood. Put whatever you want on your list. Now find for me a neighborhood that is all poor that has more than one or two of those elements, let alone all of them. There aren't any. Neighborhoods that are all poor are not healthy neighborhoods, period. That's why economic integration needs to be a central strategy in neighborhood revitalization and it is a central strategy in Holy Cross.

Another initiative of PRC that includes structures in Holy Cross and elsewhere is the Ethnic Heritage Preservation Program where they identify homes of the legends of jazz in New Orleans. Home of two of the greats - Edward "Kid" Ory and Henry "Red" Allen - have been restored by PRC.

So will New Orleans "come back" after Katrina? Of course. Will it come back to its pre-Katrina days? Perhaps not, or not for a long time. I've been in New Orleans four or five times since Katrina, but after my afternoon in New Orleans last week I am absolutely convinced that without PRC literally manning the ramparts, the quality and character of New Orleans would be irretrievably lost.

Labels: economic integration, New Orleans, Preservation Resource Center