Save America's Treasures Update

Yesterday I wrote about the White House announcement that the Preserve America and Save America's Treasures programs were to be eliminated. The reason given was that: Both programs lack rigorous performance metrics and evaluation efforts so the benefits are unclear.

Benefits are unclear? If anyone had bothered to make the most basic of calculations they could not have said that with a straight face.

So today I requested from the National Park Service the data on the expenditures from Save Americas Treasures. I suppose it took me maybe two hours to do this analysis, using, by the way, the Department of Commerce's econometric model for economic impact.

Here's the story:

Between 1999 and 2009, the Save America's Treasures program allocated around $220 million dollars for the restoration of nearly 900 historic structures, many of them National Historic Landmarks. This investment by the SAT program generated in excess of $330 million from other sources. This work meant 16,012 jobs (a job being one full time equivalent job for one year...the same way they are counting jobs for the Stimulus Program). The cost per job created? $13,780.

This compares with the White House announcement that the Stimulus Package is creating one job for every $248,000. Whose program is helping the economy?

I know they aren't stupid at the White House. Are they just too damned lazy to make the most basic of analyses?

Or did they conclude that the preservation movement was just so impotent that they could kick it around with impunity?

If there was such a thing as shame left in Washington the White House should be ashamed to be throwing away a program that creates 18 times as many jobs per expenditure than does their own Stimulus Plan; ashamed to be so inattentive they the couldn't be troubled to do a couple of hours of work before they dumped a program; but mostly ashamed of kicking around a constituency group because they were deemed to be too weak and small to defend themselves.

This isn't the audacity of hope; this is the audacity of demagogic, self-serving, Richard Daley Chicago gutter politics.

Time for Reflection

On January 31st the White House announced that the 2011 budget would eliminate all funding for the Save America’s Treasures and the Preserve America programs. The White House blog explained the decision this way:

Cutting Save America’s Treasures and Preserve America grant programs at the National Park Service. Save America’s Treasures program was started to mark the millennium and was supposed to last for two years. Both programs lack rigorous performance metrics and evaluation efforts so the benefits are unclear.

This announcement certainly riled the historic preservation movement including a series of postings on the National Trust’s Forum listserv under the subject line, “It’s Time to Declare War.”

I don’t know if it’s time to declare war or not. But I do know that it is time for preservationists to rethink the progress we thought we had made over the last three decades. And I have to say I’m at the head of the line. Naively I sincerely believed that as we have broadened the definition of the roles that historic preservation plays in society, as we have documented the wide range of positive economic impacts of historic preservation, as we have demonstrated the contribution of historic preservation to Smart Growth, sustainable development, affordable housing, downtown revitalization – that after all of this I thought our message had finally gotten through.

I was wrong.

But the most angering, in fact humiliating part of the White House announcement isn’t that those programs were cut from the budget. These are times when I think it is perfectly legitimate to review every item in the budget for savings…we’ll go bankrupt if we don’t do that. And SAT and Preserve America should have to be defended like any other program.

No, I’m angered and humiliated because historic preservation was used as the poster child for programs deemed not to work.

Remember the second biggest bully on the playground in grade school? Well I remember the day he got beat up by the biggest bully. And what did the second biggest bully do the next day? Picked out the weakest, geekiest, most defenseless kid in the school and beat him up. Why? Because he knew he could get away with it.

That’s what this White House announcement was…they got beat up and so they pick out the perceived 98 pound weakling to slap around.

This announcement had absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with the federal deficit. The rounding errors in the budgeting process are ten times greater than the annual amount spent on these two programs combined. Here’s the analogy. You have a household income of $80,000 per year, but decide “We need to cut back.” So what do you do? Eliminate $0.04 from your monthly expenditures. That’s right…four cents a month of an $80,000 a year income is the equivalent of these cuts.

But it’s not even that. They did not spend an hour pondering the benefits of this program; they picked on the weakest kid on the block to give the illusion they were doing something about the theft from future generations that this deficit represents.

This is absolutely Nixonian in its manipulative hypocrisy. Save America's Treasures supposed to last just two years? Yes, but it was extended because it worked! Too bad the same can’t be said for the stimulus package. Oh, no metrics or performance evaluations? One of the recommendations coming out of Laura Bush’s Preservation Summit was to devise a standardized set of metrics for preservation’s impact. In fact before the end of the last administration, the process of developing those metrics was begun in the Department of Commerce. What’s happened with that in the last 13 months? Absolutely nothing! I guess they’ve been too busy inventing ways to stimulate the economy that have been so measurably successful.

We had to have the stimulus, and Republicans are putting party over country to claim we didn't. But what the money was appropriated for had everything do to with reelecting Democrats and almost nothing to do with good public policy.

Most of the developed countries in the world had a major heritage conservation component in their stimulus packages. Why? jobs, job training, local impact, labor intensity, affects industry most adversely affected, impacts local economies, long term investment, etc. etc. Historic preservation element in the US stimulus plan? $0.

In December the White House announced that so far the $159 billion spent in grants and loans under the stimulus plan had created or saved 640,000 jobs. But make the next calculation -- that works out to $248,000 per job. I want one of those jobs!

The following week Australia released the results of the heritage portion of their stimulus package -- cost per job? $21,818 -- 11 times the cost effectiveness than whatever the hell we're spending the stimulus money on. In other words, for every million dollars spent through the US stimulus programs, around 4 jobs were created. For every million the Australians spent on the heritage portion of their stimulus program, 46 jobs were created.

In contrast to the success stories in a dozen other countries using heritage as part of the stimulus, we have an administration dumping Preserve America and Save America's Treasures. Or you can look at it this way....in 7 hours and 50 minutes the interest (forget paying back the principal) on the stimulus package is more than the combined annual budgets of Save America's Treasures and the Preserve America program.

But beyond that, the people in the White House are way too smart for this to be accidental. This was a very public, very classless slap in the face to Hillary Clinton and Laura Bush, the two first ladies whose programs they were. Hillary is one thing. But when Michelle Obama was getting heat from everywhere about her performance as First Lady, it was Laura Bush who stepped up and defended her. So how does the White House reciprocate? “Here’s the finger, Laura…you and your program as well.”

I blamed the Democrats on the Hill rather than Obama for the idiotic allocations in the Stimulus Bill. I happily crossed party lines to vote for him. But as for this new budget I can no longer give Obama a pass. This was the crassest of political demagoguery but also demonstrates how impotent the preservation movement is seen as being.

And if the White House action were the only bad news we could attribute it to some idiot in OMB who deserves a trip to the woodshed. But in the legislature in Arizona a Republican State senator has introduced a bill to end property tax reductions for historic houses. In Indiana a Republican state legislator is angry because CVS was denied permission to demolish a historic church in her district so she is proposing to emasculate the Indianapolis Preservation Commission. In Missouri, Iowa and elsewhere reducing the effectiveness of state historic tax credits is high on legislative agendas. In Washington the state Main Street program is proposed to be zeroed out. A new city council in Poughkeepsie, New York repealed the historic preservation ordinance just passed by the previous council.

How does the preservation movement react without just being seen as one more group crying, “Yeah, cut the other guys but not us”? I don’t know. But that’s the least of our problems. I don’t think I’m the only one who so significantly misjudged the progress we have made.

We either need to change the mission, change the message or change the messenger.

When I was in grade school I was neither the bully nor the kid that always got picked on. But at least now I know how the second one felt.

Australian vs American Stimulus Plan

Last week an Australian newspaper had this headline: Jobs Fund to Support $60 Million Heritage Investment and Create Thousands of Australian Jobs.

Then the body of the story said this:

By working together we are improving protection for our important heritage places and in turn delivering flow-on employment, skills development and economic benefits to communities all around Australia.

Our natural and cultural heritage values are important drivers of regional economies. They are the linkages for communities with their history to share and build sustainable livelihoods.

We’ve long known our heritage places are important to the well-being of our community as they contribute to our national identity.

They also contribute to our economic prosperity.

The story said that the expenditure of $60 million resulted in the creation of 2750 jobs. So do the math - 2750 jobs for $60 million works out to $21,818 per job AND saved Australia's heritage.

Then today here was the headline in the Washington Post: White House Trumpets reports on job creation.

The first paragraph reads as follows:

The White House on Friday embraced reports showing that the $159 billion and grants and loans made so far under the economic stimulus package has created or saved about 640,000 jobs.

So, again, do the math - 640,000 jobs for $159 billion works out to $248,000 per job.

That is 11 TIMES the cost per job as the Australian stimulus program. 11 TIMES!

Or, to put it differently, eleven jobs are created in Australian for the same amount of stimulus money that it takes to create one job here.

And Australia (and Norway, and France, and Slovakia, and Hong Kong, and Canada, and the Netherlands, and Luxembourg) all had heritage conservation as part of thier stimulus plans.

The US stimulus plan? Historic preservation didn't make the cut.

Obviously there is no such thing as embarrassment, shame, or responsibility in Congress.

That translating software isn't quite there yet

Vince Michael is a friend of mine and also the director of the graduate program in historic preservation at the Art Institute of Chicago. Vince attended the speech I gave at the Forum Luncheon on the last day of the National Trust conference in Nashville. He wrote a series of blogs about Nashville and the conference and included some very kind remarks about my speech.

Well some computer somewhere picked up Vince's blog, and apparently translated it into some unknown language and then back into English. Then it was posted on a site called Live Journal.

So below I have pasted the first four paragraphs of Vince's blog each followed with the Live Journal translation. The latter is in italics. You couldn't make this up for a Saturday Night Live skit.

Heritage Conservation, not Historic Preservation

The final event at the National Preservation Conference in Nashville was a lunch featuring speaker Donovan Rypkema, a longtime preservation contributor whose specialty is the economics of historic preservation. Don always has numerous inspiring insights, and this presentation was no exception. His focus was preservation in 50 years, and it was a call to action that called for significant change. I agree with 99 percent of it, and here is why.

Heritage Preservation, not Historical Saving

The last event at the Subject Saving Conference in Nashville was a dejeuner featuring utterer Donovan Rypkema, a longtime saving subscriber whose metier is the economics of historical saving. Don e'er holds numerous inspiring penetrations, and this presentation was no elision. His centering was saving in 50 geezerhood, and it was a call to action that named for important modification. I concord with 99 pct of it, and here is why.

First, Don talked about the recent and virally successful "This Place Matters" photo contest which the National Trust held on its website (link on the right). The event was standard 21st century user interface: people print out "This Place Matters" signs from the Trust, and photograph them in front of places that mattered to them. Then people voted on their favorites. It was an exercise in the democracy of the built environment, and it was a revelation.

Firstly, Don spoke about the recent and virally successful `` This Spot Matters '' photograph competition which the Nt kept on its site ( nexus on the right ). The event was standard Twenty-first century interface: people publish out `` This Spot Matters '' marks from the Trust, and snap them ahead of spots that interested them. So people voted on their favorites. It was an exercising in the democracy of the constructed environment, and it was a revealing.

It was a revelation because, as Don pointed out, almost all of the finalists were NOT monumental buildings in the traditional sense of historic preservation. They weren't outstanding architectural landmarks or the homes of famous people. The winner was a Humble Oil station in San Antonio, second place was a boathouse in Door County, Wisconsin and third place was a graveyard with a sailor holding the sign near a gravestone. But the effort was a huge success, because PEOPLE were deciding what PLACES mattered to them.

It was a disclosure because, as Don showed out, about all of the finalists were NOT monumental edifices in the traditional sense of historical saving. They were n't outstanding architectural landmarks or the places of illustrious people. The victor was a Humble Oil station in San Antonio, 2nd spot was a boathouse in Door County, Wisconsin and tertiary spot was a necropolis with a crewman maintaining the mark near a tombstone. But the attempt was a Brobdingnagian success, because PEOPLE were determining what Spots interested them.

Don took this as a call for preservationists to reestablish the relationship between why something is important and how we preserve it. This is so true and so important. For too long, we have used curatorial procedures designed for fine art museums to determine how we treat elements of the built environment. Treating the Humble Oil station or the Door County boathouse like a Van Gogh or a Rembrandt is not necessary or even useful. There are physical elements of those properties that need to be maintained, but so does their relationship to their environment. In fact, their connection to PLACE is what is MOST IMPORTANT. It is similar to the philosophy of the historic district, where individual significance or individual artistry, elegance or craftsmanship are subservient to the whole thing. The whole thing is a PLACE, and it is what is most important.

Don took this as a call for preservationists to reinstate the relationship between why something is important you bet we uphold it. This is so true and then important. For overly long, we hold utilized curatorial processes planned for art museums to find how we handle elements of the constructed environment. Handling the Humble Oil station or the Door County boathouse like a Vincent van gogh or a Rembrandt is not necessary or even utile. There are physical elements of those belongings that involve to be kept, but so makes their relationship to their environment. In point of fact, their connectedness to Spot is what is MOST IMPORTANT. It is similar to the doctrine of the historical dominion, where single significance or single art, elegance or craft are subservient to the whole thing. The whole thing is a Spot, and it is what is most important.

Well, thanks, Vince, for the kind words.

And you computer geeks out there writing translating software - you might have a bit more work to do.

Mea Culpa, Mea Culpa

At the beginning of this year I promised that I would be more diligent about regular postings. And it's not that there haven't been great "stories from the field" to write about, both domestic and foreign. But I haven't done it. And I've found that if I don't write something within a day or two when I learned the story, the nuanced lessons learned are buried in the far, and unrecoverable reaches of my aging brain.

And, self-discipline has never exactly been my strong suit, including, but certainly not limited, to writing.

So I am making another posting, but I felt the need to offer this mea culpa before I did.

Thanks for both reading and understanding.

Making Preservation Relevant for the Next 50 Years

The National Trust's yearly conference concluded yesterday in Nashville. The last formal event was the annual Forum Luncheon, Forum being the subset of Trust members who are primarily practicing professionals in historic preservation. It was my privilege to give the presentation at that event.

In the past Forum Journal, the quarterly publication of Forum, has reprinted many of the presentations from the Trust conference. Because of timing, this speech won't appear until the Spring 2010 issue of Forum Journal. So I'm posting my remarks online now and they are included below. Comments, questions, and dissents are certainly welcome.

rypkema

Making Historic Preservation Relevant for the Next 50 Years
Forum Luncheon
Nashville, Tennessee
October 17, 2009

Thank you.

I am particularly pleased to have been invited to make this presentation. As you all know this will be the last National Trust conference where Peter Brink is in command. There are probably some people who care as much about historic preservation as Peter, including my long time friends Myrick Howard, David Brown, Randy Shepard and Amy MacDonell and many of you in this room. But I don't think anyone cares more about preservationists - personally and professionally - than does Peter.

Many of you have individually benefited from Peter's leadership, his guidance, and most importantly his friendship. I certainly have, and I want to thank you for that, Peter.

More than any other individual, Peter has given me numerous opportunities over the last two decades to broaden how I think about historic preservation, and has given me the forum - no pun intended - to think out loud about this movement. It was Peter's idea for me to write The Economics of Historic Preservation. It was Peter who got me engaged in the debate about preserving the recent past. It was Peter who a few years ago who gave me the platform of this luncheon to give what I've come to think of as my "historic preservation as foreign policy" speech...and my having been given the opportunity to think about those issues lead directly to the expansion of my professional practice to an international level.

And it was Peter who called me 7 or 8 months ago and asked if I would think about what the historic preservation movement is going to have to do to be relevant fifty years from now, and then deliver those thoughts here today.

The good news is that I'll certainly be dead 50 years from now so won't be around to be held accountable for whatever I might spout off about today.

But I have been thinking, and scribbling notes, and talking to others about this presentation for months now. And I would hope that at least a few pieces of it are worthy of discussion, debate and particularly dissent both here today and perhaps in the months ahead. But, candidly, I've tried to be particularly careful with the ideas I'm going to present, and the words I use to present them. And this is the reason: Forum Journal - which, as you know, is by far the best publication for the practicing professional in preservation today - typically prints the texts of the major presentations at the Trust Conference and may do that with my comments today.

Therefore I have a very important caveat for anyone who listens to or later reads these remarks - nothing whatsoever that I say should be interpreted as a criticism of today's preservation commissions, the National Park Service, Preservation Action, ICOMOS or my fellow preservationists. I want to make that clear, because the last thing I want is for my comments to be taken out of context and used by opponents of historic preservation as an argument against what we are all trying to do by saying, "See, even this guy who spoke at the National Trust conference thinks that.....whatever." I repeat - nothing I say from here on out is a critique of today's historic preservation.

And I want to make doubly clear that this is not a critique of the National Trust. When someone writes the history of the Trust under Dick Moe, a central theme will be how he spent his time making the National Trust specifically, but by extension, the preservation movement more relevant - Smart Growth, the Trust's collection of properties, the sustainable development program, the support for state and local preservation organizations - every one of those initiatives was about the relevancy.

So I certainly do not believe that in the last fifty years preservation has not been relevant - it certainly has. But I have taken seriously Peter's charge to think about what the preservation movement is going to have to do to be relevant fifty years from now, and everything I say is in that context.

I often tell clients that one of the few ways I'm useful to them is that I'm always candid...sometimes with the car running to get me out of town. And I'll be candid today. If most of you aren't mad at me for something or other I say I probably haven't done the job Peter asked me to do. And I'll move among the theoretical, the linguistic, the political and the practical.

One last caveat - if there is anything I've learned from working with Main Street communities for the last 25 years, it is the importance of incrementalism. So even if some of the perspectives I offer today have merit, should they be implemented tomorrow? No. Peter's time frame was 50 years, not 15 minutes...change should happen incrementally over time, not be instantly imposed.

But here is why the discussion of relevancy is relevant today - the passage of the $787 Billion dollar stimulus plan last February. This was a statement of Congressional priorities affecting two generations. I say two generations, because no one in this room will still be in the workforce when this bill is finally paid off. And every single thing that was included in that bill was deemed by Congress to be more relevant than historic preservation.

Don't get me wrong, this was not a failure on the part of the National Trust or Preservation Action to effectively lobby to be included. The haste, the complexity, and the secrecy with which this bill was put together meant that unless you were a Democratic member of an appropriations committee, the chance of influencing the final package was virtually non-existent.

Instead it represents how much we as a preservation movement need to do in the next 50 years to be as relevant as we ought to be. And it is not that preservation doesn't have friends in Congress. The introduction and bipartisan support for The Community Restoration and Revitalization Act is evidence of that.

But the stimulus bill was about jobs, about economic development, about sustainable development - three things that historic preservation does better than almost any other activity and should have been an obvious priority. And yet we didn't make the short list; we didn't make the long list; we didn't even make the footnotes.

I'm mistaken there. In the first draft there was $55 million for historic preservation, but that was one of the few things that got cut. Even had it been left in, it was a statistically meaningless amount. The interest accrued on the stimulus spending between when you went to bed last night and right now is more than the $55 million that was designated for preservation.

After the preservation allocation was cut, here is what I found posted on the website of a financial institution: Previously, the bill contained an item that would give a big payday to historic preservation. A $55 million payday to be exact. I can't say that I know what the money was going to fund, exactly. Much historic preservation mostly involves leaving things alone. But I can say that there isn't a correlation between historic preservation and improving the economy.

If we know something and someone else doesn't know it - that's not their fault, that's our fault. And obviously we have not made our case.

But it's not like nobody gets it. The European Heads of Heritage Forum spent their spring meeting talking about heritage stimulus during an economic recession. Norway, France, Slovakia, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, Canada, Australia, Hong Kong - every one of them had specific funding for historic preservation in their own stimulus plans.

Why? Heritage conservation creates jobs. It creates jobs in the sector most seriously impacted by this recession. It creates jobs where there is a significant shortage of skills. It has extraordinary impact on local economies. And it invests in assets that are both sustainable and long term.

Here was part of the EHHF statement: All the evidence demonstrates that investment in heritage is an inherently sustainable, long term, and measurably successful solution to economic recession.

The European Parliament even held a hearing in March about the role of heritage conservation in economic downturns. The equivalent hearing in the US Congress? Well, I guess I missed that notice in the Congressional Record.

So it is certainly relevant that we talk about relevancy.

If historic preservation is going to be relevant in fifty years, we need to revisit the basic question - what do we want to preserve and why? Now I know this debate takes place in graduate school classrooms and rather arcane academic conferences, but we need to engage the discussion to help define our roles as practicing preservationists.

Think about the beginnings of historic preservation in America. It began with saving Mount Vernon, which was not only the home of our first president, but also a mansion of a wealthy landowner. And then preservation moved to landmarks, monuments, and the gems of architecture as art. We saved buildings that were most important in our national history and we saved buildings of great beauty. And I would argue that was the appropriate starting point. Even when the National Historic Preservation Act was passed the primary focus was on architecture as art and on the associative importance of buildings to our history.

As a consequence our framework for the treatment of buildings we decided were worthy of historic designation - local design guidelines, the Secretary's Standards, preservation ordinances - responded to that thinking about what was historic. And in the minds of many, historic preservation was simply a subset of architecture.

But how is historic preservation different today? Here is my test - look at what made the list of the National Trust's "This Place Matters" program. Virtually none of the finalists met the test of either being an architectural masterpiece or of particular significance to our national history. Those places were nominated because they mattered to the local community and in many cases not on architectural grounds. I for one think that is a wonderful way for historic preservation to have evolved.

These are places that matter to the local community, therefore, by definition, they are places that are relevant to the local community. But our regulatory environment, our preservation philosophy, and our preservation education is still largely stuck in the past.

We need to reestablish the relationship between why something is deemed worthy of historic designation, and the rules we have in place to maintain its significance. If, for example, materials were in no way part of what creates the significance of the building, why are we being rabid about what materials are used in rehabilitation? English Heritage is currently revisiting their listing documents, not to make things more demanding, but to add flexibility for the treatment of building elements that weren't part of why a building was listed in the first place.

On the philosophical side, we have these endless debates about authenticity. In the case of Montpelier, for example, that was a very important debate to have - whether to go back to the Madison building or also preserve the later DuPont additions. But Montpelier is the type of monument - a mansion with architectural and associative importance - for which the philosophy of authenticity was developed. But is that still germane for the types of places identified today as places that matter? If we are honest with ourselves, the sheer act of designation and placing significant constraints on what can happen to a property in the future does far more to remove the authenticity of the building than does some minor materials substitution. Except for grand monuments, almost all buildings were built to be able to evolve over time. And in most cases we are either precluding or severely restricting the ability for the building to do that in the name of authenticity.

Does that mean I think we should remove the restrictions on what can happen to historically designated buildings? Absolutely not. What I think we should remove is our more than hypocritical concept of authenticity for the majority of properties we deem worthy of protection.

Today we are designating properties, not for their architectural grandeur or associative significance, but for their importance to the local community and, in many cases, as a tool to help a neighborhood have a say in how it changes over time. But our understanding of those issues is far more reliant on sociology, political science, psychology, urban planning, economics, and anthropology than it is on architectural history, materials conservation, or knowing the difference between Queen Anne and High Victorian.

So if the nature of what kinds of places matter is naturally evolving to become more relevant, then our regulatory structure, our philosophy and our education need to evolve as well.

Which brings up a related issue - the role of the preservation elites. Those of us with technical training and education in historic preservation believe we should have more say in what is historic and what should be preserved and how, than the guy on the street. So the Park Service doesn't have auto mechanics reviewing tax credit projects, they have architectural historians. And chances are your local preservation ordinance spells out the qualifications for serving on the commission, and that will be people with particular expertise in historic preservation.

But, again as the This Place Matters program amply demonstrates, we are rapidly democratizing what constitutes those places worthy of preservation - moving that decision beyond those with specific preservation expertise. If that's the right thing to do to make historic preservation relevant, it has important implications for the role of the expert.

In the mid 1960s, when today's framework for preservation policy was being established, there was a conscious decision that we shouldn't have a graded system of historic resources. There was the fear that if we had, for example, Class A, Class B and Class C buildings, that would be handing demolition permits to developers and local governments who would argue, 'It can't be that important. It's a Class C building." I both understand and concur with the reasoning at that time. When even the best of our built heritage was being lost through rampant urban renewal and misguided development decisions, it was necessary to yell "STOP!".

But in half a century we have matured as a country and as a movement. We lack credibility, and therefore relevance, when we claim every historically designated building is equally important. A few years ago a good friend and well regarded preservationist said to me, "To young people today, the first McDonalds is more important than Mount Vernon." I don't know if young people believe that. But if they do, they are wrong! They are not equally important. I'm not against designating the first McDonalds. But if an upcoming generation of preservationists thinks there is equivalence between Mount Vernon and McDonalds, I'm burning my National Trust membership card.

And the trouble of not identifying relative importance means we are terrible about setting priorities. Historic resources, like natural resources, need to be managed over time. It is impossible to have good management if you're unable or unwilling to establish priorities.

Priorities are also necessary when we decide which battles to fight. We will never have enough financial, human, or political resources to fight and win every preservation battle. So we need to have some process to decide which battles we are going to be fully engaged in. And we cannot do that if we are unwilling to establish priorities.

One of the lessons of relevance that the preservation movement has learned in recent years is that all preservation, like all politics, is local. And there is much positive about that - it is consistent with historic American land use policy, and it is local people who are best able to identify what is important locally. But there is a drawback. If we are going to have valuable, high quality, livable, sustainable cities fifty years from now, our vision cannot be bound by municipal boundaries. We need to think on a regional basis, often crossing state lines. This is going to be a herculean effort that is going to require advocacy and expertise from many disciplines, but historic preservation needs to be at the forefront.

Another area where preservationists need to use our creativity and to join with others is the invention of new land use tools. In American planning and zoning law there are very few tools available to allow citizens to influence the character and quality of their neighborhoods. Historic designation is one of the few that exist. And when there is only one tool, that tool is used whether or not it is appropriate. Preservationists are the ones with more experience than anyone in using local legislation to protect and enhance the quality and character of neighborhoods. We need to use that experience to help develop additional tools beyond historic designation.

If preservation is going to be relevant we cannot ignore the demographics of this country. The young preservation activists of fifty years from now aren't even born yet, and won't be born for another twenty or twenty-five years. And when they are born, less than half of them will be non-Hispanic white. So the ongoing efforts to racially and ethnically diversity the preservation movement need not only to be continued, but to be stepped up, not out of some drive for political correctness, but as an imperative if preservation is to be relevant fifty years from now.

The issue of sustainability is not one more fad that will fade in a year or two. Sustainable development is central to environmental, cultural, and economic survival. And there is no element of society that more broadly adds to all three of the components of sustainability than does historic preservation. And if we get bogged down in arguing for a couple of more points on some LEED scoring system we will have lost the battle. Green buildings are not a synonym for sustainable development. The Trust's sustainability initiative was begun as "Beyond Green Buildings". If we are to be relevant in fifty years, now is the time to move beyond green buildings.

Some of you may have been involved in the rather esoteric discussions over the last year on the phrase historic urban landscape. Sometime in the next year UNESCO is going to adopt a protocol on historic urban landscapes. What are historic urban landscapes? Historic cities. Why don"t they just say, "historic cities"? There's some obtuse reason dealing with the fact that the phrase "historic cities" is not found in the World Heritage Convention. But there is a more subtle concept here. Think about the natural landscape - it inherently changes over time. The conservation of the natural landscape means to manage its evolution over time, not its preservation at a fixed point in time.

To be relevant that's how we should approach our cities - to manage their change over time, not fix them at a point in time. I chose two definitions from my American Heritage Dictionary: preserve: to keep in perfect or unaltered condition; and conserve: to protect from loss or depletion. For our relative handful of national monuments, to preserve is probably what we should strive for. But for the vast majority of the historic buildings in America, for the Places that Matter, I think we want to conserve them.

That's why to be relevant, I think our movement should join most of the rest of the world and be about heritage conservation, rather than historic preservation.

Two final recommendations for relevancy in the coming years. First, historic preservation is too important on too many levels to be buried in the bureaucratic basement of the Department of the Interior. It should become a key element of a new cabinet level Department of Sustainable Development.

Second, I hope there is no doubt about my admiration for Dick Moe. He is by far the best president the National Trust has ever had and I hope he stays in that position for years to come. But when he does decide to retire, I think it's time that we acknowledge a reality in the American preservation movement - that it overwhelmingly owes its existence and success to the efforts of women. The next National Trust president should be a woman.

Those of us you've heard from here today - Dick and Peter, Myrick, Valecia and I - have all done our best to make historic preservation relevant, and will continue to do so for years into the future. Years into the future, but not fifty years into the future.

The opportunity exists for heritage conservation not just to become more relevant, but to increase its relevance a hundred fold. That's the challenge that will be left to others in this room. It won't happen without you. But America will be not just a more sustainable country, but a better country because of what you will do.

Thank you for that, and thank you for having me here today.

@ Donovan D. Rypkema, 2009
PlaceEconomics
1785 Massachusetts Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20036
202-588-6258
DRypkema@PlaceEconomics.com
www.PlaceEconomics.com

The Truck Farm - Update

Back in August I posted an entry on a great business in Las Cruses, New Mexico named The Truck Farm. They are producers/purveyors of GREAT New Mexican, Mexican, Southwestern condiments. It is a great small business.

I told them at the time that they needed their own website to directly sell their wonderful products. Well I learned that they now have one. You can find them at www.sweethots.com.

If you like Southwestern cuisine of any kind, it can only get better with these products!

(and for any of you who are suspicious...this is an unsolicited, and uncompensated endorsement. I just love the Truck Farm, both as a great small business and for their products.)