PlaceEconomics Blog

The Word is Getting Around

rypkema@placeeconomics.com (rypkema) — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 00:50:00 +0000

Two excellent columns have been written on the Obama administration's decision to trash the Save America's Treasures and Preserve America programs. One late last week appeared in Treehugger written by Lloyd Atler. The other appeared today in the Seattle based publication Crosscut written by Knute Berger.

Both merit reading, linking, and distributing.

Save America's Treasures, Stimulus Spending, and State Data

rypkema@placeeconomics.com (rypkema) — Mon, 15 Feb 2010 18:36:00 +0000

I'm not smart enough to figure out how to post the data on my website. But I've broken down state-by-state the numbers of jobs that Save America's Treasures has created and compared that with the most recent White House data, state-by-state, on stimulus spending and jobs created.

If you'd like a copy of the data tables just email me at DRypkema@PlaceEconomics.com and I'll send it to you as an attachment.

Save America's Treasures Update

rypkema@placeeconomics.com (rypkema) — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 20:42:00 +0000

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

rypkema@placeeconomics.com (rypkema) — Sun, 07 Feb 2010 20:19:00 +0000

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

rypkema@placeeconomics.com (rypkema) — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 01:25:00 +0000

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

rypkema@placeeconomics.com (rypkema) — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 17:03:00 +0000

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

rypkema@placeeconomics.com (rypkema) — Sun, 18 Oct 2009 15:35:00 +0000

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

rypkema@placeeconomics.com (rypkema) — Sun, 18 Oct 2009 14:58:00 +0000

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

rypkema@placeeconomics.com (rypkema) — Sat, 02 May 2009 19:43:00 +0000

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.)

Unabashed self-promotion

rypkema@placeeconomics.com (rypkema) — Sat, 02 May 2009 16:53:00 +0000

This morning I read a wonderful, funny and (believe it or not) scholarly paper entitled The Dakota Effect. It first appeared in PSOnline, an electronic journal of the American Political Science Association.

The article (maybe the wittiest academic article I've ever read) was written by two political science professors at George Washington University. It is about the statistically significant number of members of Congress who, although they now represent other states, were born in the Dakotas. For those of you who don't know, South Dakota is where I grew up and where I lived until my mid-30s.

But one of the reasons I love the article is that they nailed a number of the idiosyncrasies of those of us from the plains of Dakota (being positive, they might be called cultural peculiarities). Not surprisingly I suppose, since Lee Sigelman, one of the authors, is a native South Dakotan himself.

The authors write, "...Dakotans...are a proud but humble people. (A cynic would say they are humble because they have so much to be humble about.)"

Well, the first phrase in that description doesn't apply to me. I don't know anyone who would put me on their "10 most humble people I know" list. But the parenthetical certainly applies...I have plenty to be humble about.

And maybe that is the reason (along with the cultural peculiarities I learned in the first half of my life) that I am very, very uncomfortable with self-aggrandizement. Several good, and financially successful, friends of mine have pointed out that I would be a much better businessman if I were willing to be a bit more self-promoting. I'm sure they are right, but I'm too old to change now.

But I'm going to make an exception. Last week The Town Talk, the daily newspaper in Alexandria, Louisiana, wrote an editorial in advance of the statewide meeting of the Louisiana Trust for Historic Preservation at which I spoke on Wednesday. I have inserted the link below. Take a look if you wish. I'm not sure what they wrote is true, but I'd like to think that this is why I really do have the best job in America.

http://www.thetowntalk.com/article/20090426/OPINION/904250353

Rypkema Testimony at European Parliament Hearing

rypkema@placeeconomics.com (rypkema) — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 16:13:00 +0000

On March 5th I had the honor of being the first witness at a hearing in Brussels of the European Parliament. The hearing was called by Spanish Member of Parliament Cristina Gutierrez-Cortines. For a discussion of the hearing see the blog that follows this one. My testimony is included below:

Heritage Investment: Counter Cyclical Opportunity in Economic Downturns

Thank you Dr. Gutierrez-Cortines for inviting me here for this important hearing.

Europeans generally understand the components of sustainable development: environmental responsibility, economic responsibility, and social/cultural responsibility.

We have known for some time that unless we make significant changes quickly, our environment is not sustainable. What we have learned in the last 120 days is that we have built our economy on foundations and assumptions that are also not sustainable.

So governments have two simultaneous challenges: how to get the economy rolling again, and how to restructure our economies so that they become sustainable. Heritage conservation has a central role in responding to both of those challenges.

Counter-cyclical economic strategies should be both efficient and effective. Heritage conservation meets that test with projects ready all over Europe the funding of which would put people immediately to work. Heritage conservation strategies target the construction trades - one of the industries most affected by this recession. Simultaneously, there is a shortage of craftsmen in a variety of restoration skills. So job training, job creation, and a life time profession can be encompassed within the same strategy.

Those aren't just jobs. They are good, well-paying jobs, particularly for those without formal advanced education. They are not make-work jobs; they are real, productive jobs.

Counter-cyclical strategies should target long term capital improvement projects. Heritage buildings are certainly capital assets but also, almost by definition, are long term in perspective -how long they have lasted already and how long they can last into the future if we protect them.

Counter-cyclical strategies should create jobs and generate personal income. Heritage conservation is a labor intensive activity with 60 to 70 percent of the total expenditure on labor rather than materials. This has a significantly greater initial impact on a local economy than does new construction, but also much larger secondary impacts. Once installed, materials don't spend any more money. But the carpenter, plumber, and electrician each spend their paycheck locally on a haircut, groceries, and paying local taxes.

Since this recession is world-wide, counter-cyclical strategies should have widely dispersed benefits. Because heritage buildings are spread throughout Europe and are located in both the largest cities and the smallest villages, a heritage-based strategy automatically has wide-spread benefits.

Counter-cyclical strategies should be directed toward projects that are catalytic to other economic activity and leverage public funds with private investment. One of the most impressive economic characteristics of heritage conservation is how the investment in one building tends to spur investment in nearby buildings. Further, many European countries have developed incentive programs through which public investment is matched two and three and four to one by private investment, effectively leveraging scarce public resources.

Counter-cyclical strategies should advance specific public policy initiatives. At the European Union level and in virtually every country there are dozens of policy declarations supporting heritage conservation, not just for economic development, but for social and cultural advancement, poverty alleviation, housing, environmental considerations, education, and others.

In recessions a variety of factors affect the implementation of large scale plans. Financial constraints, political conflicts, and environmental concerns are all reasons that large projects are often delayed or shelved. Heritage conservation, however, can be done at virtually every scale, from the smallest shop building to massive revitalization of large urban areas. Smaller projects can proceed while larger ones are still on the drawing board, thus providing a measure of employment and income stability to a local economy.

Finally counter-cyclical strategies should advance sustainable development.

If we return to the graphic representation of sustainable development, we are today in an environmental crisis, and economic crisis, and in many countries if the social and cultural assets aren't in crisis they are at least in jeopardy.

As we restructure our economies to be sustainable, heritage conservation should play a major role.

What would a sustainable economy look like? I would suggest it would have seven characteristics.

First, a sustainable economy would be based on using local assets.

Second, sustainable economic development would depend primarily on the private sector, particularly small business.

Third, a sustainable economy would participate in economic globalization but mitigate cultural globalization.

Fourth, sustainable economic development strategies would acknowledge the contribution of quality of life to economic competitiveness.

Fifth, sustainable economic development would not be a zero sum game where for one city to win another has to lose.

Sixth, a sustainable economy would advance the cause of environmental responsibility.

Finally, a sustainable economy would advance the cause of the social/cultural responsibility.

How does heritage conservation fit the criteria for a sustainable economy?

Start with local assets. Obviously, the historic buildings themselves are local assets, but it doesn't stop there. Heritage buildings are invariably where millions of Euros of infrastructure investment has already been made by previous generations. All too often that infrastructure is left unrepaired and underutilized as we substitute peripheral development for neighborhood reinvestment.

One of the great success stories for cities and for heritage conservation has been center city revitalization. In every European city I have visited that has experienced an economic rebirth of its core, heritage conservation was a key component of the success.

Next a sustainable economy is orientated toward the private sector, particularly small business. The next panel will discuss opportunities for SMEs so I needn't say much here other than this: 70% of the jobs and nearly 70% of the European GDP comes from small business.

The heritage industry itself is largely made up of small businesses - contractors, architects, conservationists, historians, consultants. Unlike building highways or skyscrapers where the bid winners are invariably giant, multi-national firms, on heritage projects the expertise is usually in small firms who spend their profits at home.

Number three on my list was globalization.

What neither the supporters nor the critics of globalization understand is that there is not one globalization but two - economic globalization and cultural globalization. For those few who recognize the difference, there is an unchallenged assumption that the second is an inevitable outgrowth of the first.

I would suggest those are two different phenomenon, which while interrelated, are not inexorably linked.

While there are sometimes painful disruptions, on a composite basis economic globalization has far more advantages than disadvantages. But cultural globalization has few if any benefits but has significant adverse social and political consequences in the short term and negative economic consequences in the long term.

If cities are to succeed in the challenge of globalization, they will have to be competitive not only with other cities in their region, but worldwide. However, their success will be measured not just by their ability to foster economic globalization, but equally in their ability to mitigate cultural globalization. In both cases, a city's historic built environment can play a central role.

Globalization means change - change at a pace that can be disruptive politically, economically, socially, and psychologically. Adaptive reuse of the historic built environment can provide a touchstone, a sense of continuity that helps counteract the disruption which economic globalization tends to exacerbate.

Next, sustainable economic development strategies would recognize that quality of life is a major component of economic competitiveness and that knowledge workers in particular place a high value on quality of life criteria in their choice of where to live and work.

When we finally recover from this economic chaos, the European economy will resume a sizable shift in its economic base and the nature of doing business.

Much of the "product" produced by European workers is knowledge and information. And those commodities can be produced virtually anywhere and can be transported for nearly no cost. This means that more businesses and their employees will be locationally indifferent.

I don't know the numbers in Europe, but today in America perhaps 20 percent of American businesses and a third of American workers can literally be located anywhere. How will that choice be made? On the quality of life the city provides.

What constitutes "quality of life"? There are many possible variables including good schools, public safety, the weather. But when the physical attributes of a place are measured, the historic built environment is a significant quality of life contributor.

From a European perspective, economic development should not be a zero sum game. But that's how most economic development in the past has been. For Barcelona to recruit an industry Belgrade had to lose it. When for every winner there has to be a loser is the definition of a zero sum game. But from a European perspective, what's the sense of that? There is no net economic benefit, just a shifting from point A to point B.

But a heritage conservation based economic development strategy is not that way. For one community to effectively use its heritage resources in no way precludes another city from doing the same. To the extent that they both use heritage buildings, both are advancing sustainable economic development.

So far I've only focused on sustainable economic development. But sustainable economic development has to advance the cause of the environmental component of sustainable development. How does heritage conservation do that?

We could begin with solid waste disposal which is increasingly expensive in Euros and in environmental impacts.

Let me put this in context. We all diligently recycle our aluminum cans because were told it's good for the environment. Here is a typical North America commercial building - 25 feet wide and 120 feet deep. Let's say that today we tear down one small building like this. We have now wiped out the entire environmental benefit from the last 1,344,000 aluminum cans that were recycled. We've not only wasted an historic building, we've wasted months of diligent recycling. And that calculation only considers the impact on the landfill, not any of the other sustainable development calculations like embodied energy.

Embodied energy is defined as the total expenditure of energy involved in the creation of the building and its constituent materials. When we throw away an historic building, we are simultaneously throwing away the embodied energy incorporated into that building. So we start with the energy embodied in the building then add the energy expended tearing it down and hauling it to the landfill. What have we wasted? Over 212,000 liters of gasoline.

Much of the "green building" movement focuses on the annual energy use of a building. But the energy embodied in the construction of a building is 15 to 30 times the annual energy use.

Razing historic buildings results in a triple hit on scarce resources. First, we throwing away thousands of Euros of embodied energy. Second, we are replacing it with materials vastly more consumptive of energy. Third, recurring embodied energy savings increase dramatically as a building life stretches over fifty years. You're a fool or a fraud if you claim to be an environmentally conscious builder and yet are throwing away historic buildings, and their components.

A heritage building is a renewable resource when it is rehabilitated; it is nothing but landfill when it is razed.

Finally sustainable economic development would advance the cause of the social/cultural component of sustainable development. My professional practice is in the economic side of heritage conservation. But I truly believe that of all of the values of heritage conservation in the long run the economic value is the least important. The educational, aesthetic, cultural, and social values are far more important.

Heritage conservation's role in helping us understand who we are, where we have been and where we are going is central to the social/cultural component of sustainable development.

Historic buildings are the physical manifestation of memory.

Now if we go back to the graphic representation of sustainable development I would suggest that heritage conservation is, in fact, the only strategy that is simultaneously environmental responsibility, economic responsibility, and social/cultural responsibility.

You cannot have sustainable development without a major role for heritage conservation, period.
The established definition of sustainable development is "the ability to meet our own needs without prejudicing the ability of future generations to meet their own needs."

The loss of historic buildings is the polar opposite of sustainable development; once they are gone they cannot possibly be available to meet the needs of future generations.

These are not normal times. We have a crisis in the economy and we have a crisis in the environment. Heritage conservation is certainly not the only strategy for reestablishing economic, environmental or cultural responsibility. But in all three areas heritage conservation is the one indispensible strategy.

Thank you for the opportunity to appear here today.

The Cost of No Principles and Learning What Works

rypkema@placeeconomics.com (rypkema) — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 13:29:00 +0000

This morning's New York Times had a story about plans in Texas to spend $181 million in stimulus funds to build a sprawl inducing highway outside of Houston. The Times headline is "Stimulus Ideals in Conflict on the Texas Prairie." And as evidence they quote President Obama as saying "The days where we're just building sprawl forever, those days are over."

But the Times is wrong. The problem is not that there are principles that are in conflict. The problem (as I've written before) is that there is no underlying set of principles whatsoever...or at least other than having a member of the House Ways and Means Committee thinking "oh, that sounds like an idea that would get me some votes."

So while today the US Congress is spending their three day workweek holding hearings on establishing the National Bank for Bad Loans, other legislative bodies are trying to learn what actually works as economic stimulus.

On March 5th in Brussels there was a European Union hearing on The Role of Heritage in a Time of Financial Crisis.

The hearing was organized and chaired by a Spanish member of the European Parliament Dr. Cristina Gutierrez-Cortines and opened by Portuguese MEP Vasco Graca Moura.Witnesses included academic economists Xavier Greffe, Professor at the University of Paris I - Sorbonne and Dr. Romilda Rizzo of the Department of Economics and Quantitative Methods at the University of Catania in Italy. Professor Rizzo's new book The Heritage Game: Economics, Policy and Practice will quickly become the basic text for explaining cultural economics to non-economists.

Extraordinarily important was the testimony of Dr. Edmundo Werna of the UN's International Labour Organization (ILO). Among his comments were the following:

The restoration of buildings, roads and other elements of the built environment with heritage value is a labour-intensive type of activity. Therefore, it has high employment content. According to the ILO, experience has shown that for the same level of investment in local construction, the use of labour-based technologies can create between two and four times more employment.

In addition, the use of labour-intensive methods promotes small and medium enterprises, causes the drop of foreign exchange requirements by 50% to 60%, decreases overall cost by 10 to 30%, and reduces environmental impacts.

It also implies the increased use of associated local resources. These may include locally available materials, tools and equipment, skills and knowledge, as well as finance. This reinforces the percentage of investment that remains in the country and often in the locality of the works, reduces the dependence on costly imports, and stimulates the local economy.

Unlike the United States, Norway actually had a set of principles upon which their stimulus plan was based. I've written about the Norwegian approach earlier. At the hearing Dr. Terje Nypan of the Royal Ministry of the Environment explained both the what's and the how's of that country's strategy that in the end represented nearly 8% of the whole stimulus package.

Why did the Norwegians give such a high priority to heritage? Here was Nypan's explanation:

Labour intensive, more than new construction
High multiplier effect; 1 direct job creates many indirect; more than most economic activities
Most of the funding goes to salaries, little investment in machinery.
Most materials are of local origin and are processed locally.
The invested money remains in the local economy.
Projects are planned and can be started immediately.
Demonstrated broader income base for small and medium sized enterprises when economy turns
Serves to upgrade artisan skills and secure the future for tradition based crafts and techniques.

Finally, three superb examples were presented from Germany, Cape Verde and Spain on how investment in the historic built environment was used as an economic development tool.

I had the great honor for being the opening witness at these hearings and will post my testimony in a subsequent blog.

But the lessons from this blog are threefold:

During this time of economic chaos there is a need for government action throughout the world.
Some countries are smart enough to actually ask "how should we be spending the taxpayers' money to provide an effective stimulus?"
When that question is answered, investment in heritage resources merits a high priority.

The Internet is Weird and Google Analytics

rypkema@placeeconomics.com (rypkema) — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 15:52:00 +0000

The internet is one weird place.

Some months ago I read about Google Analytics. If on the odd chance you've never heard of it, Google Analytics keeps track of what's happening on one's website. It tracks such things as number of visitors, percentage of those that are new visitors, where they come from, what pages they visit, how long they stay on a page, etc. It really is pretty cool.

Of course I have no idea how to get Google Analytics up and running, but fortunately the firm that takes care of hosting my two websites has people much smarter than I. So for most of the last year I've used Google Analytics.

I have two web sites -- the one you're reading http://www.placeeconomics.com/ which is geared to my US practice and http://www.hs-intl.com/ which is the firm name of my international practice, Heritage Strategies International. And every few days I will take a quick check on the Google Analytics numbers for both of them.

Now my websites don't exactly draw thousands of people a day, but it is interesting where people are coming from, how they got there, and if they found the sites through some search engine, what was the keyword they used to get there.

The visitors to my site on average stay 2 or 3 minutes, which I guess is pretty good. But a couple of months ago on the HS-Intl site I noticed that there was a visitor who was there for 14 minutes. Well, that intrigued me, so I "drilled down" to find more about that visitor, and the first thing I looked for was where did he/she come from. The answer? Iran. Hmmm...that's interesting. How did they find me? Well, Google Analytics said they got there through a search engine. OK. So what was the keyword that was used? When somebody comes to one of my sites using a key word it is most often either my name, one of my firm names, or something like "economics and historic preservation". So how did my Iranian visitor get to me site? By typing in "Donovan Rypkema, CIA".

That was weird enough, but then this morning when I scanned the keywords that people used to find me yesterday, this one stood out. "Wayward girls in Seattle".

So just in case either of you come back....I do not now nor have I ever worked for the CIA...and if there are any wayward girls in Seattle I don't have the phone numbers of any of them.

The internet is a weird place.

Steve Mouzon and the Original Green

rypkema@placeeconomics.com (rypkema) — Mon, 23 Feb 2009 17:35:00 +0000

I don't usually write a blog that is simply a link to someone else's blog. But today I'm making an exception. Steve Mouzon established an organization called Original Green. His four characteristics of sustainable places (Nourishing, Accessible, Serviceable and Secure) and four characteristics of sustainable buildings (Loveable, Durable, Flexible, and Frugal) are a great way to start thinking about what sustainable development really is.

Steve's regular blogs are always worth a read. But today's entitled The Unburdening of America is particularly good. You don't have to agree with all of Steve's assumptions to find this a good way of thinking about how we are building today and how we should be building. Take a look.

Nature Conservancy, Anonymous Posts and Demolition

rypkema@placeeconomics.com (rypkema) — Sun, 15 Feb 2009 23:05:00 +0000

One of the first posts I made to this blog (May 2, 2008) was about the Indianapolis chapter of the Nature Conservancy building their new state headquarters. A newspaper story at the time quoted the state director as saying. "We're an international conservation organization. If anyone should be walking the walk of sustainability it should be The Nature Conservancy." But the Nature Conservancy's version of "walking the walk" is tearing down an 19th Century warehouse building so that they could build a new, LEED certified green gizmo building.

Here is the building they claimed they couldn't rehabilitate.You know those awe inspiring before and after pictures of historic rehabilitation projects? Well the picture above is the "before", here's the Nature Conservancy's "after".

A couple of weeks ago I got two comments, obviously written by the same person, who said they were "a person that [sic] is very familiar with this project". The poster said there was a "consensus" to tear the building down. Since there were numerous preservationists in Indianapolis who tried to assist the Nature Conservancy in figuring out how to reuse the historic building, I guess the "consensus" was among those already committed to demolition.

In response to my comment that another historic warehouse building in Indianapolis of about the same size was being rehabilitated for less than half the cost of the Nature Conservancy structure AND was going to be LEED certified the poster said, "Did you ever bother to ask what the building that is spending $68/s.f. is actually trying to obtain from LEED? I guarantee it is not LEED Platinum." So here we go, a prepubescent 5th grade playground mentality, "Your LEED is only Gold. Mine is Platinum." The idiocy of stars on spelling tests.

You are certainly welcome to go back to the earlier entry and read the comments that were posted in their entirety. I have the integrity to allow such comments to be posted. The writer of this one, however, had neither the integrity nor the balls to use their own name and posted as "Anonymous." Quite a bit of courage that takes.

But don't despair, the historic warehouse remains. Here it is.

So, congratulations, Nature Conservancy. You not only are going to get a Platinum Plaque for your Porch from LEED. I'm also awarding you a Titanium Triangle for lacking the imagination of how to use a century old building which would have been the ultimate in recycling.

For those of you who contribute to environmental causes - pick someone else. The hypocritical and disingenuous Nature Conservancy doesn't understand what sustainable development really is.

PLT, Black history, and Heritage Tourism

rypkema@placeeconomics.com (rypkema) — Sun, 15 Feb 2009 15:17:00 +0000

I have written before about PLT (July 3, 2008). PLT stands for Preservation Leadership Training, and is one of the best programs of the National Trust for Historic Preservation. Each year (sometimes twice a year) 30 or 35 preservation professionals at various points in their careers will assemble for 8 days of VERY hard hand-on work/study somewhere in America.
PLT includes 8 hours a day of interactive lectures, and then another 8 hours a day working in teams on a local case study. But these case studies aren't just academic exercises. More often than not the reports of the PLT participants will serve as the framework for local preservationists to tackle the challenge after the visiting preservationists have left town.
The most recent PLT was in Birmingham, Alabama in January. Priya Chhaya who coordinated this event wrote a couple of excellent blogs as the week progressed.
The case study in Birmingham was the Worshipful Prince Hall Grand Lodge, Free and Accepted Masons of Alabama. This Masonic Temple, built in 1922, was (and still is) the home to Birmingham's African-American Masons. But that's not the half of it.
The building itself always had retailing on the ground floor and professional offices (in addition to the space the Mason's required) on the upper floors. It was largely from this building that much of the Civil Rights movement in Birmingham was directed -- on both the streets and in the court rooms.
Birmingham's first major gathering of Civil Rights activists took place in the building in 1932. Over the years a variety of Civil Rights advocacy groups were housed in the building including the Southern Negro Youth Congress, the International Labor Defense, the Jefferson County Negro Democratic League, the Right to Vote Club and the NAACP.
It was also the office of attorney Arthur Shores who played an important role in dozens of court cases and lawsuits regarding voting and education. It was upon many of the cases Shores was involved with that the legal foundation for the end of segregation in America was built.
The building has architectural importance as well and was designed by a Black architect and built by a Black construction firm.
During the week David Flemming of Main Street Birmingham and I did a local television interview about the building and PLT. And it was while we were standing across the street from the building waiting for the intervew to begin that this thought occured to me:

Once the world economic chaos begins to regain balance, international tourism will begin to recover. And here's what's going to happen, first among Europeans and Japanese and then among Africans. They will ask the question, "How is it possible that a country in barely 50 years could go from a Black man being denied entrance to a restaurant to a Black man being elected President?"

What a wonderful question! But standing across from the Worshipful Prince Hall Grand Lodge the obvious (which more often than not eludes me) became clear - the Civil Rights movement in America is not one giant story. It is a million little stories, each moving us a small step closer to having elected Barack Obama. It will be to learn those little stories that will draw international tourists to America. The rapidly rising middle classes in China and India will come to learn that story as well.

And where will those million little stories be told? In a million different places. A dozen different rooms in the Worshipful Prince Hall Grand Lodge hold a dozen individual stories. Historic buildings are the physical manifestation of history. And those historic buildings with ties to the Civil Rights movement are where the million steps that brought Barack Obama to the White House were taken. That's where the stories should be told.

I've been meaning to write on this subject since I was in Birmingham a month ago. Why today? Because of a newstory this morning about how the physical manifestations of Black history are being lost in Davenport, Iowa.

It's natural to think of a place like Birmingham and its conntection to Black history in this country. Afterall it was Kelly Ingram Park (half a block from the Masonic Temple) where, in 1963, the world watched in horror as Bull Connor unleashed firehoses, dogs, and billyclubs on Civil Rights marchers. But places like Davenport also have their own stories in this epic, and sadly they are being lost at the exact moment when world wide interest in those stories will build. That's a sad story socially and culturally, but also economically.

But perhaps the Most Worshipful Prince Hall Grand Lodge will regain its important role in telling its story and demonstrating its contribution to making Barack Obama the President. If it succeeds, at least some of the credit should go to the participants in PLT whose excellent reports point the way.

This year a second PLT is going to be held in Deadwood, South Dakota in June. If you're interested in being a participant, the registration deadline is in March. If you're a professional preservationist, it will be well worth your time, effort and money. And like the previous PLTs, your efforts that week will reap rewards for the host community as well.

Small town, small college and NORCs

rypkema@placeeconomics.com (rypkema) — Sat, 14 Feb 2009 19:19:00 +0000

I spent Thursday driving about an hour and a half from where I live in downtown Washington to Shepherdstown, West Virginia. Shepherdstown is West Virginia's oldest community having been established by Thomas Shepherd in 1734. Today, 275 years later, there are still members of the Shepherd family living in the community.

This is a town of around 1100 people, but what a great place to visit and to live! There is a strong arts community, year round cultural activities, some wonderful shops and restaurants, and an extraordinary inventory of historic buildings that make up the living fabric of the town.

Also in Shepherdstown is Shepherd University, a state school of around 4000 students. It was an invitation from Keith Alexander to give a lecture at the University that brought me to Shepherdstown. Keith is the coordinator of the historic preservation program at Shepherd. Most degree programs in historic preservation are in schools of architecture, or history, or American studies. The Shepherd program is within the Institute for Environmental Studies. That's a splendid place for a preservation program to be, and I don't know of another case - either graduate or undergraduate - where that's the case.

The Institute takes a multidisciplinary approach to environmental issues and clearly recognizes that historic preservation is a multidisciplinary activity as well. That was manifested by where Keith was able to raise money for this event. Within the University he secured funds from the Institute for Environmental Studies but also the Department of Economics, the School for Natural Science and Mathematics, and the Robert C. Byrd Center for Legislative Studies. He also raised funds off campus from the Corporation of Shepherdstown and the Friends of the Shepherdstown Riverfront. That riverfront is spectacular, by the way. Shepherdstown overlooks the Potomac River as it makes its way to Washington.

I give a fair number of lectures on campuses, but this one was a first for another reason. The President of the University, Dr. Suzanne Shipley, not only showed up to welcome me, but sat through the entire presentation. That's not, I would suggest, becuase my lecture was particularly important, but rather a reflection of President Shipley's commitment to support the activities of her faculty and the larger community of Shepherdstown.

Prior to the event on campus I got a great tour of the town and surrounding area by Keith and local activist Lois Turco. Lois and her husband Fred had careers in the Foreign Service, much of it in the Middle East, until they retired to Shepherdstown in 2001. It was while chatting with Lois and Fred at dinner that I recalled an acronym that I learned at Notre Dame last week (see blog of 2/9) from a presentation made by Dr. Shannon Chance of Hampton University. The acronym is NORC -- Naturally Occuring Retirement Community.

Shepherdstown is definitely a NORC. Fred told me that the twice annual luncheon of retired Foreign Service professionals draws 30 or 40 people, all from the immediate area.

What makes Shepherdstown such a desirable place for professional retirees? Most importantly, it is a wonderful small town and extremely walkable. The college and associated cultural and intellectual activities provide a degree of sophistication and world-view that most towns of 1000 people don't have. The proximity to Washington -- an hour and a half away -- certainly adds to the appeal, as does the fact that both Amtrak and MARC (the Maryland commuter rail system) have stops in nearby Martinsburg. And 10 miles away is the historic town (and National Landmark) Harpers Ferry.

Shepherdstown is within Jefferson County which has a population of around 50,000, but a disproportionate number of PhDs. Some of them have chosen the area as a NORC. Others are affiliated with two Federal government training centers in the immediate area - The Eastern Management Development Center of the US Office of Personnel Management and the National Conservation Training Center of the US Fish and Wildlife Service.

But there was one great disappointment in the Shepherdstown visit - Ferry Hill. This is an early 19th century property owned by the National Park Service. It is a wonderful structure sitting on the hill across from Shepherdstown and overlooking the Potomac. From 1979 until 2001 Ferry Hill served as the headquarters for the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal National Historical Park.

This is an incredible asset. And what is the Park Service doing with it? Ah, well, that would be nothing. "We don't have the money to do anything with it" they say. OK, I understand that. Then put the property in the hands of another entity - public, private, non-profit - who will come up with the money.

This is too important a property just to sell. But there are plenty of ways the Park Service could transfer possession of the property and generate long term income, without giving up ownership. And there are plenty of legal and transactional tools available to assure the property is treated the way an important historic property should be treated.

The National Park Service should know this principle better than anyone - the best form of preservation is occupancy and use, and the parallel principle - buildings that sit vacant are properties that deteriorate.

And what's the Park Service's grand strategy? Well, here's what they say on their website, "Historic Ferry Hill Place still stands in an idyllic location proudly overlooking the Potomac River, waiting for the next stage of its life to begin."

There's an imaginative, entrepreneurial, creative solution for you! If you remember Becket's Waiting for Godot, at the end of the play Vladimir and Estragon are still waiting. Surely you can do better than that Park Service.

Mortgages for Big Macs

rypkema@placeeconomics.com (rypkema) — Wed, 11 Feb 2009 21:32:00 +0000

OK, this is the last one about the stimulus plan. It's going to pass in some version this week so it's too late for anyone I know to make any difference.

What the hell, I'm not going to live long enough to have to pay any of this money back. But my grandchildren will spend their working lives repaying what Congress is going to appropriate in the next 3 days. I teach a class at Penn where the students are mostly between 23 and 28; my daughter is 34. Their generations should be absolutely outraged at this.

First a set of givens:

The world is in economic chaos

The "market" is not going to get us out of this. In fact a good case can be made that it was a vastly under-regulated market (and way too many 27 year old MBAs on Wall Street way thinking that actually knew something...and apparently without any adult supervision) that got us into this mess.

The federal government is the actor of last resort so has to take the lead.

THERE IS NO CASH SITTING IN THE NATIONAL SAVINGS ACCOUNT! So all of this stimulus money is coming from borrowed funds.

It is not McCain or even Barack Obama who will have to repay this debt but it will be their children, grandchildren, and in McCain's case great grandchildren.

So if we're going to burden at least two and probably three generations to pay for this, the money ought to be spent for long term assets, so at least they get some use out of what they are paying for.

And Obama's words seemed to suggest that was going to be the case - infrastructure, building weatherization, rebuilding schools, etc.

The poor guy just got torpedoed by Nancy Pelosi and her myopic, self-serving colleagues in the House of Representatives.

Here's my back-of-the-envelope calculations:

57.8% of the money is going to be spent on operating expenses and cash distributions, the impact of which will be entirely in the next 12 months.

Another 14.8% will be spend on short term assets -- those that have a life of 5 years or less.

17.4% of the money will go towards assets with a useful life of between 5 and 20 years.

Leaving only 10% of all that money invested in long-term assets.

Put it another way, 90% of what the money is being spent for will be entirely gone while 70% of the bill will yet to be paid. This is exactly the same as buying and consuming a Big Mac, but financing it with a 40 year mortgage.

If I were the age of my daughter I'd start an impeachment campaign for every member of Congress in both parties in both houses.

And lest you think the Republicans are any better than the Democrats - absolutely not! The only answers they have are "No" or "Tax Cuts". And they say, "Let's cut taxes, and give the money back to taxpayers...afterall it's their money". Bullshit! You're giving me a tax refund that my grandchildren will have to pay.

And speaking of the litiny of bullshit that all of them are using:

"Create or save" 4 million jobs. Both Obama and Arlen Specter one of the three Republicans who supported the "compromise" in the Senate used that phrase. "Create 4 million jobs" is one thing. How many jobs exist now? How many exist in a couple of years? Is it more or less than 4 million more jobs? That, at least, can be measured. But "save jobs"? Rhetorical nonsense. There is no way to demonstrate that. In three years there could be no more jobs than today and one could still say, "Yeah, but I saved 4 million jobs" and there is no way to disprove it.

And what it a "job" anyway? I'll tell you what is being used. Various econometric multipliers that calculate jobs based on output..."how many jobs are created when $1 Million is spent building a highway" for example. But look at the fine print. A "job" is defined as one full time equivilant job for one year. So let's say a guy who finishes concrete is now going to have a job building highways for the next 4 years. That's not one job. That is 4 jobs!

And, speaking of highways, here was a once in a generation opportunity to shift from our sprawl inducing, environmentally disasterous, health impairing, overdependence on cars, and shift to enhancing public transportation, particularly rail. And that's what Obama sounded like he wanted to do. Instead the amount going to highways is 10 times what is going to rails and public transportation. It ought to be the other way around.

I'm all for using tax credits. We should give tax credits for people to wean themselves from so much automobile dependence. Even a 15% reduction in automobile miles traveled would have an incredible impact on air quality, commuting times, and fuel consumption. Instead, the idiots in the Senate added a tax incentive for buying another car!.

Dean Michael Lykoudis of the architecture school at Notre Dame had what I though was an excellent suggestion. He pointed out that at the beginning of World War II in six months time the US automakers shifted their entire production facilities from making cars to making tanks and other equipment to fight the war. If we're insisting on helping General Motors, argues Lykoudis, then say, "We'll help you retool to make passenger rail cars, subway cars, and other mass transit vehicles." Great idea.

The Republicans are saying, "This is too much". The reality is, no one knows. The issue is not the size of the stimulus but its composition. It is almost all very short term expenditures with no lasting impact at all. And it sure as hell isn't sustainable development by any measure.

Poor Obama came to the White House genuinely believing, I think, that he could change how Washington worked. But this stimulus package is exactly how Washington has worked (or rather why it hasn't worked) in the past - no set of underlying principles; pandering to constituencies; hanging Christmas tree ornaments on every spending bill; thinking not a day past the next election.

We have to have a stimulus bill.

The stimulus bill that is about to pass is irresponsible, myopic, selfish, vote-buying, self-serving and reprehensible. It is a gigantic "screw the next generations" piece of legislation. Our grandchildren will rightfully curse this Congress and us for electing them.

Not only are the French smarter, so are the Norwegians

rypkema@placeeconomics.com (rypkema) — Wed, 11 Feb 2009 20:45:00 +0000

Earlier this week I wrote about the incorporation of $132 million a year for the next four years for the restoration of historic buildings in France. That was a specific part of President Sarkozy's economic stimulus plan for France. Like the US, France is suffering its most severe recession since the end of World War II.

This morning I get an email from my friend Terje Nypan who is in the Culture Ministry of Norway. Much of the national budget in Norway is dependent on oil. So when the oil price drops from $140 per barrel to $40, it obviously has a big impact.

So the Norwegian government has adopted what they call their "Crisis Package" in the amount of about $685 million dollars. (If that number seems low compared to the $780 Billion stimulus package here, remember that the population of Norway is around 4.6 million versus 304 million for the US. )

But unlike the United States where the only criteria to make the bill seems to be having a friend on the House Appropriations Committee, in Norway they actually had a set of principles upon which their decisions were based. And here they are:

The measures must have a speedy effect on the labor market
The measures must have specific target objectives
The measures must be limited in time
The measures shall strengthen the Government in its policies for the environment and income distribution.

I happen to think this is an excellent set of principles. But others could have a different list. The trouble in the US is that there is no set of principles upon which we are encumbering 3 generations to repay.

And how did Norway commit their stimulus money to be consistent with these principles?

Measures for increased energy efficiency $183,529,000
Repair and development of railway system $198,976,000
CO2 cleaning $147,129,000
Footpaths/sidewalks and bicycle roads $ 76,471,000
Nature management and Cultural Heritage $ 52,000,000
Environment research on sea wind turbines $ 11,471,000
Charging stations for electric cars $ 7,647,000
Bio Energy $ 7,647,000

The Cultural Heritage portion of that was around $34,000,000 and was divided as follows:

Rehabilitation and maintenance of privately owned, protected property $11.6 Million
Technical and industrial heritage, vessels and centers $6.9 Million
Rock art, archeology, and universal access $3.8 Million
Fire safety for historic wood buildings, medieval and important churches $11.8 Million

Why did they do this? Because they learned in the last recession that: a) it worked putting people back to work and training workers for the future; and b) it met the principles they established.

Virtually all the line items in the Norwegian stimulus package are long term investments. Almost none in the US stimulus package are.

One more blog about the stimulus package then I'll let it go. What the hell, I'll never live long enough to have to repay any of it.

Why the French are Smarter than us Americans

rypkema@placeeconomics.com (rypkema) — Mon, 09 Feb 2009 17:02:00 +0000

Yeah, we have to have a stimulus plan. And one will pass this week. The latest iteration is the one crafted by a moderate Republican (Susan Collins of Maine) and a moderate Democrat (Ben Nelson of Nebraska). And as a militant moderate myself, I have to commend them for at least making some adjustments to the bottomless barrel of pork written by the Democrats in the House and the equally irresponsible "just say no" or "just say more tax cuts" approach by the Republicans.

In this morning's Washington Post Senator Arlen Specter, one of the three Republicans likely to vote for this latest version, said that the $780 Billion Dollar package would create or save 4 million jobs. (As an aside "create or save" used by both Specter and President Obama is bullshit...why? It means you have already defined success for yourself. If not a single new job is created you can still say, "Yeah, but I saved 4 million jobs" and it's impossible to disprove that.)

But bullshit aside, make the calculation. $780 Billion divided by 4 million jobs equals $195,000 per job.

Now France has as big a case of economic chaos as we do. Their economy shrunk last year the most since World War II and their unemployment is expected to reach nearly 11%.

So, of course, President Sarkozy had to introduce his own economic stimulus plan. But here's a big piece of his approach - committing 100 million extra Euros per year ($130 million) for the restoration of historic monuments in France for the next 4 years. So about 1.5% of his stimulus package is going toward heritage conservation. By the way Sarkozy isn't the only one. In March there is going to be a hearing in Brussels of the European Union on using heritage conservation as a counter-cyclical economic development strategy.

So what if we took this approach as part of our stimulus plan? Of course in the US we are much more likely to use tax incentives to attract private investment rather than direct public funding. And we've done this effectively with the Historic Rehabilitation Tax Credit.

So let's double the tax credit for the next 4 years (from 20% to 40%) and let's assume that costs the US taxpayers the annual equivalent of $130 million per year. What would that mean? Nearly 20,000 jobs per year for each of the next 4 years. (Also, by the way, when economists and politicians say "job" they mean one full time job for one year. So if a stimulus package creates one job in the highway building business, for example, that lasts for the next four years, that will be counted as 4 jobs).

The cost to the US taxpayer of historic preservation as stimulus? $6875 dollars per job...for the same amount of money that is required to create 1 job in the rest of the stimulus package, 28 jobs would be created. And this would represent less than 1/10 of 1% of the stimulus spending, not France's 1.5%.

Furthermore, this is Sustainable Economic Development! A tax credit to encourage Americans to buy even more cars isn't.

France might not produce the best armies, but they are better at wine, better at cheese, and sure as hell better at figuring out a stimulus plan than we are.

Notre Dame, New Urbanists, and List Servs

rypkema@placeeconomics.com (rypkema) — Sun, 08 Feb 2009 20:24:00 +0000

I wrote it in the first blog entry I made and I'll write it again -- I have by far the best job in America. I get to do all kinds of cool things. And this week was one of them.

The School of Architecture at Notre Dame University held a three day symposium entitled, Sustainability and the Environment: The Original Green. What a great learning opportunity for me!

The speakers for the symposium were (myself excepted) a Who's Who of the Congress for New Urbanism. This isn't so surprising, since when, every two or three years, some ambitious student posts to one of the New Urbanist list servs the question, "I want to practice traditional architecture and town planning, where should I go to school?" The answer from the New Urbanists is nearly always the University of Miami (where CNU co-founder Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk is dean) and Notre Dame (where classicist and New Urbanist Michael Lykoudis is dean). Further, it was New Urbanist founders Plater-Zyberk and her husband Andres Duany who a couple of weeks ago received the Richard H. Driehaus Prize which is awarded annually by Notre Dame.

Dean Lykoudis had a wonderful response in anticipation of those who would claim that traditional building design stifles creativity. He said, "Classicism is free will nurtured by tradition."

Here was the symposium line-up:

Tom Lowe, Director the North Carolina office of DPZ. Tom talked about the principles of Light Imprint design for communities.

Steve Mouzon, principal of the New Urban Guild. Steve is always great about translating what others try to make complicated into simple, understandable, straight-forward concepts. Steve avoids the mumbo-jumbo, technical definitions about sustainability and defines it as "Can you keep it going for a long time into an uncertain future." What a great definition! Steve, by the way, is the originator of the phrase "The Original Green".

CNU member and Hampton University professor Shannon Chance talked about the ongoing research about the relationship between the urban environment and health...particularly among both ends of the chronological spectrum - children and the elderly.

David Thurman is a senior associate in one of the country's other most prominent new urbanist architecture firms - Moule & Polyzoides of Pasadena. David effectively made the case (that was subsequently echoed by others) that building sustainable communities is a decidedly multidisciplinary approach.

I was particularly pleased that the Notre Dame organizers understood that historic preservation is at the core of sustainable development. Hence their invitation to me, but also to Mark Thaler, a principal in the firm Einhorn Yaffee Prescott. Particularly valuable to the audience made of primarily of architecture students, Mark gave examples of the techniques to make historic buildings more energy efficient without diminishing their architectural character.

Bruce King is the Founder of the Ecological Building Network. Bruce made a stunning and extraordinarily witty presentation about the magnitude of the ecological crisis - peak oil, global warming, population explosion - that we have to face...and face sooner (like yesterday) rather than later.

Alan DeFrees was the only faculty member, other than Dean Lykoudis, who made a presentation at the symposium. But it was a fascinating story about the natural cooling and ventilation systems that housing types from all over the globe had until we decided that a thermostat and an HVAC system would solve all our problems.

Michael Mehaffy is one smart guy. Michael is Chair of US INTABU the International Network for Traditional Architecture, Building and Urbanism. As would be expected Michael is an unwavering advocate for traditional building typologies. But instead of making that case on some sentimental urge for nostalgia, he effectively makes the case that the understandings emerging from complexity theory (that chemists, physicists, and biologists are developing) support the underlying logic of traditional buildings and neighborhood patterns. His long association with Christopher Alexander is certainly evident here.

And the symposium was wrapped up by urban journalist Neal Pierce, the unquestioned best of columnists who both write about AND understand the nature of cities. His organization the CitiStates Group is composed of writers, thinkers, and practitioners who address cities from a metropolitan region perspective. The weekly Citiwire Net is a column by Pierce and another by one of his associates, and is a useful read for anyone interested in cities.

Another of the New Urbanist intellectuals who was in attendance for the entire time and asked probing questions, but did not make a formal presentation was Philip Bess, a faculty member at Notre Dame. I've loved over the years reading Phil's postings on various New Urbanist listservs because he views the issues through the lens of philosophy and theology...neither of which I know much about but the perspective is always intellectually challenging and intriguing.

And the organization and logistics for all of this was superbly handled by Kara Kelly, the kind of staff person every university department wishes they had.

I don't know if the students realized what a huge learning opportunity the School of Architecture provided them, but I certainly did. I learned an incredible amount in three days.

But one of the great lessons was independent of the formal lectures. Over the years I've been a bit of a critic of the New Urbanists. While I never had much of a quarrel with the underlying design principles, I was often offended by the incredible egos and by the seeming intolerance for the slightest deviation from the dogma. Dissent - even by those who were 90% in agreement - was dismissed as not only erroneous but treasonous.

Well, maybe it's because the movement has matured, maybe because they are today confident enough in their impact that gargantuan egos and suppression of dissent aren't needed any more. The New Urbanists at this gathering - Steve Mouzon, Michael Mehaffy, Michael Lykoudis, Tom Lowe, Shannon Chase, Philip Bess, David Thurman - are vastly more modest and humble than their expertise would warrant.

Further, there is now a degree of objectivity in what New Urbanism is and is not doing. Steve's presentation, in particular, spelled out in clear fashion, "Here's what we New Urbanists are doing right; here's where we still have quite a ways to go."

Many of the people at this conference I only knew previously because of their postings on listservs. Getting to know them in person was a great pleasure.

Oh, by the way, if you happen to be a student considering a career in architecture - talk to them at Notre Dame. They won't just teach you how to design buildings...they'll teach you how to love cities. And that's vastly more important.

I do have the best job in America.

World Monuments Fund, Time Honored, and John Stubbs

rypkema@placeeconomics.com (rypkema) — Sat, 31 Jan 2009 17:54:00 +0000

In 1965 a new historic preservation organization was founded - the World Monuments Fund. In the 40+ years since its founding, few organizations have had as large an impact internationally on our built cultural heritage as has the WMF.

While the WMF has numerous programs and projects, its largest and best known is the biennial World Monuments Watch. Every two years since 1996 WMF publishes and broadly publicizes its list calling "international attention to cultural heritage around the world that is threatened by neglect, vandalism, conflict or disaster."

Since this program began, nearly 550 sites in 79 different countries, on every continent (yes, including Antarctica) have made an appearance on the list...a few more than once. While the primary purpose of the list is to bring to the fore imminent risks to the built heritage of our world, the WMF does more than point out the problems. Nearly half of the listed sites have received funding which over the years has totaled more than $50 million in WMF grants which have leveraged investment by others of over $150 million.

Reflecting the incredible diversity of the world's cultural heritage, listings have ranged from such international icons as the Taj Majal and Angkor Wat to far less known sites such as Levuka Township in Fiji and the Humberstone and Santa Laura Industrial Complex in Chile. To get a sense of the range of sites one only needs to look at the 2008 World Monuments Watch list of Most Endangered Sites.

Because of the magnitude of this effort, WMF begins soliciting nominations for the next listing nearly two years in advance. Already accessible are guidelines for nomination for sites for the 2010 list, which are available in English, Arabic, French, Italian, Spanish, and Chinese. Anyone - government, NGO, private person, local organization - can nominate a site, but now is the time to act. The deadline for submission of the nomination and related materials is March 15, 2009, so get moving!

Why has the World Monuments Fund become so successful? I think there are four reasons; 1) they have a fundamentally good idea; 2) they know how to partner; 3) they bring significant resources (both human and financial) to the table; and 4) they have a superb staff.

Although it is a non-profit organization (NGO) the World Monuments Fund operates like a great entrepreneurial private sector company. And they have identified this "niche" in the market that no one else is as comprehensively filling.

The partner list of the WMF is extensive and varied and ranges from American Express, the Aga Khan Trust for Culture, the World Bank, and the Getty Conservation Institute on the international level and hundreds of national, regional and local governments and organizations around the world.

I noted earlier the direct grants WMF has made and the additional dollars those grants have catalyzed. But on other projects they also bring expert technical skills to address the specific issues of a particular site.But of the four reasons for success perhaps the most important is the people of the WMF. President Bonnie Burnham is the personification of the adjective indefatigable. Executive Vice President Lisa Ackerman came to the World Monuments Fund from the Kress Foundation, is well known in historic preservation circles and was the first recipient of the Ann Webster Smith Award for International Heritage Achievement given by US/ICOMOS. Recently joining WMF as Director of Research and Education is Erica Avrami about to finish her PhD at Rutgers University and with previous experience at the Getty Conservation Institute, as a preservation consultant, and as an adjunct faculty member at Pratt and the University of Pennsylvania.

But also at the WMF (and here's the disclaimer - he's a long time friend) is John Stubbs. I highly doubt that there is another person on the planet who has physically been to as many sites of international cultural importance as has John. I don't know if there are any of the sites that have been listed on the Monument Watch that John has not visited, but if there are any, damn few.

So John has put this incredible hands-on experience into a new book - Time Honored: A Global View of Architectural Conservation. If, anywhere in the world, you are teaching a course on international heritage conservation, this should be your core text. If you are a student in historic preservation and have an interest in international issues, buy this book. If you are a professional, a civil servant, an interested amateur, or an advocate for cultural heritage in your own country, but want to understand your efforts in an international context, this book should be your next read.

The book ranges from the academic (Nomenclature Used in International Conservation Practice) to the theoretical (Who Owns the Past?) to the history of conservation (The Forging of a Discipline: The Late Eighteenth to Early Twentieth Century) to the very practical (Options for Involvement).

There is one downside to reading the book, however. Looking at the photos of places John has visited and sites that have been assisted by the World Monuments Fund, you'll wish you had his job.

You've Come a Long Way Baby (or not)

rypkema@placeeconomics.com (rypkema) — Fri, 30 Jan 2009 13:37:00 +0000

Back in the late 60s when the Women's Movement was becoming an important and influential voice in American politics, life and culture, the ever opportunistic tobacco industry leaped into the fray. Philip Morris introduced a new brand of cigarettes - Virginia Slims - specifically targeted toward women. And the slogan? "You've come a long way baby."

There are times when I think that the historic preservation movement has come a long way...when I hear the success stories of local Main Street programs; when I attend the awards banquet of a statewide preservation organization; and particularly when I teach my Spring semester course at the University of Pennsylvania. All those really bright and (mostly) young people preparing for careers in historic preservation. Every year I learn far more from them than they ever learn from me.

But other times...well, we haven't come so far after all.

This morning up pops this news story, headlined "Mayor rejects downtown preservation efforts". But the headline itself wasn't the biggest issue. While usually preservationists try to do their best, there are circumstances where the preservation proposal of the day might merit review or dissent from an elected official...it's how democracy does and should work.

No, it wasn't that Mike Hadick, Mayor of Albion, New York (population 7700, 1400 of them guests of a State women's prison) didn't like some particulars in a proposed preservation ordinance. No, it was his reasons:

1) Young people are leaving Albion because "people don't want to live in an outdated village"

2) He didn't like the fact that the Preservation Commission denied a Certificate of Appropriateness for a sign Verizon wanted to put in their Main Street store. So, of course, Verizon went to the Mayor and he approved the sign.

To all of this Mayor Hadick said he would "prefer the collection of historic downtown structures be leveled to make way for a new commercial district." And as for the downtown "I can live with brand-new buildings."

Mayor Hadick's reasoning is, "You can't have a [preservation] commission that's not looking out for the businessman first. The way times are right now, do you really want to mess with a businessman?"

Well, as a private sector guy myself, I'm certainly for considering the needs of "businessmen". But who in the hell is going to build a new downtown in Albion, New York? Where's the debt going to come from? Where is the equity going to come from? Where are the rents to justify new construction going to come from? Where's the pent-up demand for new commercial space when there have been 5 or 6 building permits issued in the last four years in Albion? Who are going to be starting those businesses to pay those rents in that new downtown?

Here's an oversimplified formula for you. Let's say you get the land for free in downtown Albion (maybe the stimulus plan will provide the local government with all the money it needs to acquire and raze every building in downtown). Now you build a new building, even one of mediocre quality - one story, concrete block, and stick on some z-brick and Styrofoam beams. What's that going to cost? I don't know, let's say we can do it cheap for $125 per square foot. Now what will the rents have to be? Well, if the banks choose to lend and the investors choose to invest, and if this economic chaos is over...you'd need rents of around $20 per square foot per year. Is that what the rent levels are in downtown Albion, Mr. Mayor?

I honestly believed that the Urban Renewal approach of "Let's tear down this old crap and the developers will be lining up for the chance to build new" having been proved such a disaster, would no longer be the vehicle of choice for any elected official. Well, once again, I was wrong.

If there were an assembly of absurd idiocies, "young people are leaving town because of these old buildings" would certainly make the collection. You don't think that high unemployment, low wages, and limited opportunities for higher education might not have something to do with it Mr. Mayor? That is as misguided as the Virginia Slims implication that women would be independent and cool if they smoked skinny cigarettes.

I have great sympathy with small towns struggling for economic survival and have worked in probably a thousand of them in the last 25 years. But I'll leave it at this...show me the small town that came back to prosperity by tearing down their historic downtown and someone building them a brand new one.

While we still have mayors who haven't learned that yet, we as preservationists haven't done our job. We haven't come that far, baby.

The Magnitude of Numbers and the Stimulus Plan

rypkema@placeeconomics.com (rypkema) — Mon, 12 Jan 2009 02:14:00 +0000

Some people learn through words. Some people learn through pictures. Some people learn through numbers. I'm a numbers guy.

But big numbers, really big numbers, often lose their significance because we just can't comprehend that many zeros.

And that's what's happening with the stimulus plan(s). They will end up being $2 trillion (that's trillion with a T) before we're done. The first components were the $150 billion tax rebate last spring and then the $750 billion bailout from October. In the next week or so Obama will introduce his $775 billion program and there will be more before we're done. So let's just say $2 trillion.

How much is $2 trillion dollars? Well it would be enough to have paid for:

the man on the moon project, plus
the entire Interstate highway system, plus
the Vietnam War, plus
the first Gulf War, plus
the entire budget for the United Nations for the next ten years, plus
all the tax act historic preservation projects of the last 15 years, plus
the entire Gross Domestic Product of Canada

and there would still be enough left over to pay this year's room, board and tuition for every college student in America.

So a bit of money.

Saturday President-elect Obama said that his stimulus plan would create 3.7 million jobs. It's going to cost $775 billion. But here's the calculation he didn't make. That works out to around $209,000 per job created. I want one of those jobs!

Now don't get me wrong, the stimulus plan is crucial. But let me make a small comparison. There's already a stimulus in the US tax code. It is a tax credit for the rehabilitation of historic buildings -- to "stimulate" private capital to invest in heritage resources. And like any stimulus program it has a cost -- $6,873 per job created.

Let me see....a financial stimulus for $209,000 per job or one for $6,900 per job. Which is giving the taxpayer the biggest return?

Or we could put that in slightly different terms. Based on the Obama figures every $1 million spent in his stimulus plan creates around five jobs. Every million that the historic rehabilitation tax credit costs creates around 145 jobs. I'd like to say "you do the math" but I've already done the math.

The stimulus plan is necessary, but please understand these two things: 1) 100% of the stimulus is coming from borrowed money, and 2) if you have a child or a grandchild who is 5 years old today, they will spend their entire working life paying off this bill.

So it sure as hell better be well spent.

What's Good for Preservation is Good for the Greens

rypkema@placeeconomics.com (rypkema) — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 19:44:00 +0000

I have ranted with regularity that the environmental movement as a whole absolutely does not get the connection between historic preservation and sustainable development. But there are notable exceptions. One of them is Knute Berger who is, among other things, an environmental journalist in Seattle. He writes for a couple of publications including the online periodical Crosscut.

A week or so ago Knute was preparing a two-part article about preservation issues that will be facing Seattle in 2009. As part of his research he emailed me some very thoughtful questions. With Knute's permission I'm including below both his questions and my answers to them. I knew at the time that my answers were far more than Knute needed or wanted. But his questions were so good that I answered them more fully than he needed, but for as much as clarifying my own thinking as for his use.

Read the below if you wish, but certainly read Knute's two-part series. Part 1 is entitled "Recession, wrecking balls, and history" and Part 2 is headlined "What's Good for Preservation is Good for the Greens" which I've stolen from Knute as the title of this blog. While the articles are specifically about Seattle, many of the issues raised will face many American cities.

By the way, Knute has a new book out entitled Pugetopolis: A Mossback Takes On Growth Addicts, Weather Wimps, and the Myth of Seattle Nice, published by Sasquatch Books. I have to think it will be a great read.

Anyway, below are Knute's great questions and, for what they are worth, my answers.

I checked your blog and saw an entry from August about the Obama campaign being preservation-friendly. Is that still your view? Is there anything tangible that would indicate how that could take form in '09?

I think there is at least a chance that this new administration will be good for historic preservation for a number of reasons. First, Obama is going to establish an office of urban issues within the White House. While there are certainly wonderful historic resources in this country in rural areas, most of them are in cities. And for anyone with a more macro view of things, historic preservation and urban quality go hand in hand. Historic preservation is certainly not the solution for every urban problem, but it is part of the solution for most of them. And Obama is nothing if not a sophisticated, nuanced thinker.

Second, potentially is Michelle Obama. In the Clinton years Hillary Clinton was a big preservation supporter through the Save America’s Treasures initiative. Laura Bush followed that tradition and established the Preserve America program. A bipartisan bill was introduced in the last Congress, co-sponsored by Senator Clinton and notably supported by the First Lady. The bill would make those two programs permanent within the federal structure. The "champion of American cultural heritage" mantle is one that Michelle Obama could take for herself and that would have significant benefits both for historic preservation and for the future First Lady.

Third, Obama has included in his list of stimulus programs retrofitting buildings for energy efficiency. If that initiative isn't hijacked by green gizmo manufacturers, historic preservation can play an important part.

Is preservation the kind of economic booster/shovel-ready work that could be part of the new administration's economic package?

Absolutely, and it should be front and center. And others in the world are beginning to get that. In March there will be a hearing at the European Parliament on Heritage Conservation as a Counter-Cyclical Economic Development Strategy.

I wrote a blog about the criteria for the stimulus package that you may or may not find useful. But my basic argument is: 1) because it is my grandchildren who aren't even conceived yet who will be paying off what will end up being $2 trillion in additional Federal deficit spending, we at least ought to make investments with that money from which they will derive some benefit; and 2) the components of the stimulus plan should advance a comprehensive sustainable development approach.

But, unfortunately, it appears that the bill has simply become a Christmas tree with every imaginable interest group saying, "We'll help the economy. Give a couple billion of that money to us." That represents the pork barrel approach that we've seen far too much of in recent years and certainly not a "change" approach that Obama promised us. There ought to be an established set of principles as to how that money should be spent. And if there were, I have no doubt that historic preservation would emerge as a priority.

Also, I wondered if you had anything to say about the state of relations between greens and preservationists. Seattle will get the National Trust Green Lab in '09. Is there anything there we should be watching for?

That's a tough question but, I have to say, I do see some positive signs. But as usual, it's from the bottom up, not the top down. Look, maybe 10% of what the environmental movement does advances the cause of historic preservation. But 100% of historic preservation activities advance the cause of the environment. But I see no movement at the leadership level of organizations such as the Nature Conservancy or the Sierra Club to understanding that at all. It looks like to me the US Green Building Council is taking the "check is in the mail" approach, promising more sensitivity to historic buildings, "in our next revision". I, frankly, haven't seen much movement there beyond lip service.

But more and more environmental journalists such as you and Lloyd Alter at Treehugger, are at least beginning to reflect the argument that "green" is more than solar panels and that existing historic buildings contribute significantly to environmental responsibility.

And then there is a handful of architects, planners and academics who are quickly moving to the sustainable development approach that recognizes there are far more components than just green buildings.

As to the National Trust's Sustainability initiative, its whole original premise was "Beyond Green Buildings". Hopefully the Seattle Green Lab will finally do that. We'll see.

Be curious if there's anything else on your radar for '09 too.

If there is anything that the economic chaos of 2008 should teach us, it is that we absolutely need to adopt a sustainable development strategy that includes not only environmental responsibility, but economic and social/cultural responsibility as well. Einstein was once quoted as saying, "Things should be made as simple as possible but not more so." Thinking that a green building approach is sufficient for sustainable development is vastly and myopically oversimplifying the complex challenges ahead of us.