I would like to argue that a more potent threat to the ongoing political viability of historic preservation is the perception that the preservation industry has become a conservative, indeed revanchist force; that it is elitist and sometimes even racist in its abetment of gentrification.
How did this happen?
Historic preservation in New York, according to the favored creation myth, was born in the postwar era as a progressive grassroots movement...
— Places Journal
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WARNING - This message is fairly long. Longer than the original post.
I don't know of anyone in the preservation field that is racist. Preservation is in fact a money generation business. Rehabilitation, restoration and renovation is like maintenance on steroids to fix problems of prolonged deferred maintenance. So it is natural that property value will increase when property is fixed up and restored. In turn property value will increase. Why? Geez, the reason certain property is cheap is because it has been neglected. So when property value goes up, so does the taxes. In turn rental goes up as well because rental business is a business. If property is going to be maintained, it is going to cost money.
If there are people effected, it is those with little to know money. Poor people live in dumps because that is what they can afford or they have to live in a smaller dwelling unit. That is a question about fair pay for employment. Gentrification is positive and negative depending on point of view. Gentrification is a result of property owners having a change of heart from neglecting property to investing their money to make things better and doing maintenance. In turn, property value will be re-assessed and with improvements, value goes up. The people ultimately paying are either the property owners or their tenants if they have tenants. If done intelligently, there is cost saving factors but initially property owners needs to recoupe the cost of the investment. If property was property maintained all along and where in rental situation, was properly charged at a proper rate to allow for proper maintenance all the time, things would be stable.
Those demographic groups often associated with low income is most likely to have hardest impact but that problem isn't with historic preservation itself. A run down building is more likely to collapse and kill the tenants or cause health problems or other problems. Some low income housing borderlines condemnation.
Surely, is those who are low income wants to live in better living conditions in better prices, it is going to cost more. Therefore, the plain answer is increase your income. It is easier said than done but that is what it is.
However, we need to look at the real problem. Name the white elephant in the room. The problem is Donald Trump and people like him. It is wealth distribution.
The best time in the U.S. in terms of wealth distribution was in the 1960s and late 1970s when the wealth distribution was moved from the ultra rich and invested in the people and changed just about when the U.S. got off the gold standard. Things went to hell in a hand basket after that. That was when people got paid well very well for their labor in proportion to the money. This was also a great time of housing development from WW II to 1970s. Something happened around that time.
The Great Depression marked a change in distribution of wealth because the ultra rich lost money but it didn't really get into the hands of the people until the Great Deal and WW II because wealth got tied up in the government hands during the recession at some point and there was changes happening then. The change in the 1970s is about when pay oppression processes has been employed. There is also a change in the type of businesses with the greatest wealth distribution. This complicates things. Where's the jobs? Fast-food and retailers/wholesalers (Walmart?)
Where's the wealth... Apple and some of these companies that don't employ that many so the you get so many minimum wage jobs and that is where so many of the people in the U.S. work and then you have the high profit yield companies that pays like 1%-4% of their income on labor and costs. For example, software companies makes a lot of money and I mean a LOT of money but they don't need that many people to produce the software. Software that may take 1000 people to work 1-2 years to make but 1 Billion people that purchase it at $20 to $200 a copy. That makes for a recipe for VERY high profit yield with very low material cost and labor cost. Easy money making to cost ratio.
That's $20 Billion to $200 Billion revenue. Labor being maybe $75K average for 1000 people. That's $75 Million dollars. That's maybe 0.375% to 0.0375% For a majority of the large software companies, they may get $2 Billion instead of $20 Billion by selling to 100 Million instead of a billion. Their development staff maybe between 100 and 1000. So their labor is maybe 0.375% to 3.75%. The rest of the cost associated to market, package and deliver the product is raise the cost to 5% of their income. 95% of that income goes to the company and its shareholders. Of course it might be closer to 90% of their income as all the regular employees would be maybe 1000 individuals for a software company that is maybe 2000 employees. These companies don't need massive assembly lines. They just need a server administrated by maybe a team of 10 or so server administrators. Pay per download eliminates or reduces the need for employees in an assembly line to package software. The process isn't even as complicated as automobiles.
We have changed from a production oriented country to a service/intellectual-R&D kind of company. This leaves a country that is full of so many people that grown to its size due to the production oriented industrial power-house which was the pull factor for the immigration since the industrial age with no real avenue. A country with no need for this many people unless we just fabricate minimum wage jobs. That is our biggest problem. We just don't have that many jobs that needs higher education so most people only have minimum wage jobs as an option.
We created a very big and very challenging problem because we need to create jobs that pays more than minimum wage. We need to invent new jobs and new economies where there are opportunities for better pay.
I do not know the answer there.
The reality is it isn't historic preservation that is our problem. We need to find solutions to invent new economies and bring new job opportunities with it. Our problem is in wealth distribution.
Perhaps new technology economies are invented or created that brings new jobs in a new frontier.
I don't think we have a simple answer but blaming historic preservation is barking up the wrong tree.
The author seems to forget that the reason the preservation movement is expanding today is the same reason it began. He even tells you its origins without connecting the dots...
"Indeed, in the early days of the U.S. preservation movement, it was modern architecture that was the enemy. People decried the “soulless” steel and glass towers that replaced richly ornamented old buildings, and fought against modernist urban renewal schemes that threatened traditional neighborhoods. "
He's right to say that New York has always evolved since it's early days and that freezing it in amber would be detrimental to it's ethos, but what's caused this fear of the future is that the future turned out to be filled with 'soulless steel and glass towers replacing richly ornamented old buildings.
"Now the movement is too often viewed, justifiably, as being simply anti-development."
True again, because so much new development takes away the unique character of the city and replaces it with anonymous glass and steel towers that could be anywhere. Someday the architecture profession will figure out why the remaining neighborhoods with character in our older cities get gentrified and why so many are reflexively anti-development. Till then, watch out for those conservative, revanchist, elitist and sometimes even racist preservationists that saved the city you love so much.
The author makes many very good points.
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What I find most interesting about this fascinating article, is that Freeman stops *just* short of suggesting NYC Landmarks get (explicitly) into the development biz: "One widely acknowledged problem with the administration of the municipal landmarks law is its disconnect from city planning. [...] A perennially recurring proposal — or rumor — is to merge the LPC into the Department of City Planning" --- a la Havana's Office of the City Historian / Habagüanex, which the same author has covered, indeed, in the same journal. NYC is not Havana, of course, but there do seem to be parallels in the way 'preservation' is mobilized as method for rapid and radical re-development, with "heritage" as justification. There's a quip (that i can't find a source for at the moment) that goes "heritage is the commodification of the past, for the present" - as it has always been....
The entire point of historic preservation is to be conservative and elitist, so the obvious answer to the question in the lede is "no." The conservatism and elitism of preservation is a feature, not a bug.
I don't think it is so much about elitism as it is to conserve and protect and preserve architectural examples that are defining in our history and culture. For example, here in Astoria as well as other cities with historic assets, it is about protecting the things that defines our community.
Elitism is in itself a misinterpretation. Architecture defines the physical character and also embodies the culture of our towns. It isn't necessarily a museum but it is about protecting identity and character from being replaced with mass production soul-less architecture where every building is cookie cutter.
Lets remember that housing development preceding the National Historical Preservation Act in the 1960s, the tract developments of the 1950s and into the 1960s were often quite cookie cutter. In fact, it is has more to do with preservation of history and culture and embodies the civil planning of communities so communities have a humane community versus 100 sq. miles of housing and the closest place for social interaction is 10-20 miles away where you have commute to have a life. We talk about walkable communities but places like Astoria and many places that maintains its historic neighborhoods and downtown are walkable in those areas. They were designed to be walkable as many of these communities were designed in pre-automobile era.
We want a walkable community then looking to the past from older cities are places to start in inspiration for planning.
Without historic preservation, all the cities would have been razed to the ground and built new often replaced with characterless/soul-less, unornamented, plain and bland housing and strip malls with as little character as possible.
It isn't about elitism but about humane and life that we all aspire to have and should. This isn't about developing or preserving for the rich.
When we talk about the poor, part of the problem is some of them chosen that as their life. For some, they chosen to be remain in that poor and live a homeless/vagabond life style. Some of them have other options that can get themselves out of being homeless or poor.
The other big problem are the ultra rich hording the money by not paying their employees as much as they should. They had been systematically oppressing pay to maximize profits that goes into their own personal pockets. It is a wealth distribution problem that we have.
Conservation, is a feature of historic preservation but elitism isn't but elitism comes from attitude of rich people. However, historic preservation doesn't happen without money and frankly when wealth is distributed to the ultra rich people, you are kind of stuck in that situation. The poor don't make preservation happen, financially. The bug is wealth distribution. Elitism is attitude of the rich social-elites which in our current society are among the only people who can finance such. There is societal problems but historic preservation purpose is not about elitism. Elitism comes with the financing. He/She who has the money makes the rules.... as the saying basically goes.
It seems that Historic preservation has shifted from the preservation of physical spaces to one of many tools to preserve class privilege. If an unnecessary constraint such as height restrictions or overly generous setbacks are placed on housing, as communities grow and prosper it will constrict the market and drive up prices. It also doesn't help that the average home in the city as well as the suburbs is ballooning to a ridiculous 2,000 sf. A three story Brownstone that once house three or 6 families now only houses one, similar problems of reducing the density in the urban core by merging apartments into larger ones and reducing the number of people on a given block is made worse by the "zombie" buildings that are mostly owned by investors with no one in them full time. Yet in marginalized communities the preservationist efforts are stunted if not missing landmarks are lost to neglect and then demolition. Historic preservation lately seems more concerned with preserving an image of a lifestyle rather than significant worth while works of architecture. Not every ho hum Victorian is worth saving, nor is every brutalist building, sometimes a work of architecture is worthy of saving if it were not in a location that creates unjustifiable hardships for the community. But if those hardships benefit the rich and landowners they seem to find a convenient mechanism in preserving the historical character as a means to prevent growth that would include or make possible lower rents and possibly in the eyes of the historic preservationist class of people lower class residents who by their very presence on the streets would ruin the image of their quaint urban village lifestyle they bought from their swanky catalogs and trendy boutique shops while downing artisanal asparagus water.
If the building has no function and is preventing needed development that would benefit the entire city then it probably should come down or be redeveloped to meet the needs of the community. Housing for every one first, historic feel good preservation second.
Over and OUT
Peter N
Preservation is elitist because it serves to protect the position of first-movers and established occupants to the detriment of newcomers. And it's obviously conservative, because it is seeking to conserve something of value.
Neither of those are bad things, despite the fact that both words are used as pejoratives in modern consumerist society. Rather than trying to apologize for the fact that preservationism and environmentalism are elitist and conservative, own and embrace it. The positions become much easier to defend when you quit dancing around uncomfortable realities.
On a secondary issue, I have to ask, where is the article being referred to by the above comments? It's not on this page, the title of the article is not given nor is the name of author. The Hyperlink tag on the quote for Places Journal is where you find it, but that is just not the way this kind of this is done. It's maddening and to find comments referring to content that isn't shown or identified.
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