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New standards for ridiculousness in historic preservation

July 28, 2011 By Emily Hamilton

Because Arlington County, VA is not home to many properties over 100 years old, planning officials have turned their historic preservation efforts to those properties they do have to preserve. The Sun Gazette reports:

The first phase of the effort focused on only a very narrow slice of property types in Arlington: garden apartments, shopping centers and commercial properties more than 50 years old. Leventhal said those types of properties are most vulnerable to redevelopment.

It sounds like preservation efforts in Arlington will be much less restrictive that the often discussed Landmark Designation in New York. However, the new policy will certainly increase uncertainty and cost for redeveloping protected property. And of course the question here is, are strip malls from the 1960s really worth preserving?

Miles Grant at The Green Miles hits the nail on the head with this quote:

But saying properties more than 50 years old are most vulnerable to redevelopment is like saying cars more than 10 years old are most vulnerable to being traded in.

Sure, if classic cars were protected and not allowed to be traded in, we would see more on the road. The trade-off, though, would be that consumers would not be able to choose the cars that best meet their needs.

While Smart Growth supporters and historic preservation activists share the same propensity for top-down control of development, this issue gets to the core of their inherent conflict. The preservation of car-centric development prevents higher density, walkable communities, even when this is what the market demands. While individuals may attempt to embrace both ideologies, protecting mediocre mid-century suburban architecture necessarily comes at the expense of Smart Growth principles.

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Filed Under: Economics, history, preservation

About Emily Hamilton

Comments

  1. MW says

    July 28, 2011 at 7:40 pm

    So true.  And the worst part is that those garden apartments look horrible.  They are a far cry from Victorian townhouses.
    I get the sense that part of the motivation is to keep them for affordable housing.

  2. Rhywun says

    July 29, 2011 at 2:55 am

    I’m thinking a better approach might be to just stop building new stuff that’s crap.  That’s probably why “preservation” in America is so confused – it’s not “age” that matters, it’s “quality”.  We seem to have forgotten that.  In other countries, “preservation” includes building new stuff that’s either identical to the old stuff it replaces or at least fits in with the old stuff.  Here, we are completely uninterested in building anything that “looks” old – hence, the perverse desire to preserve anything old – even crap.

  3. George says

    July 29, 2011 at 6:13 pm

    This is the problem with top-down govertnment regulation today.  In an attempt to maintain legality in our preservation endeavors (or anything for that matter) we come up with an arbitrary age to preserve.  As several people here have stated the age of a building does not dictate if it should be preserved or not.  George – http://www.doesnewurbanismwork.com 

  4. Carrie says

    August 7, 2011 at 6:04 pm

    Hi Emily
    Had coffee with your mom last week.   It is a mix of Dems and Repubs, needless to say we do not talk politics.
    Carrie Fleming

  5. Emily Washington says

    August 8, 2011 at 9:48 pm

    Hi Ms. Fleming,
    Great to hear from you! Hope you are doing well.
    Emily

  6. Emily Washington says

    August 8, 2011 at 9:48 pm

    Hi Ms. Fleming,
    Great to hear from you! Hope you are doing well.
    Emily

Trackbacks

  1. To preserve or not to preserve « a city guy says:
    August 1, 2011 at 9:42 am

    […] thing. On the other hand, Emily Washington, at the Market Urbanist, notes that a move in Arlington to set new standards for historic preservation risks preserving a number of banal, anti-urbanist architecture. Ed Glaeser argues in Triumph of […]

  2. PreservationNation » Sustainability Roundup: Changes to LEED, Historic Windows, Smart Growth and Tax Credits says:
    August 18, 2011 at 10:43 am

    […] Gardner of Old Urbanist responds to Emily Washington’s story New Standards for Ridiculousness in Historic Preservation regarding the conflict between smart growth and preservation. Referring to the preservation of low […]

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