Neighborhood historic districts should each develop and implement interpretation and outreach plans

(This is something I wrote in email.)

I was reading about a program in Arkansas called " Walks Through History" which is described on the SHPO website as:

Q: How are locations chosen for the Walks Through History Tour?
A: The Walks Through History tours focus on properties outside of central Arkansas. We choose locations throughout the state primarily focusing on historic districts and groupings of individually listed National Register properties that lie in close proximity to one another. We strive to choose tour locations that have not been previously featured in the Walks series.

(This is the original article that sparked the idea below.)

It gave me the idea that all of our historic districts in the city should create their own interpretation and outreach plans, and the outreach plans shouldn't be limited to the creation of a fine brochure such as Mt. Pleasant or Capitol Hill and evaluation of permit requests by neighborhood historic associations and/or ANCs.

Groups like CHRS and Historic Takoma sponsor annual tours. Some neighborhoods, either through the auspices of a neighborhood historical society or not, offer tours through the "WalkingTownDC" program of CulturalTourismDC. Most groups publish newsletters for their members. CHRS has an active preservation "lecture" series. CHRS also publishes a great set of historic district guidelines/information publications, not quite at the level of the NPS Technical Preservation Briefs, but highly useful in any case.

But I think it's important to devise a general interpretation and outreach plan that is complete and fully coordinated, where each activity reinforces other activities and broader preservation objectives, focused on all the stakeholders in a particular historic district, whether or not they are members of the neighborhood historical/preservation society, but at the same time is focused on adding members and support to neighborhood preservation initiatives.

This will help educate people about historic preservation and why it is valuable and will help us reach new audiences and new property owners. Given the fact that residency and business proprietorship is pretty fluid, it is important and key to have communications program in place to engage newcomers of all sorts.