A little bit of knowledge is a dangerous thing: GGW criticism of consulting team retained to write the next iteration of the city's preservation plan (helped me to articulate the 21st century narrative in favor of historic preservation)

The Greater Greater Washington blog has an article, "OP privatizes historic district study, puts it in the hands of preservation cheerleaders," criticizing the city's selection of a pro-preservation consulting firm, which has done some work for the DC Preservation League, as a bag job.  I wonder what GGW thinks about groups like the Washington Area Bicyclists Association getting city grants.

The Economics of Uniqueness: Investing in Historic City Cores and Cultural Heritage Assets for Sustainable Development

Ironically, the article demonstrates the lack of knowledge of the author and his own neoliberal biases, because Place Economics is internationally recognized for its work, one item of which is the World Bank book, The Economics of Uniqueness.

The principal of the firm, Donovan Rypkema, was one of the first people to study the economic value of historic preservation to cities, more than four decades ago.  He moved into preservation consulting from real estate appraisal--it was real estate appraisal that was his entry into the field.

-- Historic Preservation and Affordable Housing: The Missed Connection (2003)
-- "The Economics of Historic Preservation" 
-- Measuring the Economic Impact of Historic Preservation, Advisory Council for Historic Preservation
-- "Culture, Historic Preservation and Economic Development in the 21st Century"

And I don't agree with all of PE's work, such as their triage of properties worth saving in Detroit (Historic Preservation and Rightsizing: Current Practices and Resources Survey).

The new new urban pioneers.  The problem is that post-2000 migrants to the city, especially those of the GGW demographic--younger, under 40, believe that they saved the city. 

This ignores the reality that they are merely the latest generation of "urban pioneers" which have been moving into the city since the 1950s, especially in the period from 1950 to 2000, when household choice trends did not favor urban living ("Blazing a Trail: Urban Pioneer Neighborhoods," HGTV). 

I was one of those migrants in the late 1980s--it took until about 2000 for in-migration to hit critical mass, independent of the change in housing preferences, which were spurred in part by TV shows like Friends and Seinfeld showing positive images of the city.

Note like with institutions acknowledging that we are on lands taken from Native Americans, I am now cool on the term "urban pioneer" because yes, there were residents already. Although out-migration trends were driven by fear of integration it was also about suburban living as a bucolic alternative.  It's better to think of the in-migrants from those decades as people interested in investing in the city, while the out-migrants were engaged in disinvestment.

From "Urban pioneers in the making: Recontextualization and the emergence of the engaged resident in redeveloping communities," Journal of Sociolinguistics:

... The analysis highlights how despite a common thematic focus on resident engagement, personal commentaries and stories of resident activism steer away from the institutional ideal of positive problem solving toward conflict and acts of removal. I identify links between circulated metasemiotic descriptions of the ‘engaged urban resident’ and market-led urban redevelopment and argue that individual reframings and enactments of the institutionally-mandated urban persona can foster socially exclusive and spatially-purified urban neighborhoods.

From the blog entry "70th anniversary of the DC Capitol Hill Restoration Society":

In 2000, I first got involved in urban revitalization through the prism of historic preservation, when a preservationist reached out to me about the H Street neighborhood north of the Capitol Hill Historic District (from F Street NE to Florida Avenue NE).

I'd argue the disinvested historic building is more pleasing than the house next door, although for post-modernism it isn't so bad.

I remain an ardent preservationist today, mostly because the architecture and urban design is so much more humanist and aesthetically pleasing than that of today's post-modernism.  Good books on the subject include Changing Places (out of print) and Cities: Back from the Edge.

It was also a great strategy for neighborhood stabilization during the many decades that center city living was disfavored and populations shrunk.  

Preservation was cheap for cities because the property owners bore the bulk of the cost of compliance--although some argue that put undue hardship on lower income households.  For the most part, cities merely paid for the regulatory function, and brick sidewalks and historically appropriate streetlighting.

It is difficult to separate out the effects of preservation and stabilization versus "gentrification."  I'd argue that gentrification results from architectural attractiveness (mostly, there are plenty examples of tear downs and McMansionization of designate-able properties) and that preservation shouldn't be criticized for its success.  "Inward investment" by preservationists shouldn't be criticized as gentrification but as reinvesting in a city where capital for housing was often unavailable.

Rowhouse neighborhoods have a lot of density as this aerial photo of Capitol Hill by Al Drago shows.

Another criticism is that it has focused on building preservation over intangible heritage ("New York City’s Historic Preservation Movement Is Having a Midlife Crisis," Bloomberg). That by selecting certain areas to preserve, it says others aren't worth preserving, part of the argument of the book History of Urban Places.

In any case, with the rise of property rights sentiments, now at least pre-covid, the trend of city revival and the need for "more housing" amidst constrained land resources, preservation has come into attack by prominent economists and the like ("Idiocracy concerning historic preservation from both Yglesias and Glaeser," 2011), and Binyamin Applebaum in the New York Times ("Historic Preservation Is Hurting Cities," letters, "Preserving Historic Buildings," and "I Want a City, Not a Museum," letters, "Should Historic Buildings Give Way to New Housing?").

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A 21st century argument/narrative for the value of historic preservation.  Elsewhere I have argued that historic preservation had a great narrative in the days of the shrinking city--but it hasn't developed a new narrative for opportunities for HP in a growing or rebounding city.

I argue that unlike the demolition arguments of those like GGW, Glaeser, and Yglesias, that it's important to retain place distinctive qualities that make the city unique as opposed to merely a space in which to live.

In terms of theory and practice, I argue that this means respecting the "architectural ensemble of historic districts" (New Buildings Among Old: Historicism and the Search for an Architecture of Our Time"), basically the arguments of University of Notre Dame professor Stephen Semes. 

Along side a surgical insertion of new buildings, more dense, where appropriate.  Like many cities Salt Lake has lots of small apartment buildings in its core.  DC has some of this in older neighborhoods like Capitol Hill and Dupont Circle.  Such buildings are models for what we might call "sensitive densification" within pre-1930 neighborhoods.

Kennedy-Warren building, Connecticut Avenue NW, Washington DC.

DC has examples of large apartment buildings of historically-pleasing design as well.

Where Salt Lake is unusual is that it also has a pattern of duplexes, triplexes, quads, and courtyard housing.  

I argue both types of housing can be admirable additions to historic districts, provided they utilize historic preservation relevant design--which most newly constructed housing does not.

Duplexes and similar types are often but not limited to corner properties and on neighborhood arterials.  SLC's buildings of this type are worthy of a dissertation.

WRT larger apartment buildings, London offers a good typology of historic building design for newly constructed housing, the concept of which is rare in the US, with some exceptions (the works of Robert A.M Stern in NYC,  "Vintage Appeal: Why A-Listers Love New York’s Vintage Residential Buildings," Variety, older rowhouse developments in DC by EYA, BF Saul's expansion of the Kennedy Warren apartment building, etc.).

Interestingly, unlike the people profiled in the Variety article, even though they share the same demographic as the post-2000 urban pioneers and YIMBYs, they have a very different attitude towards place value versus space value.

Typical design of a post-modern apartment building across the US, this building is in Salt Lake.  Developers argue that their market research says people want design like this.  I bet they aren't showing them alternatives.

An addition to the 21st century narrative includes that of protecting intangible heritage and small businesses ("Why Historic Preservation Needs a New Approach," Bloomberg), related in the previous entry on Chinatowns.

When I first started being interested in preservation, I didn't think so much about the intangible.  Of course, it's essential to the definition of place value.

Also see "Preserving Kensington Market’s true ‘neighbourhood character’ means being open to change," Toronto Star:

There are many things that Toronto residents generally need or want, just not on their own street: mid-rise housing, convenience stores, high-rise housing, homeless shelters, low-rise multiplex housing, bars. When one of these things is proposed anywhere in the city, you can rely on hearing one of two contradictory objections.

The first is: we don’t have that kind of thing here, and introducing it would ruin the neighbourhood. The second is: we have plenty of that kind of thing here already, and adding more of it would ruin the neighbourhood.

In either case, the concern invariably revolves around “neighbourhood character,” a quality that always seems to be on the verge of destruction whenever the city evolves. Introduce something uncommon, and it’s ruined. Add more of something common, and it’s also ruined.

Compromises necessary for both preservationists and yimbys.  The shortest way to summarize the 21st century narrative is that preservations have to compromise on the addition of new buildings and density, while YIMBYs have to compromise on design appropriateness--old versus new, and drop their blindness to the negative impacts of mass demolition of historic character.  And the Star article makes this point:

In a way, the kinds of objections that have been making headlines lately serve as an indicator species for a healthy neighbourhood. But letting the objectors get their way all the time can sometimes do more to ruin a neighbourhood’s character than any proposed change.

OTOH,we could call the Glaesers, Applebaums, and Yglesias' promoters of a 21st century urban renewal program, equally heinous to that of the 20th century, because of their arguments that historic neighborhoods don't deserve protection from significant architectural change, and that the value of land is valueless in terms of place considerations.

A good point: neighborhoods that agree to add denser housing, deserve to get infrastructure improvements in return

 So says Toronto Star columnist Shawn Micaleff, "If Toronto fails to deliver this one piece of infrastructure, it will reveal an ugly truth."

There should be a grand bargain: If our leaders are going to stuff so many people into the same places, they ought to be provided with fantastic infrastructure. Theoretically, anyway.

Liberty Village is often vilified by people in single-family homes as being a “slum in the making” but it’s one of Toronto’s hero neighbourhoods, helping the city live up to its self-congratulatory “You Belong Here” motto while it whispers, “stay out,” writes Shawn Micallef. Rene Johnston / Toronto Star

He's writing about the Liberty Village neighborhood, which unlike most of Toronto's neighborhoods has agreed to a number of dense housing developments ("Toronto’s grudge against apartments," Star), but has substandard access to transit, lacks parks, etc.

So warped are perceptions in Toronto that even progressive folks consider tiny condo apartments, the first rung of the property ladder that people claw their way into, as “luxury,” but homes in the million dollar range or more are somehow not. There’s also a perception that those homeowners “contribute” to the neighbourhood and, in this case, the 900 apartment dwellers somehow wouldn’t. ...

The stakes are high. Old Toronto missed out on building apartments when it could, now we’ve conspired to make apartment living a bad thing in much of the city. Don’t like tall buildings? Then fight for density to be spread across the city. Inclusive ratepayer and historic preservation groups that do this will be the new civic heroes. 

 “Everyone complains about tall towers downtown, and everyone wants mid-rise, but part of the problem is an inability to unlock additional small-scale intensification in existing neighbourhoods,” says Galbraith. “Affordable housing is always a hot-button issue, and combined with both the inability to create and resistance to infill, I think the answer is obvious: we should provide more smaller scale housing options everywhere in the city.”

Quimbyism: sign me up!

A book I need to read.  Yes to the City: Millennials and the Fight for Affordable Housing

We've heard of NIMBY -- not in my backyard -- and YIMBY -- yes in my backyard -- abbreviations for different factions in communities opposed to or supportive of development.

A few years ago, Michael Mehaffy a prominent new urbanist, came up with the term, QUIMBY ("Never mind NIMBY and YIMBY–it’s time for ‘QUIMBY’ urbanism We need a major rethink of gentrification and affordability challenges if we’re going to get anywhere," Public Square), for "quality in my backyard" in part because YIMBYs don't seem to be too clued into quality, just building.

This comes up a lot with criticism of historic preservation as a limiter of development, or a stalking horse to stop development.  OTOH, there are a lot more areas of cities not zoned for preservation than for preservation.  

So most cities have plenty of build out capacity in commercial districts, transit catchment areas, reproduction of institutional lands, etc.

It happens that the neighborhoods that many people want to live in are typical of those that are designated historic, such as rowhouse neighborhoods in New York City, Baltimore, DC and Richmond.  YIMBYs basically argue for tearing down historic housing in favor of building more, to meet current demand, not recognizing that the new housing will be even more expensive because it is built at today's pricing for land, labor, materials, and financing.

To me, this is a perfect example of YIMBY housing on Sherman Avenue NW in DC, adjacent to housing that is eligible for historic designation but isn't designated, hence there are no design standards or processes to ensure compatible development.

Anyway, I commented on a recent post on the Pro-Urb list that QUIMBYISM could help us solve a problem of lack of congruence with multiple movements all addressing an element of what makes urbanism and urban living so attractive, by providing the glue that could join them in an agglomerated movement:

• Historic Preservation
• New Urbanism
• Urban design and placemaking (including Project for Public Spaces concepts)
• Walkability-15 Minute City concepts
• Sustainable mobility
• City Beautiful.  

This too, in NE DC near H Street NE and Hechinger Mall, in a rowhouse neighborhood that is eligible for historic preservation designation.  

These kinds of examples are why I argue that the entire city should be treated as a historic district ("Treating an entire city as a heritage area/conservation district, rather than a neighborhood by neighborhood approach," 2020).

On the other hand, this is an example of good, quality oriented infill development in a historic district and yes it costs more.  

It's a row of four or five new builds constructed on the 500 block of East Capitol NE (a tony housing district in DC).  

Ironically, they were built on a parking lot that was created by the Capitol Hill Baptist Church in the 1970s, by tearing down a beloved neighborhood restaurant, Mary's Blue Room  ("Losing my religion," 2008).

This action sparked the creation of a local historic preservation ordinance, providing protection against non-federal property owners, when the National Register Historic Districts designation process created by the 1968 National Historic Preservation Act only provides protections against federal undertakings.

But as Stephen Semes writes in Future of the Past: A Conservation Ethic for Architecture, Urbanism, and Historic Preservation, "the architecture of the ensemble" and maintaining neighborhood design coherence should be our priority.

"Maintaining a broad stylistic consistency in traditional settings is not a matter of 'nostalgia,'" he says. "It's a matter of common sense, of reinforcing the sense of place that made a building or neighborhood special to begin with. But many academically trained preservationists want to impose their inevitably subjective notions of what the architecture 'of our time' is."

Modern rowhouses in Capitol Hill, Seattle

Historic era rowhouses in Pittsburgh (I don't know if they are designated)

Typical new construction apartment design.  This is in Lakeland, Florida.