Publication | Issues in Preservation Policy: Preservation, Sustainability, and Equity

Heritage occupies a privileged position within the built environment. Most municipalities in the United States, and nearly all countries around the world, have laws and policies to preserve heritage in situ, seeking to protect places from physical loss and the forces of change. That privilege, however, is increasingly being unsettled by the legacies of racial, economic, and social injustice in both the built environment and historic preservation policy, and by the compounding climate crisis. Though many heritage projects and practitioners are confronting injustice and climate in innovative ways, systemic change requires looking beyond the formal and material dimensions of place and to the processes and outcomes of preservation policy—operationalized through laws and guidelines, regulatory processes, and institutions—across time and socio-geographic scales, and in relation to the publics they are intended to serve.

This third volume in the Issues in Preservation Policy series examines historic preservation as an enterprise of ideas, methods, institutions, and practices that must reorient toward a new horizon, one in which equity and sustainability become critical guideposts for policy evolution.

With contributions from Lisa T. Alexander, Louise Bedsworth, Ken Bernstein, Robin Bronen, Sara C. Bronin, Shreya Ghoshal, Scott Goodwin, Claudia Guerra, Victoria Herrmann, James B. Lindberg, Randall Mason, Jennifer Minner, David Moore, Marcy Rockman, Stephanie Ryberg-Webster, A.R. Siders, Amanda L. Webb, and Vicki Weiner.

Available online and in print.

---

The Urban Heritage, Sustainability, and Social Inclusion Initiative is a project of CSUD, the Columbia Graduate School of Architecture, Planning, and Preservation, and The American Assembly. The initiative examines historic preservation as a sustainable and socially-inclusive urban policy tool. It has been generously funded by the New York Community Trust. The initiative engages researchers, government officials, and practitioners in a series of three symposia and related publications, to advance the collaborative processes needed to inform the next generation of preservation policy.

Publication | Issues in Preservation Policy: Preservation and Social Inclusion

The Urban Heritage, Sustainability, and Social Inclusion Initiative, in which TAA is a collaborator, has released the second volume of its Issues in Preservation Policy series. Bringing together a broad range of academics, historians, and practitioners, this volume documents historic preservation’s progress toward inclusivity and explores further steps to be taken.

Stemming from the work on the above volume, we are also pleased to announce the launch of “Building a Foundation for Action: Anti-Racist Historic Preservation Resources,” an open-access, collaborative resource list for preservationists seeking to acknowledge the field’s structural racism and to take actions toward de-centering Whiteness.

The third and final volume in the Issues in Preservation Policy series, Preservation, Sustainability, and Equity, is in production and will possibly be out by late Spring 2021.

Read additional commentary on the latest volume in this Earth Institute blog.

---

The Urban Heritage, Sustainability, and Social Inclusion Initiative is a project of CSUD, the Columbia Graduate School of Architecture, Planning, and Preservation, and The American Assembly. The initiative examines historic preservation as a sustainable and socially-inclusive urban policy tool. It has been generously funded by the New York Community Trust. The initiative engages researchers, government officials, and practitioners in a series of three symposia and related publications, to advance the collaborative processes needed to inform the next generation of preservation policy.