4.0 HPSR 12-08-2005 - Laserfiche WebLink

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4 Neighborhood Development, Transportation Oriented Development -slightly different names but largely the same goals and principles. At the National Governors Association, they call it New Community Design. And in their publication -New Community Design to the Rescue -they have established a set of principles, and they are these: • Mixed use • Community interaction • Transportation/walkability • Tree lined streets • Open space • Efficient use of infrastructure • Houses close to the street • Diverse housing • High density • Reduced land consumption • Links to adjacent communities • Enhances surrounding communities • Pedestrian friendly Great list. Building cities in that fashion would certainly advance the sustainable development agenda. But you know what? We don't need new community design to rescue us. That list of principles is exactly what our historic neighborhoods are providing right now. We just need to make sure they are protected. On the commercial side if we want to begin to mitigate the endless expanse of strip center sprawl it is critical that we have effective programs of center city revitalization. Throughout North America over the last decade, we have seen downtowns come back and reclaim their historic role as the multifunctional, vibrant, heart of the city. Now this is the area where I do most of my work. I typically visit 100 downtowns a year of every size, in every part of the country. But I cannot identify a single example of a sustained success story in downtown revitalization where historic preservation wasn't a key component of that strategy. Not a one. Conversely, the examples of very expensive failures in downtown revitalization -Detroit leaps immediately to mind -have nearly all had the destruction of historic buildings as a major element. That doesn't mean, I suppose, that it's not theoretically possible to have downtown revitalization and no historic preservation, but I haven't seen it, I haven't read of it, I haven't heard of it. Now the relative importance of preservation as part of the downtown revitalization effort will vary some, depending on the local resources, the age of the city, the strength of the local preservation advocacy groups, and the enlightenment of the leadership. But successful revitalization and no historic preservation? It ain't happening. Next on my list of heritage conservation's contribution to the environmental area of sustainable development is embodied energy. I have to confess that this is an area that I hadn't paid much attention to, not until I saw oil hitting $70 a barrel. So I did a bit of research. Embodied energy is defined as the total expenditure of energy involved in the creation of the building and its constituent materials. When we throw away a heritage