4.0 HPSR 12-08-2005 - Laserfiche WebLink

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Maintaining as much of the original fabric as possible is maintaining the character of the historic neighborhood. That's cultural sustainability, also part of sustainable development. But if we don't yet get it in the United States, others do. There's an international real estate consulting firm based in Great Britain -King Sturge -which has been at the forefront in broadening the concept of sustainable development. Their framework of sustainable development certainly includes envirommental responsibility but also economic responsibility and social responsibility. I'm going to take the liberty of expanding the third category into social and cultural responsibility. They further identify these important nexus: for a community to be viable there needs to be a link between environmental responsibility and economic responsibility; for a community to be livable there needs to be a link between environmental responsibility and social responsibility; and for a community to be equitable there needs to be a link between economic responsibility and social responsibility. When we begin to think about sustainable development in this broader context the entire equation begins to change -and includes more than simply, "Does this building use passive solar for heat?" or "Is that development making sure that the habitat of the snail darter isn't being compromised?" When we begin to think about sustainable development in this broader context the role of heritage conservation in sustainable development becomes all the more clear. Let's start with the environmental responsibility component of sustainable development. How does heritage conservation contribute to that? Well, we could begin with the simple area of solid waste disposal. In the United States, almost one ton of solid waste per person is collected annually. Around a fourth of the material in solid waste facilities is construction debris, and much of that from the demolition of older and historic buildings. World wide solid waste disposal is increasingly expensive both in dollars and in environmental impacts. So let me put this in context for you. You know we all diligently recycle our Coke cans. It's a pain in the neck, but we do it because it's good for the environment. Here is a typical building in a North American downtown - 25 feet wide and 100 or 120 or 140 feet deep. Let's say that today we tear down one small building like this in your downtown. We have now wiped out the entire environmental benefit from the last 1,344,000 aluminum cans that were recycled. We've not only wasted an historic building, we've wasted months of diligent recycling by the good people of our community. Driven in part by concerns for sustainable development there is an emerging movement throughout North America of planners, architects, landscape architects and some developers. The movement is about making sure we quit building endless sprawl and start building better cities. Everybody has their own name for it -New Urbanism, Traditional