Historic Preservation Doesn’t Happen Without Community Engagement

‘Preservation Action will consider itself successful when historic preservation is deeply ingrained in our culture, embraced by the nation’s citizenry and its elected officials, from town hall to Capitol Hill.  In our vision, every American has recognized the need to become a steward of our historic and cultural resources.

In our vision, our communities are stronger, more livable and exhibit a greater sense of place because these officials, supported and encouraged by the citizenry, have assumed a leadership role in initiating legislation that includes historic preservation as an integral part in creating and sustaining our communities.’ – an excerpt from Preservation Action’s mission statement.

The mission of Preservation Action, a national grassroots preservation organization, has gotten the recipe for preservation right.  It’s so important to encourage the residents of a city to get engaged in preservation and the legislation and elected official support will follow.

As we will be displaying on this website, we’ve lost hundreds of beautiful buildings in Phoenix over  the course of history.  We can’t blame the government or even the developers and business owners who actually demolished the buildings.  No, change isn’t going to come until we, the residents of Phoenix, also take responsibility for all the demolition that takes place here.

It’s no one’s fault but our own.  Once we recognize that we have a voice in what goes on in our city, we can then raise that voice to speak out against things like the short-sighted demolition spurred by our own city government or the profit-motivated demolition that occurs because of developers.

The first step to organizing residents around historic preservation is to raise awareness.  Here are three easy ways to raise your awareness of these issues:

1.  Become a fan Arizona Preservation Foundation on Facebook, and while you’re at it you can check out the APF website.  They do a great job keeping preservation fans up to date on the latest on endangered buildings, development plans, and all things having to do with historic preservation in the state.

2.  Attend a Phoenix Historic Neighborhoods Coalition meeting.  They meet the third Thursdays of every month at 7 p.m. in the Phoenix Elementary School District #1 Governing Board Room (1817 N 7th St.). Also, get to know the buildings on their Phoenix Most Endangered Dozen Historic Places for 2010 list.

3.  Peruse through the vast annals of information on historic buildings (focusing on the mid-century modern era) on the Modern Phoenix Neighborhood Network.  It’s a great way to bone up on the back stories of the buildings all around you.

Once we take responsibility for all the buildings we’ve lost, we can get together and stop it from happening again and again.

Photo Credit:  A postcard of the Sahara Hotel in downtown Phoenix in the process of being torn down.  Image from oldsads.org.