(Reprinted from North Carolina Preservation magazine, spring 2005)

In the fall of 2004 I attended the World Urban Forum in Barcelona. The World Urban Forum is UN Habitat's biennial gathering of people from around the world who are dealing with issues of cities. Five thousand people from 150 countries attended, with perhaps 300 sessions — workshops, plenary addresses, panel discussions — and, of course, thousands of less formal interactions.

The most common phrase coming out of those sessions was "sustainable development." The second most common phrase? "Heritage conservation" (the most common international term for "historic preservation." Perhaps a dozen sessions were specifically about heritage conservation, and heritage conservation permeated other sessions about economic competitiveness, job creation, housing, public-private partnerships, and social cohesion. Much of the world has begun to recognize the interrelationship and the interdependency between sustainable development and historic preservation.

The whole purpose of "sustainable development" is to keep that which is important, which is valuable, which is significant. The definition of sustainable development is "the ability to meet our own needs without prejudicing the ability of future generations to meet their own needs." We need to use our cities, our cultural resources, and our memories in such a way that they are also available for future generations. Much of the world understands this, but less so in the United States.

Many advocates for "sustainable development" in the United States define the concept far too narrowly. Recently in Boulder, Colorado, a homeowner in a local historic district made an application to paint the window sashes and trim, and approval was given that day. Two weeks later the Landmarks Commission learned that the historic windows had all been removed — a clear violation of the local ordinance — and had been replaced with new windows. This was done by a contractor who claims to specialize in "ecologically sound materials and methods" and bills himself as "Boulder's greenest contractor."

The Landmarks Commission staff sent a letter directing that the original windows be retained and their condition documented. The contractor responded by saying that the greater energy efficiency of the new windows should outweigh the regulations that apply to houses within the historic district. The Boulder City Council supported the Commission's ruling.

A reporter for a local alternative newspaper talked to the property owner and then decided to take matters into his own hands. He went to the house with a photographer, picked up the historic windows, took a sledge hammer to them, took them to the dump, and arranged to have a bulldozer run over them. You might say that this was civil disobedience with the maturity of a 10-year-old.

This story demonstrates our ignorance about what sustainable development really is. First, from an environmental perspective:

1. The vast majority of heat loss in homes is through the attic and floors, not windows.
2. Adding just 3 1/2 inches of cheap fiberglass insulation in the attic produces three times more energy savings than upgrading from the least energy-efficient single-pane window with no storm window to the most energy-efficient window.
3. Properly repaired historic windows have an R-factor nearly indistinguishable from new, so-called "weatherized" windows.
4. Regardless of the manufacturers' claims about 20-and 30-year lives, 30 percent of the windows being replaced each year are less than ten years old, and many are only two years old.
5. One Indiana study showed that the payback period for replacing historic wood windows is 400 years.
6. The Boulder house was built over a hundred years ago. Those windows were built from hardwood timber from old-growth forests. Environmentalists vehemently protest cutting trees in old-growth forests, but what's the difference? Destroying those windows represents the destruction of the same scarce natural resource.
7. Finally, the diesel fuel used to power the bulldozer to run over the windows in all likelihood consumed more fossil fuel than would be saved over the lifetime of the replacement windows.

Sustainable development is about — but not only about — environmental sustainability.

But if we don't yet get it in the United States, those in other countries do. An international real estate consulting firm based in Great Britain (see www.KingSturge.co.uk) has been at the forefront in broadening the concept of sustainable development. The company's framework of sustainable development includes not only environmental responsibility but also incorporates economic responsibility and social responsibility.

The firm establishes these important nexus for sustainable development:

• 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.

Historic preservation contributes to all three — environmental, economic and social responsibility. When we think about sustainable development in this broader context, the equation goes far beyond "Does this building use passive solar for heat?" or "Is that development making sure that the habitat of an endangered species isn't being compromised?"

How does heritage conservation contribute to the environmental responsibility component of sustainable development?

Let's begin with 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. Worldwide, solid waste disposal is increasingly expensive both in its financial and environmental impacts.

So let's put this in context. We all diligently recycle our soft drink cans. It's a pain in the neck, but we do it because it's good for the environment. The typical small building in an American downtown is 25 feet wide and 100 or 120 or 140 feet deep. If we tear down one small downtown building like this, we have now wiped out the environmental benefits of 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.

Antithetical to sustainable development is the endless expanse of suburban sprawl. The best counter to sprawl is effective programs for center-city revitalization. Throughout North America over the last decade, we have seen many downtowns come back and reclaim their historic role as the multifunctional, vibrant hearts of their cities. 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 one. The relative importance of preservation as part of the downtown revitalization effort will vary, depending on the local resources, the age of the city, the strength of the local preservation advocacy groups, and the enlightenment of the leadership.

Conversely, the very expensive failures in downtown revitalization have nearly all had the destruction of historic buildings as a major element. It's certainly theoretically possible to have downtown revitalization and no historic preservation, but I haven't seen it, read of it or heard of it, and I visit hundreds of downtowns every year.

Another of heritage conservation's contributions to environmental responsibility is "embodied energy." Embodied energy is the energy expended in the creation of a building and its constituent materials. When we throw away a heritage building, we are simultaneously throwing away embodied energy – energy already expended in its construction. How significant is embodied energy? In Australia, they've calculated that the embodied energy in the existing building stock is equivalent to ten years of the total energy consumption of the entire country.

Razing a historic building results in a triple hit on scarce resources. First, we are throwing away thousands of dollars of embodied energy. Second, we are replacing the building with materials vastly more consumptive of energy. What are most historic buildings built from? Brick, plaster, concrete and timber. These materials are among the least energy consumptive. What are major components of new buildings? Plastic, steel, vinyl and aluminum. These are among the most energy consumptive of materials. Third, recurring embodied energy savings increase dramatically as a building life stretches over 50 years. You're a fraud if you claim you are an environmentally conscious builder while throwing away historic buildings and their components.

The World Bank has specifically linked the concept of embodied energy with historic buildings: "the key economic reason for the cultural patrimony case is that a vast body of valuable assets, for which sunk costs have already been paid by prior generations, is available. It is a waste to overlook such assets."

The closest thing we have to a broad-based sustainable development movement is "Smart Growth." No planning movement in America today enjoys a more widespread support across political, ideological, and geographical boundaries than does Smart Growth. Democrats support it for environmental reasons; Republicans for fiscal reasons. Big city mayors and rural county commissioners are in agreement.

The Smart Growth movement has a clear statement of principles:

• Create a range of housing opportunities and choices
• Create walkable neighborhoods
• Encourage community and stakeholder collaboration
• Foster distinctive, attractive places with a Sense of Place
• Make development decisions predictable, fair, and cost-effective
• Mix land uses
• Preserve open space, farmland, natural beauty, and critical environmental areas
• Provide a variety of transportation choices
• Strengthen and direct development toward existing communities
• Take advantage of compact built design

If a community did nothing but protect its historic neighborhoods, it would have advanced every Smart Growth principle. Historic preservation IS Smart Growth. A Smart Growth approach that does not incorporate historic preservation is not only missing a valuable strategy, but an irreplaceable one. Without historic preservation, Smart Growth may not truly be sustainable development.

Heritage conservation is vital to economic responsibility.

A frequently under-appreciated component of historic buildings is their role as natural incubators of small businesses. Eighty-five percent of all net new jobs in the United States are created by firms employing fewer than 20 people. In both downtowns and neighborhood commercial districts, a major contribution to the local economy is the relative affordability of older buildings. Creative, imaginative, small start-up firms are rarely located in the corporate "campus," the industrial park or the new shopping center — they simply cannot afford the rents there. Older and historic commercial buildings play that role, usually with no subsidy.

Pioneer Square in Seattle is one of the great historic commercial neighborhoods in America. The business management association there did a survey of why Pioneer Square businesses chose that neighborhood. The most common answer? That it was a historic district. The second most common answer? The cost of occupancy. Neither of those responses is accidental.

At the top of the list for economic development measurements are jobs created and increases in local household income. The rehabilitation of older and historic buildings is particularly potent in this regard. Generally, for new construction, the costs for materials and for labor are nearly equal. Rehabilitation, on the other hand, will be 60 to 70 percent labor with the balance being materials. This labor intensity affects a local economy on two levels. First, while we buy materials from afar (the HVAC system might be from Ohio or Japan and the lumber from Oregon or Canada), we buy the services of the plumber, electrician, and carpenter from down the street. The money for materials leaves town – or the country. But the plumber gets a haircut on the way home, buys groceries, and joins the YMCA – recirculating that paycheck within the community.

The labor intensity of historic preservation is just part of the economic component of sustainable development. The jobs created by historic rehabilitation are good, well-paying jobs, particularly for those without formal advanced education. That, too, should be part of our social responsibility within sustainable development.

Like it or not, we live in an economically globalized world. To be economically sustainable, we must be economically competitive. To be competitive in a globalized world, a community must position itself to compete not just with other cities in the region, but with other cities on the planet. A large measure of that competitiveness will be based on the quality of life the local community provides, and the built heritage is a major component in creating quality of life. This lesson is being recognized worldwide.

Marc Weiss of the Prague Institute for Global Urban Development states that "investing in and enhancing physical and cultural heritage … is vital for improving the overall economic climate by substantially improving quality of life not just for tourists, but more importantly, for the people who live and work in the urban region." The Inter-American Development Bank asserts, "As the international experience has demonstrated, the protection of cultural heritage is important, especially in the context of the globalization phenomena, as an instrument to promote sustainable development strongly based on local traditions and community resources."

There are two kinds of globalization: economic globalization and cultural globalization. Economic globalization has widespread positive impacts, but cultural globalization ultimately diminishes us all. It is through the adaptive reuse of heritage buildings that a community can actively participate in the positive benefits of economic globalization while simultaneously mitigating negative impacts of cultural globalization.

In the long run, historic preservation contributions to cultural and social responsibility may well be the most important.

In the United States today, we are facing a crisis in housing. All kinds of solutions — most of them very expensive — are being proposed. But the most obvious solution is barely on the radar screen: we need to quit tearing down older and historic housing. Houses built before 1950 disproportionately are home to people of modest resources — the vast majority without any subsidy or public intervention of any kind. When there are policies to conserve older housing stock, we are being socially responsible.

As important as affordability is the issue of economic integration. America is a very diverse country — racially, ethnically, educationally, economically. But our neighborhoods are not diverse at all. The vast majority of neighborhoods are all-white or all-black, all-rich or all-poor. The exception — virtually everywhere I've looked in America — is in our historic districts. There, rich and poor, Asian and Hispanic, college-educated and high school dropout, are neighbors in the truest sense of the word. That is economic integration, and sustainable cities are going to need it.

Economic development takes many forms — industrial recruitment, job retraining, waterfront development, and others. But historic preservation is the only form of economic development that is simultaneously community development. That, too, is part of our social responsibility.

Two important roles for historic buildings are to provide a physical manifestation of memory, and to help us understand our own place in the ongoing story of humankind. Take a moment and think of something significant to you personally. Anything. You may think of your children, or your spouse, or your church, or a favorite piece of art, or your childhood home, or a personal accomplishment. Now take away your memory. Which of those things are now significant to you? None. There can be no significance without memory. And if memory is necessary for significance, it is also necessary for both meaning and value. Without memory nothing has significance, nothing has meaning, nothing has value.

That is the lesson of that old Zen koan, "If a tree falls in a forest and no one hears it, did it make a sound?" Of course it made a sound; sound comes from the vibration of molecules, and a falling tree vibrates molecules. But that sound might as well not have been made because there is no memory of it.

A town or region tells its own past, transfers its own memory, largely through the fabric of the built environment. Historic buildings are the physical manifestation of memory — and it is memory that makes places significant. We are obviously denying future generations the opportunity to meet a basic human need for meaning when we destroy our historic built environment.

Heritage conservation makes communities viable, livable, equitable. I particularly appreciate that the broadened concept of sustainable development is made up of "responsibilities" — environmental responsibility, economic responsibility, and social responsibility.

Today, there are thousands of advocacy movements. Most of them seek "rights": animal rights, abortion rights, right-to-life, right-to-die, states rights, gun rights, gay rights, property rights, women's rights, and on and on. Rights are all well and good. But I would suggest that any claim for "rights" that is not balanced with "responsibilities" removes the civility from civilization. It creates an entitlement mentality as a nation of mere consumers of public services rather than a nation of citizens. A consumer has rights; a citizen has responsibilities that accompany those rights.

Historic preservation is a responsibility movement rather than a rights movement. It is a movement that urges us toward the responsibility of stewardship, not merely the right of ownership. Stewardship of our historic built environment, certainly — but also, stewardship of the meaning and memory of our communities as they are manifested in those buildings.

Sustainability fundamentally means stewardship. There can be no sustainable development without a central role for historic preservation.

© Donovan D. Rypkema, 2006, Place Economics, This email address is being protected from spam bots, you need Javascript enabled to view it