[MassHistPres] Forum article on sustainability, windows and preservation

[Carroon, Jean]

Forum Journal
Winter 2006, Vol.20, No. 2

Economics, Sustainability, and Historic Preservation 
by Donovan D. Rypkema

s we've heard all week, the theme of this conference is Sustain America:
Vision, Economics, and Preservation. So I'd like to expand the vision of
the relationship among those things-economics, sustainability, and
preservation. 
In 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. 
In Barcelona there were 5,000 people from 150 countries. During the
week, there were 300 sessions-workshops, plenary addresses, panel
discussions-and thousands of less-formal interactions. Not surprisingly,
the most commonly heard phrase was sustainable development. But you know
what the second most common phrase was? Heritage conservation. There
were perhaps a dozen sessions specifically about historic preservation,
so hearing the phrase there was no surprise. But heritage conservation
permeated the sessions that on the surface weren't about historic
preservation at all-sessions about economic competitiveness, job
creation, housing, public-private partnerships, social cohesion. 
Much of the world has begun to recognize the interrelationship and the
interdependency between sustainable development and heritage
conservation. 
Much of the world, but much less so in the United States. With one
notable exception, I'm not so sure we've really connected the dots. Too
many advocates too narrowly define what constitutes sustainable
development. Let me give you an example. 
Over a year ago in Boulder, Colo., a homeowner in a local historic
district applied to paint his window sash and trim, and approval was
given the same 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 methods"
and bills himself as "Boulder's greenest contractor." 
The landmarks commission sent a letter directing that the original
windows be retained and their condition documented. The contractor
responded saying that the greater energy efficiency of the new windows
should outweigh the regulations that apply to houses within the historic
district. A subsequent commission hearing upheld the staff position and
a city council hearing supported the commission's ruling. 
Here's the next chapter- a reporter for the local alternative newspaper
decided to take matters into his own hands. He went to the house, picked
up the historic windows, took a sledgehammer to them, hauled them to the
dump, and arranged to have a bulldozer run over them. Sort of a 10-
year-old's version of civil disobedience. 
Now I want to stop the story for just a minute. I'm not necessarily sure
that the landmarks commission's decision was right. But I'm telling you
the story to demonstrate 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 or
uninsulated walls, not windows. 
2.	Adding just three and one-half inches of fiberglass insulation
in the attic has three times the R factor impact as replacing a single
pane window with no storm window with 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' "lifetime warranties," 30
percent of the windows being replaced each year are less than 10 years
old. 
5.	One Indiana study showed that the payback period through energy
savings by replacing historic wood windows is 400 years. 
6.	The Boulder house was built more than a hundred years ago,
meaning those windows were built from hardwood timber from old growth
forests. Environmentalists go nuts about cutting down trees in old
growth forests, but what's the difference? Destroying those windows
represents the destruction of the same scarce resource. 
7.	Finally, the diesel fuel to power the bulldozer consumed more
fossil fuel than would be saved over the lifetime of the replacement
windows. 
The point is this: Sustainable development is about, but not only about,
environmental sustainability. 
*	Repairing and rebuilding the historic windows would have meant
the dollars were spent locally instead of at a distant manufacturing
plant. That's economic sustainability, also part of sustainable
development. 
*	Maintaining the original fabric is maintaining the character of
the historic neighborhood. That's cultural sustainability, also part of
sustainable development.
Most of you know of the LEED certification system of the U.S. Green
Building Council. Currently circulating is a draft of a proposed rating
system for neighborhood developments. To its credit, the council
assigned weight for adaptively reusing a historic building-up to 2
points...out of 114. Well, at least it's a step in the right direction. 
But if we don't yet "get it" in the United States, others do. King
Sturge-an international real estate consulting firm headquartered in
England-has been at the forefront of broadening the concept of
sustainable development. The firm's framework for sustainable
development certainly includes environmental 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. 
The firm further identifies 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 think about sustainable development in this broader context, the
entire equation changes-and includes more than simply asking, "Is this
building LEED certified?" or "Is the snail darter habitat being
protected?" 
When we think about sustainable development in this broader context, the
role of historic preservation becomes all the more clear. 
Environmental Responsibility
How does historic preservation contribute to the environmental
responsibility component of sustainable development? 
Let's start with solid waste disposal. In the United States we collect
almost one ton of solid waste per person annually. Around a fourth of
the material in solid waste facilities is construction debris, much of
that from the demolition of older and historic buildings. 
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. A typical building in an
American downtown is perhaps 25 feet wide and 120 feet deep. If we tear
down that one small building, 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 a historic building, we've wasted months
of diligent recycling. 
Driven in part by concerns for sustainable development, there is an
emerging movement made up of planners, architects, landscape architects,
and some developers. The movement wants us to stop building endless
sprawl and start building better cities. Everybody has their own name
for it- New Urbanism, Traditional 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. In the association's publication- New
Community Design to the Rescue-they establish 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
It's a 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. And by the way, the number of
times the phrase "historic preservation" appears in their publication?
Exactly zero. 
If we want to slow the spread of strip-center sprawl, we must have
effective programs of downtown revitalization. Throughout America we
have seen downtowns reclaim their historic role as the multifunctional,
vibrant heart of the city. Downtown is where I do most of my work. I
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 in
downtown revitalization where historic preservation wasn't a key
component of that strategy. Not one. Conversely, the examples of very
expensive failures in downtown revitalization have nearly all had the
destruction of historic buildings as a major element. 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 groups, and the enlightenment of the
leadership. But successful revitalization and no historic preservation?
It ain't happening. 
Next is the concept of embodied energy. I hadn't paid much attention to
embodied energy, not until oil hit $70 a barrel. So I did a bit of
research. Embodied energy is the total expenditure of energy involved in
the creation of the building and its constituent materials. When we
throw away a historic building, we simultaneously throw away the
embodied energy incorporated into that building. How significant is
embodied energy? In Australia they've calculated that the embodied
energy in their existing building stock is equivalent to 10 years of the
total energy consumption of the entire country. 
Razing historic buildings results in a triple hit on scarce resources.
First, we are throwing away thousands of dollars of embodied energy.
Second, we are replacing it with materials vastly more consumptive of
energy. What are most historic houses built from? Brick, plaster,
concrete, and timber -among the least energy consumptive of materials.
What are major components of new buildings? Plastic, steel, vinyl, and
aluminum- among the most energy consumptive of materials. Third,
recurring embodied energy savings increase dramatically as a building's
life stretches over 50 years. You're a fool or a fraud if you claim to
be an environmentalist and yet you throw away historic buildings and
their components. 
The World Bank specifically relates the concept of embodied energy with
historic buildings saying, "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." 
I said earlier that in the U.S. we haven't generally made the connection
between sustainable development and historic preservation, but that
there was one notable exception. The exception is Smart Growth. Richard
Moe brought the preservation movement- with many of us kicking and
screaming-into the forefront of Smart Growth...as well we should be.
There is no movement in America today that enjoys 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 support it-there are Smart Growth supporters everywhere. 
The Smart Growth movement also has a clear statement of principles and
here it is: 
*	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.
But you know what? If a community did nothing but protect its historic
neighborhoods it will have advanced every Smart Growth principle.
Historic preservation is Smart Growth. A Smart Growth approach that does
not include historic preservation high on the agenda is stupid growth,
period. 
Economic Responsibility
Historic preservation is vital to sustainable development, but not just
on the level of environmental responsibility. The second component the
sustainable development equation is economic responsibility. So let me
give you some examples in this area. 
An underappreciated contribution of historic buildings is their role as
natural incubators of small businesses. It isn't the Fortune 500
companies that are creating the jobs in America. Some 85 percent of all
net new jobs are created by firms employing fewer than 20 people. One of
the few costs firms of that size can control is occupancy costs-rents.
In downtowns and in neighborhood commercial districts a major
contribution to the local economy is the relative affordability of older
buildings. It is no accident that the creative, imaginative start-up
firm isn't located in the corporate office "campus," the industrial
park, or the shopping center-it simply cannot afford those rents.
Historic commercial buildings play the natural business incubator role,
usually with no subsidy or assistance of any kind. 
Pioneer Square in Seattle is one of the great historic commercial
neighborhoods in America. The business management association there did
a survey asking 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. 
I'm often introduced as a preservationist, but I'm really an economic
development consultant. The top priorities for economic development
efforts are creating jobs and increasing local household income. The
rehabilitation of older and historic buildings is particularly potent in
this regard. As a rule of thumb, new construction will be half materials
and half labor. 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, we buy a HVAC system from
Ohio and lumber from Idaho, but we buy the services of the plumber, the
electrician, and the carpenter from across the street. Further, once we
hang the drywall, the drywall doesn't spend any more money. But the
plumber gets a haircut on the way home, buys groceries, and joins the
YMCA-each recirculating that paycheck within the community. 
Many people think about economic development in terms of manufacturing,
so let's look at that. In Oregon for every million dollars of production
by the average manufacturing firm, 24.5 jobs are created. But that same
million dollars in the rehabilitation of a historic building? Some 36.1
jobs. A million dollars of manufacturing output in Oregon will add, on
average, about $536,000 to local household incomes. But a million
dollars of rehabilitation? About $783,000. 
Of course the argument can be made, "Yeah, but once you've built the
building the job creation is done." Yes, but there are two responses to
that. First, real estate is a capital asset-like a drill press or a
boxcar. It has an economic impact during construction, but a subsequent
economic impact when it is in productive use. Additionally, how- ever,
since most building components have a life of between 25 and 40 years, a
community could rehabilitate 2 to 3 percent of its building stock per
year and have perpetual employment in the building trades. And these
jobs can't be shipped overseas. 
Some economists and politicians argue that in economic downturns public
expenditures should be made to create employment. As you all know,
politicians' favorite form of public works is building highways. 
David Listokin at the Center for Urban Policy Research calculated the
relative impact of public works. Let's say a level of government spends
$1 million building a highway. What does that mean? It means 34 jobs,
$1.2 million in ultimate household income, $100,000 in state taxes, and
$85,000 in local taxes. Or we could build a new building for $1 million,
which translates to 36 jobs, $1.2 million in household income, $103,000
in state taxes, and $86,000 in local taxes. Or we could spend that
million rehabilitating a historic building, which means 38 jobs, $1.3
million in household income, $110,000 in state taxes, and $92,000 in
local taxes. You tell me which public works project has the most
economic impact. 
Another area of preservation's economic impact is heritage tourism. In a
Virginia study a few years ago, we analyzed the patterns of heritage
visitors. We defined heritage visitors as those who did one or more of
the following: visited a museum (in Virginia around 90 percent of the
museums are history museums), visited a Civil War battlefield, or
visited a historic site. We contrasted those patterns with visitors to
Virginia who did none of those things. Here's what we found: Heritage
visitors stay longer, visit twice as many places, and on a per trip
basis spend two and one-half times as much money as other visitors.
Wherever heritage tourism has been evaluated, this basic tendency is
observed: Heritage visitors stay longer, spend more per day, and,
therefore, have a significantly greater per trip economic impact. 
The University of Florida and Rutgers University did an economic
analysis of historic preservation in Florida. Florida is not a state
that immediately comes to mind as being heritage tourism based. We think
of Disney World, beaches, and golf courses. Tourism is the largest
industry in Florida. But just the heritage tourism portion of that
industry has impressive impacts, bringing in more than $3 billion in
visitor expenditures and half a billion in taxes, and providing over
100,000 jobs. While most of the jobs, predictably, are in the retail and
service industries, in fact nearly every segment of the economy is
positively affected. 
The area of preservation's economic impact that's been studied most
frequently is the effect of local historic districts on property values.
It has been looked at by a number of people and institutions using a
variety of methodologies in historic districts all over the country. The
most interesting result is the consistency of the findings. By far the
most common conclusion is that properties within local historic
districts appreciate at rates greater than the local market overall and
faster than similar non-designated neighborhoods. Of the several dozen
of these analyses, the worst case scenario is that housing in historic
districts appreciates at a rate equivalent to the local market as a
whole. 
Like it or not, we live in an economically globalized world. To be
economically sustainable it's necessary to be economically competitive.
But 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 of the quality of life equation.
This lesson is being recognized worldwide. Here's what the Inter
American Development Bank has to say: "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." 
What neither the supporters nor the critics of globalization understand
is that there is not one globalization but two-economic globalization
and cultural globalization. For those few who recognize the difference,
there is an unchallenged assumption that the second is an unavoidable
outgrowth of the first. Economic globalization has widespread positive
impacts; 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 the negative impacts of cultural
globalization. 
So there are some ways that historic preservation contributes to
sustainable development through environmental responsibility and through
economic responsibility. But I saved the third area-cultural and social
responsibility-for last, because in the long run it may well be the most
important. 
Cultural and Social Responsibility
First, housing. 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 one is barely on the radar screen: Quit
tearing down older and historic housing. Homes built before 1950
disproportionately house people of modest means-in the vast majority of
cases without any subsidy or public intervention of any kind. So you
take these two facts-there is an affordable housing crisis and older
housing is providing affordable housing-and one would think, "Well,
then, there must be a high priority to saving that housing stock." Alas,
not so. 
For the last 30 years, every day, seven days a week, 52 weeks a year, we
have lost 577 older and historic houses, more than 80 percent of them
single- family residences. Most of these houses were consciously torn
down, were thrown away as being valueless. 
For our most historic houses-those built before 1920-in just the decade
of the 1990s, 772,000 housing units were lost from our built national
heritage. 
Affordable housing is central to social responsibility; older and
historic homes will continue to provide affordable housing if we just
quit tearing them down. 
At least as important as housing affordability is the issue of economic
integration. America is a very diverse country-racially, ethnically,
educationally, economically. But on the neighborhood level our
neighborhoods are not diverse at all. The vast majority of neighborhoods
are all white or all black, all rich or all poor. But virtually
everywhere I've looked in America, the exception is in historic
districts. There rich and poor, Asian and Hispanic, college educated and
high school dropout, live in immediate proximity, 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 and downtown revitalization are the only forms of economic
development that are simultaneously community development. That too is
part of our social responsibility. 
Finally, I'd ask you to take a moment and think of something significant
to you personally. You may think of your children, or your spouse, or
your church, or your childhood home, or a personal accomplishment of
some type. Now take away your memory. Which of those things are
significant to you now? None of them. There can be no significance
without memory. Those same things may still be significant to someone
else, but without memory they are not significant to you. 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, I think, is the lesson of that old Zen koan, "If a tree falls in a
forest and no one hears, did it make a sound?" Well 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. 
We acquire memories from a sound or a picture, or from a conversation,
or from words in a book, or from the stories our grandmother told us.
But how is the memory of a city conveyed? Here's what Italo Calvino
writes: "The city . . . does not tell its past, but contains it like the
lines of a hand, written in the corners of the streets, the gratings of
the windows, the banisters of the steps ... every segment marked in turn
with scratches, indentations, scrolls." 
The city tells it own past, transfers its own memory, largely through
the fabric of the built environment. Historic buildings are the physical
manifestation of memory-it is memory that makes places significant. 
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 and our historic resources in such a way that
they are available to meet the needs of future generations as well. 
Historic preservation makes cities viable, makes cities livable, makes
cities equitable. 
I particularly appreciate that the broadened concept of sustainable
development is made up of responsibilities- environmental
responsibility, economic responsibility, and social responsibility. 
Today throughout America there are thousands of advocacy movements. Most
of them are "rights" movements: 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 and on. And I'm for all of those
things-rights are good. But any claim for rights that is not balanced
with responsibilities removes the civility from civilization, and gives
us 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 stewardship of the meanings and memories
manifested in those buildings as well. 
Sustainability means stewardship. Historic preservation is sustainable
development. Development without historic preservation is not
sustainable. That's what your stewardship is assuring today, and future
generations will thank you for it tomorrow. 

Donovan D. Rypkema is a principal in PlaceEconomics, a Washington,
DC-based real estate consulting firm.


Jean Carroon AIA, LEED
Principal for Preservation
Goody Clancy
420 Boylston Street
Boston, MA 02116
617.850.6651 (direct)
617.262.2760 (main)
617.262.9512 (fax)
jean.carroon at goodyclancy.com
www.goodyclancy.com

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