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skip specific nav links Home News Preservation: One Key to Salvation for Cities and History Preservation: One Key to Salvation for Cities and History The following is an article by ACHP Chairman John L. Nau, III, that was published in Cleveland's The Plain Dealer October 9, 2002. The article coincided with an award for the preservation of the H.L. Hunley Confederate submarine that ACHP presented with the National Trust for Historic Preservation at the National Preservation Conference in Cleveland October 10, 2002.
Preservation
Is One Key to Salvation Confederate submarines and Cleveland's "Quiet Crisis" may
appear to have little in common. In 1995, a team formed by author Clive Cussler located the submarine
Hunley off the coast of Charleston, South Carolina. The find was
made a decade-and-a-half after the avid shipwreck historian and hunter
started searching for the Hunley (the first submarine to attack
and sink a surface ship). No single issue, no single interest, can by itself raise Cleveland's future. However, historic preservation can be an essential component to the city's success. By preserving your past and putting its tangible assets to new purposes, Greater Cleveland will go a long way toward creating the kind of dynamic and livable community that will help resolve problems associated with a flat economy, a population plateau, a stagnant tax base, a withering inner city, insufficient opportunities for recreation, culture and tourism, and an urban environment that does not entice people to want to work and live in a community. Historic preservation positively addresses all of these issues; it can benefit a community economically, culturally, socially, environmentally and educationally. By taking advantage of existing assetshistoric buildings, courthouses and battlefieldsin adaptive reuses, communities can achieve economic diversity. (As a recent article on this page noted, the film industry has spent
more than $22 million in Greater Cleveland since 1998. Part of the attraction
has been this area's architectural gems.) Cleveland's preservation efforts will bring millions more hungry to experience and learn from the city's past, and eager to share in its future. It will help keep those born and educated here at home, and lure others who seek a congenial environment. As you progress with solutions to the Quiet Crisis, historic preservation should be integral to all your endeavors. Nau is Chairman of the Federal Advisory Council on Historic Preservation. Read about the Award for Federal Partnerships in Historic Preservation presented for the preservation efforts of the raising of the Hunley Posted November 4, 2002 |