The chapter on legal basis for preservation made me frustrated, but not surprised, on the amount of red tape and legal precedence the government uses to allow or thwart owners’ rights to preserving historical buildings. The political and legal fighting between parties on historical significance is no different than when they argue laws or legislation. It should be called negotiations instead of litigations. Imminent Domain has been used, not just in cases of historic preservation, but also when it comes to expanding any kind of cities public works, like roads, landfills, and interstates. One thing is for certain the government will always change their minds and make it extremely difficult for an owner of a historic property to maintain it, make changes, or demolish it.
I thoroughly enjoyed chapter seven because this is what interests me about the preservation process. I see the issues with preservation and technology because with so many involved this could slow a process down. I liked how the chapter broke down the definitions of each term and idea one by one to explain it. The amount of different expertise needed to do each particular job is amazing. With the increase in older buildings being preserved I wonder if it would be easier for teams to be designated in areas with large historic districts, specifically in the east coast, where large areas can be designated to specific teams for preservations. The teams would have specific individuals with knowledge of the architecture to lead breaking the teams down by skill levels to maintain multiple structures. Similar to how the military combines multiple specialties or jobs skills to nation build or provide security I think the same idea could apply to preservation in large areas. Obviously, the major problem with this is going to be money and convincing the government to spend it. The idea seems sound and would allow for on the job training with apprentices and students.
The sustainability of the historic sites seems possible depending on the community’s involvement. Getting people to volunteer is easy, in my experience, because most people will want to in the beginning. The problem is not overworking the people and getting others to volunteer. Problems arise when trying to train and sustain the relationships with the government and communities on how to sustain historic projects for the future. Working around schedules and getting a life cycle schedule passed to maintain and sustain the historic building can be an ominous task if multiple agencies are involved and laws keep changing.