Home/About

Centering People in Preservation Policy

I explore how and why a multi-billion-dollar public historic preservation policy system needs to change to center people rather than doctrines.

As the author of Managing the Magic of Old Places: Crafting Public Policies for People-Centered Historic Preservation (University of Tennessee Press, 2005), I study the gap between how people actually experience older environments and the public policies that govern them.

Historic preservation is often treated as a niche interest. In reality, it is a major public-policy enterprise. Using public tax dollars, federal, state, and local programs leverage billions in economic activity, support hundreds of thousands of jobs, and shape housing, infrastructure, and commercial corridors. Hundreds of millions in public funds flow through preservation offices every year, affecting tens of millions of Americans.

Despite this scale, public preservation policies have never been systematically evaluated against the public good. They were built on doctrinal principles rather than evidence of how people perceive, value, and experience old places.

Why current preservation policies fail the American public

Public policy—not design or construction—drives most of the historic preservation field. Roughly 70% of full-time, paid preservation jobs exist because of regulatory compliance. Yet public preservation policy:

  • Reflects the values of an extremely small group of mostly European elites from 1850–1980, with little public input;
  • Prioritizes static architectural artifacts over living communities;
  • Ignores the psychological and emotional power of place;
  • Systematically excludes intangible heritage and the experiences of everyday people;
  • Requires the public to speak in specialized jargon rather than their own language.

At the same time, the pipeline to the field—preservation degree programs—teaches little about policy creation, policy analysis, or public accountability.

A different path

In Managing the Magic of Old Places, I outline four necessary shifts:

  1. From material objects to human experience.
  2. From doctrinal authority to social-science evidence.
  3. From top-down expertise to community-based participatory research.
  4. From narrow authenticity rules to equity and intangible heritage.

I write, speak, and advise on people-centered historic preservation and built-heritage policy. If you’re interested in reforming how we govern old places, exploring the research, or discussing these ideas, I’d welcome the conversation.

View my curriculum vitae | View my Google Scholar profile