Preservation Makes Capitalists Nervous

Ironically, economics professor Sandy Ikeda, who lives in beautiful, desirable Brooklyn Heights, the city's first historic district, has a problem with historic preservation. What is it?  Well, this is an economist, right?  So it's about what Ikeda sees as the cost of preservation.

In 1939, 125 buildings east of Brooklyn Heights were razed to create the 21-acre urban renewal "super block" we know as Cadman Plaza -- sort of the Atlantic Yards of its day. Then, from 1947 to 1954, came construction of the Brooklyn Queens Expressway (BQE) along the north and west borders of the Heights. Then in 1965, Mayor Wagner signed legislation making the Heights the city’s first historic district and paving the way for the creation of the Landmarks Preservation Commission.

Cadman Plaza and the BQE, says Ikeda, have acted as a buffer between the Heights and commercial development in neighboring districts, and the Landmarks Preservation Commission has made it difficult and expensive to change the built environment in the Heights' precious 50 acres -- which is, of course, the whole point.  Historic preservation does, to a significant degree, hold off change in order to preserve the beauty and charm of the past.

That bothers Ikeda, who says that historic preservation has turned Brooklyn Heights (which, like all of Brooklyn, was developed as a suburb of Manhattan) into a "consumer neighborhood"  -- one that doesn't create wealth. 

And what's so bad about that?  The Heights, says Ikeda, lacks what Jane Jacobs called "primary uses":  no one comes to the Heights for the good jobs or the dynamic culture.

But did they ever?  The successful Manhattan commuters who live in the Heights today are the same types who lived there in the 19th century.  Consumer neighborhood?  You betcha.

Ikeda is bothered by the arbitrariness of the choice, intrinsic to historic preservation, between what we keep and what we sacrifice, finding the notion of wabi-sabi -- that nothing in this world is finished, perfect or permanent -- more appealing.

Historic preservation, Ikeda says, comes down to the arbitrary fact of who owns the building.  Pennsylvania Station, a magnificent New York City landmark, was demolished because its owner, the Pennsylvania Railroad, chose to do so.  Historic buildings or neighborhoods are preserved because their owner or owners choose to do so.

Something about doesn't sit right with Ikeda, a believer in capitalist growth who fears that, by preserving buildings or neighborhoods, we stifle enterprise.  Intervening politically, says Ikeda, to preserve a historic building kills commerce and ultimately, liberty.

Ikeda sees parallels between preserving old buildings and clinging to things like traditional marriage, social security, the environment, the Mexican border. The liberal thing to do, says Ikeda, would be to just let 'er rip. (And you thought you knew what a "liberal" was.)

But isn't the freedom to choose preservation part of liberty?

Maybe what really makes Ikeda nervous is commitment. 

The post from the Moral Liberal.