Why support historic preservation?

Many people wonder about the

relevance of historic preservation in their daily lives. They are skeptical

that saving historic buildings has anything to do with their own quality

of life, let alone that of the communities in which they live.

Yet, it is my view that the

ethics and the benefits of historic preservation are critical to Georgia's

people and communities.

On a practical level, historic

preservation is a conservative approach to maximizing a community's resources

and reinvigorating and sustaining a community's economy over a period

of time.

I recently heard preservationists

mislabeled as "liberal." To me, there is nothing more self-evidently

conservative and prudent than preserving and enhancing existing capital

investment.

Preservation enhances property

values for landowners with existing capital investments by maintaining

investments and encouraging reinvestments in developed areas.

Preservation of historic architecture

also gives a community a distinct identity and thus a competitive advantage.

Preservation makes people proud of their communities, and consequently

more willing to invest in developing economic activity.

In this era of rapid change

and mobility there is an increasing desire for a sense of continuity and

permanence that historic buildings provide. Communities built on a distinctively

human scale retain and attract people who care about the kind of community

they are going to leave in the future.

The last point speaks to our

relationship with our neighbors and successors and can be described by

an old-fashioned term we used to hear in grammar school called "citizenship."

I believe that the long view the preservation ethic provides reminds us

that we are building a community not only for today, but also for tomorrow.

The best way to sustain a community's

long-term prosperity is to plan for permanence and to recognize that distinctive

historic resources are an important asset not to be squandered. Preservation

reminds us that the world does not revolve around just us or our generation,

but that the contributions of people who lived here before us and those

who will follow us are also important.

I think the preservation of

structures and places also tangibly reminds us that all our histories

have meaning that we are not disposable or interchangeable.

Many of us live in different

communities from where we were reared, but we value and take great pride

in the history of the communities in which we currently live. Many of

us hope that those who now live in communities from which we came will

similarly, and that this collective trust will serve to strengthen all

of our communities.

The preservation movement is,

in a sense, combating groundless egotism and short-lived opportunism,

while immediately enriching all of our lives economically, culturally

and aesthetically.

Preservationists recognize

that change is inevitable, and often desirable, but that decay, disinvestment

and ugliness in our cities are not inevitable.

Those who support preservation

are optimistically moving forward a new vision, not content to save only

the stately homes of founding fathers or of a local plutocracy, but intent

on also preserving for all of us what is distinctive about each of our

downtown Main Streets and communities.

[Mr. Hale serves as chairman

of The Georgia Trust, the country's largest statewide, nonprofit preservation

organization with nearly 10,000 members. He is a partner in the Business

Practice Group of Atlanta law firm Kilpatrick Stockton LLP.]