Rittenhouse Square                                    PCPC photo

Urban design practitioners have assigned the preservation of historic sites and properties varying levels of importance over the last century.

However, the importance of maintaining a sense of context and understanding for the forms that preceded us has increased over the last thirty years for many reasons.

The urban design discipline was criticized tremendously during the urban renewal and highway construction movement of the 1960s for its top-down, large-scale destruction of viable neighborhood blocks that was approved by scholarly designers nationwide.

Urban renewal has also left designers with new sets of problems, such as wider cart ways and larger parcels that did not exist before entire blocks were torn down.

There is also a renewed sense of nostalgia in the 21st century, as once-dead urban forms such as attached “row houses” are now in high demand.

The market, as well as the urban design discipline itself, has moved us to understand and appreciate that a site’s history is an integral part of urban planning.

Government has responded accordingly; the federal branch has established a process by which tax breaks are awarded to developers renovating historic sites, and many local governments have the power to permanently ban demolition of any structure with a certain level of historical significance.

There are now local and regional historical commissions charged with protecting local jewels of the past, though many buildings of the same typology were destroyed decades ago without concern.

• www.phila.gov/historical/
• www.phmc.state.pa.us
• www.nationaltrust.org
• www.preservationalliance.com
• http://www.cr.nps.gov/nr/
• http://www.nationalregisterofhistoricplaces.com/
• http://www.phila.gov/historical/register.html
• www.achp.org
• www.preservationdirectory.com
• http://www.amphilsoc.org
• http://www.10000friends.org/
• http://philadelphia.uli.org/
• http://www.phila.gov/historical/