historic preservation and environmental racism: example from Pittsburgh

[David S. Rotenstein]

I recently completed a 6-month investigation for Pittsburgh City Paper into environmental racism in a Pittsburgh, Pa., suburban community: Penn Hills. My reporting wrapped around how the municipality uses federal CDBG funds to demolish homes in a historically Black neighborhood while intentionally circumventing compliance with Section 106 of the National Historic Preservation Act. One end result: root shock.  

Over the years I have documented many examples of erasure, yet few compare to the municipality’s use of boilerplate to erase ethnic and racial histories. Planners there reused SHPO inventory forms used in Section 106 compliance: the top page contained project-specific information (address, etc.) and the subsequent pages where information on architecture and historical significance were supposed to be provided contained this same phrase: “This structure holds absolutely no historical value for the municipality. The only historical narrative that can be discussed here is a history of neglect.”

The Pennsylvania SHPO apparently didn’t take issue with the “historical narrative” with any of the Section 106 consultation cases I reviewed.

Part 1 (published December 11, 2024): https://www.pghcitypaper.com/news/penn-hills-has-long-been-home-to-a-black-middle-class-community-but-some-claim-environmental-racism-is-demolishing-it-literally-27161570

Part 2 (published January 15, 2025): https://www.pghcitypaper.com/news/how-environmental-racism-doomed-lincoln-park-in-penn-hills-part-two-27339138

David Rotenstein

_________________________________________
David S. Rotenstein, Ph.D.
Historian / Folklorist / Writer
david.ro...@earthlink.net
Phone: (412) 328-3830
Bluesky: @iVernacular & @yinzervice

Steel City Vice: https://steelcityvice.com/
http://www.linkedin.com/in/dsrotenstein

[Jeremy Wells]

Kudos to David for his excellent, detailed, and painstaking work on this story. Sadly, there are no other journalists doing work like David does—looking at the effectiveness of public historic preservation policy. Over the past 15 years, I have reached out repeatedly to journalists about various issues in public preservation policy and with very, very few exceptions (like two people and that includes David), there is essentially no interest. None. Nada. A response I received from one naive journalist sums up some of the most rampant stereotypes about historic preservation: “But, I thought that historic preservation was all about old dusty things that no one really cares about and antique hunters and what ‘old ladies’ do. 

If there's a phrase that summarizes historic preservation policy in the US, it is apathy, ignorance, and stereotypes.

Hardly any Americans know the basic facts about public historic preservation policy in this country, which are:

• Public preservation policies directly affect about a million private property owners in the US. More than 2,300 municipalities across the country have a preservation ordinance and at least one local historic district.
• Preservation work is driven by hundreds of thousands of federal interventions each year. The Federal Communications Commission, alone, does more than 10,000 legally required preservation reviews each year.
• Each year about $6 billion in taxpayer dollars is used to fund private developers’ building rehabilitation projects.
• Preservation provides a significant number of jobs to Americans. There are about 15,000 people who work in some aspect of policy work in historic preservation.

Of course, we know that old dusty things and “old ladies" preservation is NOT. But, this kind of public perception is, and has been, a poison for public preservation policy.

But, the kicker is that federal, state, and local agencies benefit from apathy, ignorance, and stereotypes because then no one will shine a light on their failings. That is, except from the lone individual, like David, who has the courage to open doors others have ignored.

Which brings up Penn Hills. According to federal regulations, HUD can legally farm out its Section 106 requirements to a local municipality. This is quite common. But, in doing so, HUD’s response—as epitomized by David’s article—is to pass the buck, because they can, legally. In essence, there is ZERO oversight of the Section 106 process when it gets farmed out to local municipalities. There is no required training for a city’s planning staff and no hiring of consultants who are educated on preservation regulations. Technically, the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation should be keeping an eye on this, but it doesn’t. Many of its staff select successful case studies for PR purposes and then try to minimize things that don’t work. (This isn’t unique to the ACHP; many other federal agencies work diligently to assure the light shines brightest on the parts of their program that are already well illuminated. This can be a way to protect agencies from political oversight.)

What Penn Hills should have done was to engage the public in a consultation process, per the Section 106 regulations (36 CFR 86). Many of the properties that were demolished were eligible for the National Register, which is the only requirement Section 106 needs to then require this consultation process.  But, Penn Hills didn’t do any consultations. Instead, one person (apparently) summarily ruled that the properties weren’t historic because ancient documents from the SHPO said they weren’t. And the SHPO didn’t push back, when they should have. 

Sadly, none of this is unique in the US. Thomas King has published extensively on the failings of the Section 106 process, primarily with Indigenous communities.

Who’s to blame? Primarily, post-secondary education, but also the National Park Service and the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation that have both shirked their policy responsibilities to engage with and educate the public. NGOs have had a role to play in this apathy by failing to engage a broader public on preservation policy issues.

Sadly, there just doesn’t seem to be any interest in this country for these issues to change. Why?

• There has never been an institute, academic entity, or public entity that has undertaken the charge of analyzing the overall effectiveness of public preservation policy. For reference, there are hundreds of these kinds of entities that address urban and regional planning.
• There are essentially no scholars who have ever undertaken an analysis of public preservation policy other than a few who have looked at the economic effectiveness of the Historic Preservation Tax Credit and other financial incentives. (Erica Avrami and I are about it and I’m not doing this work, as an academic, anymore.)
• There has never been a public policy degree program in the US that has offered coursework, much less an emphasis, in public preservation policy.
• No historic preservation or cultural resource management degree program include, in their curriculum, coursework on the analysis of the effectiveness of public policy, yet 70% of the jobs their graduates will end up getting are driven by public policy.

I’ve documented these phenomena, and many more, in a book that the University of Tennessee Press will be publishing this spring. It will probably be the last academic publication I’ll ever do because I’m not returning to higher ed. (Not that any historic preservation program would actually want me, but that’s a different story…)

My colleagues at the University of Maryland forced me to leave because I had the audacity to bring up these issues and to suggest something as innocuous as a discussion on including some kind of emphasis on public preservation policy in our program, including providing our students with the skills to conduct a policy analysis. In response, I was repeatedly threatened and harassed and told that my research and teaching “threatened White material” culture. Oh, and the stress that I endured almost killed me—that’s a big reason why I left.

I used to be rather angry about this situation, but now I’m just tired, sad, and exhausted. In a world where so few people understand public preservation policy, much less care about it, it’s a damn lonely place. Anyone who stays in this place must be very strong, resilient, and resolute. Most people would not be able to endure.

But, David has endured. Kudos to David for what he’s been doing for many years. He deserves much recognition for his work rather than the derision he often receives from inept government officials. His work deserves to be officially recognized by academic programs, publishers, and preservation NGOs. No one else is doing it and if he stops then there will literally be no one else in this space.

-Jeremy

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "hp_folk" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to hp_folk+u...@googlegroups.com.
To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/hp_folk/039DE598-1737-4B10-BBF9-E7FB0B2C6843%40earthlink.net.