Historic Preservation in St. Petersburg and other matters August 11, 2009
Posted by history in : Uncategorized , add a commentI have been lucky enough to spend much of the past month traveling in Asia, I have visited World Heritage Sites in Laos, Cambodia, and Vietnam. One thing that is clear from my travels, people want to see old stuff. They will travel, they will pay much, they will endure long bus rides, dubious food, unpleasant temperatures and a host of other trials some small, some not to get there (wherever that may be). Watching the sunrise at Angkor Wat, wandering the streets of Luang Prabang, or traipsing through the ruins of My Son (near Hoi An, Vietnam) and seeing busloads of tourists at each site, there is little doubt that people feel compelled to connect to our collective past by actually seeing it, no mere photo will suffice.
I could write pages on the myriad challenges of heritage tourism but that’s not what this post is about. This morning, perusing my Google news alerts, I came across this commentary by Edmund Harris, on the perilous sitation of heritage conservation in St. Petersburg that left me wanting to pound my head on the desk and tear my hair and shout “WHY IS IT STILL SO DIFFICULT!!!” It’s not like historic preservation/heritage conservation, whatever you want to call it is “NEW! TRENDY!” some crazy unkown economic engine that no one knows how it will run (donkey cart or Porshe?). I am not an economist but from my experience historic preservation is usually somewhere in between, luckily I just picked up (downloaded actually a copy of The Heritage Game by Alan Peacock and Idle Rizzo which, thus far, seems like it will be a really interesting read. Here is the blurb from the publisher, Oxford University Press:
A notable feature in cultural life is the growing demand to preserve and promote public access to historical buildings and sites, and artistic treasures of the past. Governments are increasingly involved in financing and regulating private attempts to meet this growing demand as well as extending their own provision of these treasures in state and locally owned museums and galleries. These developments raise important issues about the scope, content, and relevance of heritage policies in today’s world. Written by two leading figures in the field of cultural economics, this authoritative book focuses on the impact of economic analysis on the formulation and implementation of heritage policy.
Pick up your copy today!
Historic Preservation is Worth A Latte? Eh, not so much. February 16, 2009
Posted by history in : Uncategorized , add a commentSo the price tag on the HP component to the stimulus bill was $55 million. What is $55 million between friends? Apparently a lot, HP was eliminated by in the stimulus package. Sigh. You can read all the gory details here. Yeah, $55 million seems like a lot and it is, but when you break it down by the 183 million tax payers in the US (based on 2007 rates). It amounts to about $3.27 per person, which is about the same as one small latte per tax paying citizen, each year. I don’t know about you, but I think HP is worth a latte.
Sadly our elected officals don’t feel the same way.