Resources for Battling Mansionization

After writing about the problems of Mansionization here in Prince George's County (Supersize My House), I came across an article from last December in the Washington Business Journal about homeowners who have decided to remodel rather than tear down.

That article took me to the National Trust for Historic Preservation, which ranked tear-downs in older neighborhoods as one of the 11 most endangered historic places in 2002. It has developed an advocacy program for communities that want to stop the bulldozers and has a resource guide for protecting older neighborhoods.

Definitely worth surfing through the many links and articles there.

-- Susan Pruden

Historic Preservation Planning Course

I discovered a course that may help me in my quest to learn more about historic preservation. As a relative newcomer to the World of Historic Preservation, I'm learning as fast as I can, but knowledge seems to come in dribs and drabs.

So imagine my excitement when I came across Planetizen: The Planning & Development Network. They offer online courses on a whole variety of topics, but the one that caught my attention is the following:

PLAN-110: Introduction to Historic Preservation Planning
As cities around the world expand and more people move back into older downtowns and inner-ring suburbs, historic preservation serves two important purposes, encouraging a sustained sense of history and culture in the community, while formalizing practical standards for the preservation, rehabilitation, restoration, or reconstruction of historic properties for adaptive use by a new generation.

For $99, I think it might be worth while checking it out, but I will start with the July 1 session.

--Susan Pruden