Historic preservationists are often mockingly called, "Brickhuggers."  However, historic preservation is an important part of a healthy city and a necessary part of preserving American history.

Also called adaptive reuse, historic preservation is not about saving every building regardless of where it is. Historic preservation is about saving buildings of historical or architectural importance. Many older buildings are irreplaceable. The old saying is that they don't build them like they used to. This is especially true in architecture. Architecture from other eras will never be rebuilt, so when the buildings are gone, they are gone forever. In America, we look at an 80-year-old building as old. In Europe, where they have buildings hundreds of years old, that same building would be a relatively new.

The buildings that preservationists want to save are valuable. Those who want to knock down our older structures, especially when the building has been neglected, call them old and ugly, eyesores, and other derogatory terms. But just as people before we shower, shave (or put on makeup), comb our hair, put on clean clothes, and in general take care of ourselves, these older structures need care and do not need to be tore down because of the way they would look when neglected.  I would hate to know how the building-haters would want to do with me in the morning.

It is amazing how some politicians, who are only in office for a few short years, can make decisions that will rob many future generations of the ability to view and use historic buildings.  They might want to destroy a building to build a bigger and better one. Tearing one building down to build a better one gets less resistance from preservationists.  But more often, decisions are made to tear down a building of historical and architectural significance in order to put up a building of far less value, such as a strip mall.  Worse yet, buildings are destroyed to lay out a parking lot, putting another wound into the cityscape.

Historical buildings can be great assets to a city.  When they are restored and reused, they become great focal points in a city.