 An article published in the Washington Post earlier this week highlights the dramatic decline of the United States Postal Service and the financial difficulty that it is facing today. Since the passing of the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act (PAEA) in 2006, the postal service has started running massive deficits has been forced to lay off tens of thousands of workers. To remedy this financial mess, the USPS has increasingly started to sell historic Post Office buildings, often centrally located on valuable tracts of land, to raise money.
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During the 1960s, Washington, DC and its surrounding communities experienced an urban renewal that saw a rebuilding of infrastructure and consequently required the destruction of a number of older buildings in the area. In Alexandria, an independent city a short distance from DC, the destruction of the old buildings uncovered an abundance of historical artifacts that shed light on the history of the area. Realizing that there was a plethora of previously undiscovered, culturally-important artifacts right beneath their feet, the city’s leadership created the Office of Historic Alexandria to try to cultivate and make sense of this new information.
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Terms:Community Building, Community Engagement, Creative Economy, Cultural Institutions, Heritage, Historic Preservation, IFC Best Practice, Museums, Public-Private Partnerships, Tourism, Washington, DC
The U.S. Armed Forces Retirement Home in Washington, D.C., commonly referred to as the ‘Soldiers’ Home,’ is one of the country’s oldest veterans’ retirement homes and certainly one of the most beautiful. Located on a 273-acre campus in Northwest D.C., the Home’s green pastures and tranquil lakes sit in stark contrast to the developed neighborhoods of the surrounding community. Since the home opened in 1851, the retirement community has been home to thousands of retired elderly and disabled veterans in the Washington area.
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In 1923, when the Lafayette Building was constructed in downtown Detroit, the city was one of the cultural centers of the United States and home to an exploding automotive industry. Famous American architect C. Howard Crane designed the cutting edge, Italian Renaissance-style building in a unique ‘V’ shape to maximize the amount of natural light allowed in. Today, however, Detroit has fallen on harder economic times, and the once striking skyscraper at 144 West Lafayette was torn down in 2010 after being vacant for more than a decade.
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Terms:Community Building, Cultural Institutions, Downtown Development, Environment, Health & Wellness, Historic Preservation, IFC Best Practice, Neighborhood Revitalization, Parks, Playgrounds & Gardens, Urban
ArtSpace is a national organization, headquartered in Minneapolis, which works to transform communities through the arts. The organization runs 33 affordable, artist-housing facilities throughout the country, in both urban and rural areas, that help improve the livability of their neighborhoods by repurposing old or abandoned buildings to attract artists to live and work in the community.
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