Heritage partnerships : national designation, regional promotion and the role of local preservation organizations

In this dissertation, I examine the impact of one important type of "heritage partnership," the National Heritage Areas (NHA) program, on historic preservation activities at the grassroots level. NHAs, often termed the "future of our National Parks," have been administered by the National Park Service since the mid-1980s. These projects aim to mobilize local initiatives around a common set of distinct community assets and foster public-private partnerships addressing preservation and development issues on a regional scale. The two case studies I use to explore this issue are the Blackstone River Valley National Heritage Corridor and the Southwestern Pennsylvania Heritage Preservation Commission (or "Path of Progress"). My analysis focuses on the relationship between two key players: the federal government and local preservation organizations (LPOs). I use the cases to test two hypotheses: 1) By valorizing local resources, national designation will benefit the organized preservation movement; and 2) By crafting and promoting a distinct regional heritage, these projects will mobilize grassroots institutions to work together.

Department dc:contributor.department

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dept. of Urban Studies and Planning.

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2006

Author dc:creator

• Morton, Elizabeth, Ph. D. Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Gary Hack.

• Urban Studies and Planning.

Statement dc:rights

• M.I.T. theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission. See provided URL for inquiries about permission.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/37877

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/37877