 Thank you. It's great to be with everyone tonight. This is one of my very favorite events of the year It gives us a chance to come together and see old friends make new friends Take stock of our work and plan for the road ahead And it's great to be here in Houston as you've heard America's fourth biggest cities with so many Fascinating layers of history from its early days as a port city to the oil boom to the Space age Houston has always kept its eye on the future and today market from Market Square to the Astrodome Houston is connecting with its vibrant past as never before and That's why we think there's no better place for us to convene as we embark on the next 50 years of preservation in our country We began this conversation last year in Washington, DC and in talks and roundtables all over the country since then And it will continue here this week I hope you will take part in tomorrow's world cafe on the future of preservation and Share your own thoughts and vision about how we can continue moving forward together This is an especially important conversation to have right now We've just come through an election year that has generated a lot of division in our country and Many Americans are feeling uncertain about what the future may bring but our work continues and In many ways, I think it's more important than it ever was before as We continue to work at the federal level in Washington so much of what we do also remains focused at the local and city level Working with and in communities Saving the places that tell our collective story helps bring Americans together and strengthens our communities As my own contribution to this discussion, I wrote a book this past year with Kevin Murphy the past and future city It lays out the case. I believe we need to make going forward in short that Preservation is important not just for all the ways it keeps the past alive But it's also the gateway to tomorrow Our work helps cities grapple with the problems of our present and lays the foundation for a stronger future Taken to scale it can create jobs Re-invigorate local economies and help small businesses come to life It can make neighborhoods healthier and more sustainable It can help us address pressing problems like affordability Displacement and climate change And it can bring our communities together So tonight I want to make that case to you through the stories of some remarkable women and men Who've shaped the past the present and the future of preservation? Let me start with an amazing urban activist who would have celebrated her hundredth birthday this year and His writings have molded our field from the very start the one and only Jane Jacobs Jane Jacobs Happy birthday Jane Jane Jacobs was a journalist with no formal training in urban planning But she was a keen observer of the world around her She cut a rather fierce figure with her trademark cat eye glasses and her no-nonsense Bob and this woman was fearless Just take a listen The kind of planning that we ought to have should not be planning that begins with what is nasty here What do we take out? But rather what is missing here? Which of the conditions that are needed to make this a lively and convenient place that works Why for instance weren't people walking in the areas that all the artist Conceptions had shown full of happy promenaders. They weren't there Her direct her directness angered a lot of people and no one was more angry than the Goliath to her David New York's Master builder Robert Moses an unstoppable force in his own right over his career He built more than 600 miles of highway 13 bridges and two tunnels all over New York Moses believed in his words that cities are created by and for traffic And to accomplish his vision he often ripped out entire blocks in neighborhoods But Jacobs had a different vision and she observed a different rhythm of the city what she called the sidewalk ballet She believed that cities are created by and for people So when Moses tried to run a highway through Greenwich Village where Jane Jacobs lived She helped form and lead a coalition to stop him and She later prevented Moses from tearing down her block and from running an expressway through lower Manhattan That would have destroyed much as Soho Chinatown and the Lower East side and I think at this point in the story It's hard to believe it wasn't getting a little personal between the two of them But Jacobs didn't win every battle. She was among those who tried and failed to save New York's historic Penn Station Which of course helped make the National Historic Preservation Act a reality But she won more than she lost and over the years fighting against her nemesis She helped articulate and then promote a vision that put front and center the many benefits that historic places bring to cities In her most famous book the death and life of great American cities She argued that older buildings are a critical and necessary feature of thriving neighborhoods She wrote cities need old buildings so badly. It's probably impossible for vigorous streets and districts to grow without them They provide character and help ensure mixed use. They offer space for entrepreneurs and local businesses artists and innovators and Today 55 years after she wrote those words. We know she was absolutely right We've seen it in downtowns and Main Street's all over the country And while her intuition always seemed right to us We also have tools today that Jane Jacobs could only dream of and Using those tools we've been putting her theories to the test Two years ago. We published our report older smaller better Which took a look at the age the diversity and the size of all buildings not just historic buildings in three cities Washington DC San Francisco and Seattle Using GIS mapping technology and innovative data sources like cell phone usage patterns We examined each block in these cities and how it performed against different Economics social cultural and environmental performance metrics and what we found is exactly what Jane Jacobs predicted That neighborhoods with a mix of older and newer buildings tend to have more small business jobs and more diversity in housing costs Meaning more opportunities for families of all incomes They have hidden density Meaning more people and businesses per commercial square foot than areas with just new buildings They're more walkable and they have more creative jobs They have more new and women and minority-owned businesses and they show more activity on evenings and weekends Since publishing that report we've documented the same benefits at work all across America and Baltimore and Philadelphia Louisville and Chicago Tucson and right here in Houston Tomorrow our preservation green lab will be releasing the Atlas of reurbanism Which applies the older smaller better methodology to 50 more cities and this Atlas and our reurbanism work in general We hope will help cities unleash the remarkable power of older buildings on behalf of their streets and neighborhoods It's something that we're just tremendously excited about So Jane Jacobs arguments are no longer just theoretical We now have hard data and case studies all over America that prove that preservation is the path to a richer urban future One case that I know well is Denver, Colorado When I was growing up in Loveland, which is 70 miles to the north Denver was my first big city and Today Denver is a national leader in almost every way that counts Its population has been growing at double the national rate It's unemployment rate hovers just around 3% and Thanks to its progressive infrastructure Denver is continually named one of America's fittest cities So how has Denver, Colorado become such an urban powerhouse? Well, one big reason is another fearless and visionary woman Dana Crawford Here she is. I don't know whether it's genetic or not, but I'm attracted to beautiful places and a lot of times they happen to be places that have become ignored When I go around the country on consulting jobs and I get to the towns I always say take me to your pigeons and your pensioners and then I find the beautiful buildings So around the same time that Jane Jacobs was going toe-to-toe with Robert Moses in New York Crawford was giving Denver a head start on using preservation to remake cities for the better She began her work in there in the Larimer Square neighborhood, which at the time was a pretty scary place as With so many other urban renewal projects in the 1960s Denver was planning to revitalize Larimer Square by tearing it down Already nearly 30 blocks of the historic downtown had been destroyed Keep your eye on the the clock tower that's in the center of the slide behind me here This is Denver's downtown before urban renewal and here it is after Larimer Square in the top right hand corner of this picture is one of the few places that survived the wrecking ball And that's because Dana had a different vision She believed that people would much rather live in a city that kept its historic character So with her I've been looking for quite some time since I had moved to Denver for an area We lost her there. So with friends and neighbors. She began Buying these older buildings in the square often for a little more than the price of land They were on and by 1965 her company had bought up most of the 14 under block Now to give you a sense of how she operates She announced a press conference for the mayor to come and endorse her vision And then she invited the mayor And Dana will tell you it wasn't always an easy lift But she was right by the 1980s Larimer Square was on its way back and a powerful example of what could be accomplished elsewhere With really important advocacy and assistance from our Denver field office the city then created a lower downtown historic district Put a moratorium on the demolition of historic buildings and pushed colorado to pass the third state historic tax credit in the nation Now lightning has struck twice Today Lotto or lower downtown Is considered the heart of the city with the lowest commercial vacancy rates around Union station, which is one of Dana's most recent projects has been the centerpiece of Lotto's revitalization One of the many business owners who flocked to the area was John Hickenlooper Before he was denver's mayor and colorado's governor He opened up a brewery in Lotto with three friends They bought space in the historic mercantile building For just six dollars a foot And within 10 years their investment was already worth 100 times that Today that same preservation minded spirit is remaking Denver neighborhoods like capitol hill and uptown highland and river north We now have the tools and the data to replicate Denver's success all over America And as we heard tonight earlier from our speaker We really have an amazing opportunity before us because preservation isn't just for grand mansions It can benefit almost every neighborhood no matter how modest every community has places that define them and stories that they want to tell And every city's future is connected to its past You can see that right here in houston For a long time houston was known as the wild west of sorts. It avoided municipal zoning plans It grew and as happens stands dictated But that approach has caused some headaches And particularly as this region has continued to grow The nine counties that make up the greater houston area have nearly doubled in population over the past 35 years Last year houston gained 160,000 new residents That's about six percent of the total growth in our country American another million 1.5 million people are expected in harris county just over the next two decades And all those people of course mean more traffic more infrastructure needs more environmental and sanitation concerns So to grapple with these issues and many others houston's leadership has embraced preservation's remarkable potential to remake our neighborhoods And much of that is due to the wisdom of another remarkable woman A niece parker who helped give historic preservation a much stronger footing in the bayou city It used to be that while houston had historic districts None of the buildings in them were actually protected It only meant that 90 days had to pass before they could be torn down But a niece who lives in a historic home in the old sixth ward believed that more could be done to make way To make preservation work for the city of houston So as a city council member she fought to strengthen protections in the sixth ward and as mayor she did the rest the same for the rest of the city Here she is in her own words In the midst of a recession we were that we had a lower Jobless rate than any other region in america. In fact, we have recovered the jobs that were lost since 2008 We're the the fastest job creating city in america. We continue to grow We have the best quality of life Frankly, we're the best place in america to live to work to raise a family and we're going to remain that way We are a well run city As a result of her work and that of talented colleagues like minette basal Very much a we're proud to call a new advisor of the national trust The properties and city landmarks in houston's 22 diverse historic districts are now truly protected Last september just before a niece left office the city council adopted plan houston Which is a comprehensive vision for the city's future that incorporated historic preservation as a key tool And her successor mayor turner has continued with moving that vision forward As a result houston is poised for even greater success Because right now the largest and most diverse generation in american history as we saw so vividly illustrated before Is leading the drive back to cities And one of the main reasons they're coming back is because of our historic buildings As one young engineer in baltimore said people want a lot more authenticity In what they wear and what they eat in where they live Or in the words of houston's ann olson, who's president of the local bayou buffalo partnership Young millennials don't come to cities for jobs anymore They come for quality of life And i believe that's the quality of life that older places can help provide And it's not just about young new arrivals preservation is also helping to rejuvenate existing urban communities as well Providing affordable housing fighting displacement and bringing people together You can see that in the inspiring work of rick low who you'll hear from at our preservation livability trust live tomorrow Working with other local artists and members of the community he formed project row houses To renovate and transform 22 shotgun houses in houston's third ward So that they could better meet the needs of that neighborhood Rick has since brought the same model Fusing historic preservation art community service and revitalization to north dallas to wats To new orleans after katrina His work demonstrates how the best preservation projects create opportunities for community residents at all income levels While retaining the local history that ties generations together As we move into the next 50 years of preservation Our focus will be on solution oriented preservation that transforms people's lives Lives like erin lozie a marine corvette who recently opened a gym with her brother on h street in washington dc And saw it become an immediate success Through the power of preservation that historic corridor has seen 250 new businesses and more than 3000 jobs in just over a decade Or elizabeth a formerly homeless detroit resident who's found a home in the old michigan bell building This is an office complex recently converted into apartments And a resource center for those in need Elizabeth is taking ged courses to acquire the skills that she needs to get back on her feet I thank god every day for this place. She says it's a blessing for me A roof over my head where I have the opportunity to achieve There are hundreds of stories like these of course people whose lives have been positively transformed by our work I know you encounter them every day Preservation is for people and these stories demonstrate that it's a tool for positive change That our cities desperately need And the beauty of preservation is that one small change can set off a ripple that helps to revitalize an entire neighborhood or city And one person's actions can improve the lives of countless american families Just look at jane jacob's who stood up against Very powerful people to save lower manhattan and recalibrated our understanding of what a city should be She encouraged us to put people first again Look at dana crawford in denver and niece parker judge emet Phoebe tooter and rick lowe in houston Tonight's crown and shield award winners paula wallace in savannah and nox mellon in california And nearby longtime preservationist betty massie who's helped to reshape galveston The dallas mexican-american historical league who are working to save the stories and culture of pike park and dallas's little mexico mtamanica youngblood's work to revitalize martin luther king's neighborhood of sweet auber in atlanta In all of these cases you can see the vision of one dedicated person or group of people is transforming a city for the better They are doing it We all can do it We can unlock the potential of historic buildings and through them help solve the problems of the present We can create the foundation for a better future We can transform people's lives and enrich our cities as never before We can truly Make a difference. Thank you all for being here tonight