So, first off, I am a big supporter of preservation and preservation organizations. But it got me wondering the other day about how much is too much?
The way I look at it is that everything, whether it be land or a building, is historic.
I actually had this occur in my community recently when the town decided to demolish a playground that had been built in the 1980s and abandoned due to chemicals in the wooden structures a few years later. The playground sat abandoned in the woods until a few months ago when it was demolished. People got upset and said the community was erasing history. Well, yes technically it's historic, but what purpose does saving and preserving an old playground have? What does it teach us about our past?
That's what I think a preserved space should do. Now, we should definitely preserve places like Shiloh and Gettysburg, but what about smaller battlefields that are practically unheard of? Let's say that there was a battle in which 200 Union soldiers fought 200 Confederates for a few hours. Casualties were light and the action is rarely mentioned in the official records. Does the land where that battle took place be forever preserved from development? Land is always going to be in need and there is only so much of it. Should hundreds of thousands of dollars - even millions - be spent to preserve a few acres that no very few people know about and would possibly even visit? Or do a few markers and interpretive panels tell the story just as well? What does that small little battle tell us about the war?
Should preservation groups and organizations focus their money on high target acquisitions and properties that are important?
Again, I fully support preservation, but I am also a realist. I got asked to give money to a group that was trying to preserve an old factory building that had fallen into disrepair and had become a safety hazard and was slated to be demolished. A group wanted to buy the building and rehab it and needed three or four million dollars for the project. In my opinion that was money that could have gone to more desirable preservation sites.
What do you all think? Is there a point where preservation just gets to be too much?