Tangible Benefits From Intangible Resources: Using Social and Cultural History to Plan Neighborhood Futures

Problem, research strategy, and findings: Intense development pressures in fast-growing cities threaten to displace many social and ethnic minority populations and the diverse histories they have created. We assess recent efforts of planners and preservationists in San Francisco to develop programs that use history to encourage greater participation of marginalized populations in the local planning process and protect cultural practices that contribute to the city's diversity. We find that these joint efforts to develop broad cultural preservation programs offer the potential to make planning more inclusive of underserved populations and preserve elements of diverse cultural traditions. However, San Francisco's experience demonstrates the challenges these programs present for planning practice because the historic resources of marginalized populations are often more "intangible" than traditional landmarks. The difficulties encountered include adequately identifying such historic sites, creating new tools to protect them, and the openness of planning and preservation professionals to "softer" interpretations of cultural importance. Takeaway for practice: To preserve a diverse range of cultural activities, planners should help social and cultural minorities identify key community assets. Policies that protect these assets can be complicated by the often intangible nature of cultural practices and may require nonstandard measures that go beyond traditional land use regulation.