Overview

Stewardship of the built environment balances the needs of contemporary society and their impact on the built environment with its ultimate effects on the natural environment. Mer4ging historic preservation and environmental conservation can create innummerable opportunities for reuse of the built environment, which fosters a more sustainable environment overall.

Historic preservation is not a recent phenomenon in the United States. The historic preservation of buildings began when the city of Philadephia purchased Independence Hall to save it from demol;ition in 1816., and the first notable restoration was complete at the Truro Synagogue in Newport, Rhode Island, in 1828 . THe preservation movement made increasing progess throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, leading to the National Historic Preservation Act (NHPA)  of 1966. The NHPA mandates that federally funded projects affecting historic buildings must undergo what is known as a "Section 106 review" to ensure that proposed work follows the Secretary of the Interior Standards for the Treeatment of Historic Properties (Standards). When the NHPA first went into effect, federally funded project included highway construction and urban renewal programs that were ravaging older adnd historic business districts and residentail negihborhoods.