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The Regions Project
The Ohio Department of Transportation’s Office of
Environmental Services proposes a regional approach to the management of Ohio’s
cultural environment. Our goal is carefully to define Ohio’s widely recognized
regions as a guide to place-based environmental decision making. A regional
approach to cultural resource management will help environmental professionals
in making informed and productive decisions during the development of Ohio’s
1.2 billion dollar transportation program. A regional framework based on the
spatial unity of cultural and natural phenomena will allow the early recognition
of potential culturally sensitive areas, reinforce the cultural identity of the
four widely recognized culture regions (the Western Reserve, the Midland,
Southern Ohio, and the Midwest) of Ohio, and guide the construction of useful
historical/cultural contexts to help in the application of the National Register
Criteria for evaluation. A regional approach to cultural resource management can
reduce project development costs, support heritage tourism, and achieve a
productive harmony of the past with the present.
The discourse of Historic Preservation and Cultural Resource
Management concerning our transportation program involves issues that are far
removed from the esoteric arguments over National Register significance and
integrity. We have found the reality of cultural resources management often
revolves around concern for the preservation of place rather than preservation
of specific artifacts. It is especially clear when we posit cultural resource
management within the broader National Environmental Policy Act processes. A
regional perspective can allow our staff to overcome ancillary issues and focus
on delivering an ambitious transportation program while respecting truly
significant resources - and places. The regional approach to cultural resource
management allows a common ground at the intersection of a variety of
disciplines and positions: regionalism fosters the elusive
"multi-disciplinary approach to place-based decision making," hitherto
little more that rhetoric in the practice of CRM in Ohio.
Our regional approach to cultural resource management had its
genesis in the professional interaction of environmental professionals involved
with State and Federal agencies within the Public, Academic and Private sectors.
A History/Architecture Colloquium served as forum to explore the regions project
and solicit responses from professionals from across the spectrum of cultural
resource management: archaeologists, geographers, architectural historians,
landscape architects, cartographers, engineers, project managers and
preservationists. Colloquium speaker John Simpson of the Knowlton School of
Architecture at the Ohio State University defined the need for a regional
framework to transportation project development: "In many ways we are
creating an American landscape sadly devoid of significant meaning, symbolism,
and local identity. The resulting homogenization diverts attention from the
landscape’s complete legacy, limiting a sense of physical and sociocultural
continuity, disconnecting people from the land . . . most problematic, though,
is the general disinterest in the land fostered by those traditional landscape
values and our mobility . . . [yet] the prospects for the future of our
landscape are embedded in that mobility and in those values." By defining
and protecting the qualities of place within a regional framework, cultural
resource management may not only protect the significant artifacts of the past,
but work toward producing a future landscape rich in meaning, symbolism, and
local identity.
A regional approach to cultural resource management has a
long tradition in American thought within the fields of Geography, Ecology,
History, Political Science, and Literature. Following twenty-five years of
environmental impact assessment, environmental professionals are promoting
regionalism as a foundational notion of cultural resource management. The spread
of the heritage area movement has evidenced this trend, as has the adoption of
programs such as "Thinking Beyond the Pavement," and the oft-heard
advocation for place-based environmental decision making. The National
Environmental Policy Act explicitly demands that we preserve important historic,
cultural, and natural aspects of our national heritage, and maintain, wherever
possible, an environment that supports diversity, and variety of individual
choice. Section 106 of the National Historic Preservation Act - recently revised
- requires Agencies to take into account the effects of their undertakings on
historic properties. Our regional approach to cultural resource management
offers a cost efficient avenue toward the development of an ambitious
transportation program within the letter and the spirit of the Historic
Preservation and National Environmental Policy Acts.
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