Resources within Reach: Iowa’s Statewide Historic Preservation Plan, Imagine Iowa 2010

From introduction: "Let us begin by recognizing that plans, especially long range government plans, have a notoriously short life span. Despite the best of intentions, it is not long before circumstances change: leaders who guided their preparation leave and budgets to implement them prove uncertain. Meanwhile, new short-term demands claim that attention of preservation organizations, which erode longer term goals and objectives that once seemed within reach. This need not be the inevitable result; investment in planning can be worthwhile. A plan has value by its very preparation. When ideas are exchanged, when persons across the state discuss historic preservation prospects and problems, when dialogue brings issues and possibilities into sharper relief, planning becomes more concrete and focused. Secondly, a plan has more value when it reaches beyond describing everything currently done to also marking out tangible ideas for what to do in the near future. Finally, a plan has value when the goals, objectives, and activities make sense both to those who implement them and to preservation participants who enjoy the results because they will see the plan as important, real, and useful. What is presented here builds upon and replaces the state historic preservation plan created in 1993. It draws upon the spirit of Imagine Iowa 2010: a Cultural Vision which, by the end of the decade, aims to have the state be “a national leader in culture with support for an environment that allows the arts, history, humanities, and sciences to thrive.” To examine and decide where Iowa’s historic preservation movement ought to be in the year 2010, we rely on data collected from various sources, especially from the series of regional workshops held in 2001 and 2004 as part of the department’s Imagine Iowa 2010 planning process. Shaping the state’s longer-term plans in particular are the experiences of professional staff at the state historic preservation office and that of preservation consultants active in Iowa. Through dealing with daily requests for help to preserve Iowa’s places, both bring understanding about what needs to be preserved, the best ways to do it, and what Iowans want to see preserved." Funding was provided in part by a 2007 Historic Preservation Fund grant administered by the Iowa State Historic Preservation Office (project number IA-07-031, grant number 19-07-21619) and the State, Tribal, and Local Plans and Grants Division, National Park Service, U.S. Department of the Interior.

Resources within Reach: Iowa’s Statewide Historic Preservation Plan, Imagine Iowa 2010

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