ABSTRACT
The United States experienced tremendous growth in the mid-20th century. That growth transformed the city centers and significantly expanded the suburban landscape. In 1966, at the height of this transformative era, the federal government passed the National Historic Preservation Act (N.H.P.A.). The purpose of the act was to establish a registry for the documentation of historic structures and to create a framework with which federally funded endeavors could identify properties of significance to the history of the country. This history was not just a political history but also a social one. The climate under which this bill passed was one of radical change in the built and social landscapes. Massive urban redevelopment and superhighway construction invaded areas of the United States that had changed little in decades. That is not to say these areas, particularly old downtowns, had not seen businesses change, demographic shifts, or their fair share of renovation, demolition, and rebuilding. However, the massive scale and rapidity with which the changes of the 1950s to the 1980s occurred at the edges of our preexisting cities was unprecedented. Suburbs flourished, and with them our dependence on personal automobiles skyrocketed. All along the edges of our cities a new type of place was asphalted into the American experience, the automobile-oriented regional shopping mall. These sites consumed the landscape with their huge interior-focused buildings set on expansive parking lots. They visually depict the age of a city like laugh lines on the face, telling of previous progress and a mobile consumer.
