ABSTRACT
Passage of the Historic Preservation Act in 1966 and the consequent creation of a National Register of Historic Places, historians have inventoried over 13,000 sites and districts. This chapter focuses on local historical resources, and presents the resources first to the National Register, and secondly to the planning process. The subjectivity is an even more pressing problem because federal law new requires that there be an assessment of impact on cultural resources by all federally funded projects. Plans for highways, airport expansions, and even water and sewer lines are new being routinely scrutinized for potential impact on historic and cultural resources. When historians move from presidential mansions to the homes of local entrepreneurs the definition of an historic resource becomes more difficult. The chapter also focuses on a second example from Atlanta to further illustrate the problem of defining a resource of local significance.
