ABSTRACT

This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book approaches the wide-ranging subject of "saving spaces" from an admittedly federal perspective—a result of the readily available primary sources and an acknowledgement of the increasingly important role that the national government had on landscape and historic conservation efforts from the 1950s through the 1970s. It presents a broad-brush review of the historic preservation movement within the United States from the mid-1920s through the mid-1970s. The book describes the creation of Piscataway Park, an experiment in creating protected areas through a mosaic of public and private steward-ship, and the only National Park Service unit designed to protect the viewshed from a historic property. It also describes the Department of Housing and Urban Development's open space grant program, which helped localities set aside more than 380,000 acres of urban land in communities across the country from 1961 to the mid-1970s.