Narcissus died while staring at the pool. Confounded by the unreal beauty reflected in the pool, he wasted away while ignoring his own actual need to eat. That is what feels like is going on now with the debate between preserving history and the housing crisis.

For many people, Feliks Banel is to Western Washington history what Cliff Mass is to weather, or at least what Mass was before he ventured into controversial territory. Even more than Knute Berger on PBS, Banel’s segments on KIRO Radio reach a broad, commercial audience. His chosen topics often shape how we discuss and understand the history of our region.

Over the past few years, Banel’s non-KIRO Cascade of History radio show has frequently focused on the preservation of built structures. Examples include a gazebo in Everett, a house in Sumner, Memorial Stadium in Seattle, and a school in Parkland.

Most recently, Banel highlighted the debate around HB 1576, a bill that would prevent individuals who do not own a property from initiating the historic landmarking process for that property. Currently, this practice is only allowed in Seattle and Tacoma. Because these cities are among the largest in Washington, the ability to landmark a property against the owner’s wishes can be misused to block development that could radically improve our housing crisis.

This essay isn’t about the bill itself. Instead, it’s a letter to historians and local preservation activists passionate about this issue. It’s also a reflection on history itself, how we understand it, preserve it, and should approach it as people interested in history.

The Pitfalls of Local Control and Historic Preservation

The effort to federally landmark an entire neighborhood in Seattle shows the overlap between restrictive zoning and historic preservation.

In Wallingford, homeowners recently attempted to establish a federally designated historic district. While framed as a preservation effort, it would have functioned as a modern form of restrictive covenant, blocking affordable housing and density while maintaining exclusive, high-value single-family zoning.

This highlights a broader issue: land-use regulations, including historic preservation, are often wielded to maintain privilege rather than serve their stated purposes. Just as restrictive zoning laws have long hindered affordable housing, historic district designations can become tools for exclusion, reinforcing systemic inequalities in housing access by freezing exclusive uses in place.

This is why historians should tread carefully when engaging in issues of local control, which has historically been used as a method of exclusion.

Two quotes from the HB 1576 public hearing stand out:

  1. “It’s ridiculous to think the state would dictate local land-use decisions.”
  2. “Historic preservation is, at best, a local decision.”

These arguments echo the broader rhetoric of local control in land-use decisions. As I’ve written before, local control often benefits the wealthy and white while harming poorer and non-white communities. If we can make historic preservation arguments without relying on local control, we should.

Historians, of all people, should understand how local control has been used to exclude marginalized groups from communities. We must not repeat this mistake in the name of preserving buildings.

History as Growth, Not Stasis

This essay is ultimately about history and how we’ve historically grown as communities. For most of human history, until the last century, communities grew without what we now call “zoning.” Many of our most historic neighborhoods reflect this slow, gradual growth. We didn’t build massive neighborhoods all at once, nor did we stand in the way of new developments simply because they were new.

My favorite building in Olympia is at the corner of 10th and Capitol. It’s a historic single-family home that has been subdivided into apartments, with a restaurant attached to the front. All of these changes happened over decades after the construction of the initial house. It reflects the changing needs of the property owner, the neighborhood and our community. This kind of adaptive growth is how our cities evolved for much of history. Communities change, needs change, and our approach to history should reflect and document these changes, not resist them.

More People, Fewer Things

We should focus less on preserving the built environment and more on understanding human needs and historical context.

This idea is reflected in how Olympia recently redefined what we mean by “neighborhood character.” We changed the term in our local planning documents from preserving homogeneity and resisting change to promoting inclusivity, sustainability, and adaptability.

We shifted from defining character as a static built environment to character meaning as a community that reflects our values.

In this way, our community character is still being built. It’s defined by how we make decisions for everyone, even those who don’t live here yet. Paraphrasing what Bono once said about music, “When we glorify the past, the future dries up.”

When we choose to encase a building in glass, we freeze a piece of land in time. It will never reflect who we are becoming—only who we were.

In Olympia, we’ve redefined “neighborhood character” to focus on our values as people, not on preserving structures built at a specific moment in time.

A Final Note to History Lovers

To my history-loving friends, I offer this: Release yourself from things.

Historic character lies in our values, not our architecture. As Epictetus said, “You are not your body and hairstyle, but your capacity for choosing well. If your choices are beautiful, so too will you be.”

While architectural historians may disagree, we are not our buildings. We are our people.

And to borrow a phrase from the debate on parking in Washington State, we are in a housing crisis, not a history crisis. Housing affordability and homelessness are the crises of our times. Preserving history should not be used as a tool to worsen these crises.

Or rather, we are in a history crisis, but it is not a crisis of preserving too few buildings. Preserving too many buildings from a past we are trying to distance ourselves from is part of the history crisis we are currently in. The debate between historians and non-historians over preserving statues, rewriting our understanding of colonial history, or grappling with our racist legacy is the real historical crisis we face.

If anything, preserving buildings without context dampens the deeper understanding of our past that is possible.

Narcissus’s obsession with his reflection causes him to neglect his own well-being and ultimately leads to his demise. Similarly, an excessive focus on preserving historic buildings while ignoring the housing crisis can result in neglecting the well-being of current populations. This neglect manifests in rising homelessness, unaffordable housing, and social inequality, as resources and attention are diverted away from solving these critical issues.

History is not about freezing our built environment in time but about understanding how our communities grow, adapt, and reflect our values. By focusing on inclusivity, sustainability, and the needs of all people, not just preserving structures, we honor the true spirit of history. Embrace change, learn from the past, and ensure our decisions today create a more equitable future.