ABOUT US

Fifty years after local preservationists & renowned architecture critic & Pulitzer Prize winner Ada Louis Huxtable saved Salem from the wrecking ball, we are faced with a new threat. Opportunist development is changing our beautiful, historic coastal city into a congested, faceless place.

 

Architecture & our coastal resources are Salem’s greatest assets, unique in the world & pivotal to our economic success. And yet, our current administration was the first since urban renewal to support the demolition of antique houses making way for new construction. Historic architecture, brick sidewalks & cobbled streets continue to be degraded. Ten development projects are being planned on our floodplains & wetlands. Neighborhoods & small businesses are being swallowed up by huge, uninspired “Stumpies” in a mid-rise apartment boom. High rents in these buildings are putting pressure on affordable rentals & threaten our collective ability to build equity & attain homeownership.

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Neighbors vehemently oppose these projects, yet municipal boards are not responsive to residents & bend rules that favor developers in order to bring these projects forward.

Salem's working class is being asked to carry a large tax burden without the proper balance of power in determining the future. 

Neighborhoods are combining forces to protect the city America loves.