Is there any historic preservation interest for late midcentury places?

[llamaorama]

When I say places, I don't just mean restoring and preserving major edifices that were architecturally significant from day 1. I mean whole neighborhoods or landscapes. There are a lot of preserved main streets and small towns from the late 19th and early 20th century. Is there an equivalent for that brewing anywhere to preserve or re-use not just a random midcentury skyscraper but perhaps a whole district? Has there ever been an attempt to preserve a dying enclosed mall or shopping center for example by uncovering the attributes that makes it historic in a present day sense.

Last week I re-read Stephen King's Salems Lot. Also I watched Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil with my parents. It got me thinking.

In Salem's Lot, it is 1975, and the spooky house where the action takes place is from around 1930, or about 45 years old. One of the antagonists is selling antique furniture. While it is a horror story, it also kind of captures a vibe from that era when that book was published. People were into historic restoration. The whole "Yuppie creative from NY goes to rural New England" is like a trope of 1980s movies. Isn't that also what happened in Beetlejuice? That's also when This Old House became a show on PBS. As a 31 year old millenial I remember my aunt being one of those boomers who was into antiques and old stuff.

In Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, the main character is a a gay man living in Savannah where he restores old houses. Again, its the 1980s and the historic accoutrements of the bourgeious in Spacey's characters words were things from the 1920s and 30s, so about 50 years old.

Well it got me thinking. 50 years ago from now was like the 1970s. Is there any interest in protecting places from the 70s, things, the whole aesthetic, equivalent how in that same time period people were trying to save the material culture of the late 19th and early 20th century? I don't see many people in my generation having as much of an interest in the recent past as maybe our parents were, maybe kitsch is one of those trends that comes and goes?