NAR Centennial: 100 Years in Celebration of the American Dream: Chapter Five

City Sculptors

From the start, NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF REALTORS® members have played a role in their communities that has extended well beyond facilitating real estate transactions. W.W. Hannan, 1909 president of the association, likened the real estate man seeing “a vision of a city ten, twenty years hence” to a “sculptor [who] sees the imprisoned Venus in a block of marble, an artist [who sees] a Madonna looking out from the bare canvas.”1 REALTORS were among the earliest community planners and continue to play an integral role in shaping their communities, whether serving on housing commissions or in other civic functions or volunteering their time for the community good.

The national association has both facilitated and recognized REALTORS®’ involvement in communities. The association’s early leaders helped lay the foundation for community planning. Much later, beginning in the late 1990s, NAR helped shape the burgeoning smart growth movement in a way that recognized the rights of owners and the needs of future buyers.

To encourage and showcase community involvement by its members, NAR has instituted a range of programs, from the long-running annual REALTOR® Week campaign initiated in 1956 to today’s Habitat for Humanity and REALTOR® Magazine Good Neighbor Awards programs.

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