Start here · Essential guide
Revitalizing Historic Districts: Urban Development Strategies
What a historic district is, why places protect them, and the general strategies cities use to renew older areas while keeping their character and residents.
Planning and People
Historic Districts
Renewing older neighborhoods while respecting their heritage.
Rehabilitation Incentives for Older Buildings
A plain overview of the general types of rehabilitation incentives, such as tax credits, grants, loans and relaxed rules, that help make restoring old buildings affordable.
Revitalizing Historic Districts: Urban Development Strategies for Preservation
A general look at preservation tools such as designation, design review and incentives, and how they can protect character while also raising costs or limiting change.
Revitalizing Historic Districts: Urban Renewal Strategies for Preserving the Past
How new buildings and new uses can fit into older districts: scale, materials, infill, and the ongoing debate over what counts as authentic.
Revitalizing Historic Districts: Urban Renewal Success Stories
Labeled composite stories of heritage district renewal, with honest attention to tourism pressure, displacement and results that are uncertain or contested.
Revitalizing Historic Neighborhoods: Preserving the Past for a Sustainable Future
How keeping and reusing old buildings can support sustainability goals through embodied energy and walkable layouts, and why energy retrofits are often difficult.
Revitalizing Historic Neighborhoods: Strategies for Urban Renewal
How residential historic neighborhoods can be renewed through housing upkeep, support for long-time residents and careful management of change to limit displacement.
The Art of Urban Renewal: Preserving History in Modern Developments
How new buildings can incorporate old facades, street patterns and memory, including the practice of facadism, why critics object to it and what alternatives exist.
The Art of Urban Revitalization: Balancing Preservation and Progress
A framework for deciding whether to keep, adapt or replace an old building, and a look at who gets a voice in that decision and why it is often contested.
Urban Renewal and Cultural Heritage: How Cities Can Preserve Their History
Tangible and intangible cultural heritage, and how city renewal can keep or erase it, including living traditions and community memory as well as buildings.
Urban Renewal and the Revitalization of Cultural Heritage Sites
How individual heritage sites open to visitors are managed: conservation, access, funding and ties to the surrounding community, with typical trade-offs explained.
Urban Renewal and the Revitalization of Historic Buildings
Practical approaches to rehabilitating individual old buildings, including repair standards, building code issues, hidden problems and realistic cost considerations.
Urban Renewal and the Revitalization of Historic Buildings: A Case Study
A clearly labeled hypothetical composite following one old building through assessment, funding, rehabilitation and reuse, with the setbacks such projects often meet.
Urban Renewal and the Revitalization of Historic Districts
How an area gets formally recognized as a historic district, who decides, and what designation changes for property owners, with rules that vary by place.
Urban Renewal and the Revitalization of Historic Neighborhoods
Why small lots, mixed building ages and older street patterns are valuable, and how new buildings can be added to older areas without losing those qualities.
Urban Renewal and the Revitalization of Historic Neighborhoods: A Case Study
A clearly labeled hypothetical composite of an older residential area balancing preservation, affordability and change, including trade-offs and unresolved questions.
Related topics
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Renewal and Planning Planning basics, heritage reuse, downtowns and cultural districts. Inclusive Cities Equity, diversity and renewal without displacement. Vacant Property Reuse Bringing abandoned buildings and lots back into use. Blight and Regeneration What blight means and how neighborhoods are redeveloped. Neighborhood Revitalization Renewing whole neighborhoods with residents, housing and local services. Housing and Equity Housing costs, markets and fairness in renewal and development. Community Impact of Renewal Effects of renewal on culture, services, health, politics and daily life. Community Engagement How residents take part in shaping development and renewal. Governance and Policy How government, planning and design carry public policy into the city. Project Delivery The practical steps between a renewal idea and a finished project. Maps, Surveys and Evidence Simple methods planners use to see what is happening in a place.