Heritage-fueled gentrification: A cautionary tale from Chicago

Abstract

Abstract This article contests the view that heritage preservation programs, in their present form, provide an unqualified community good. Anointing certain places as ‘historic’, and therefore different from other places and intrinsically special, can create demand and provide a catalyst for revitalization. We suggest that such preservation-driven revitalization is not always beneficial to a neighborhood and can, perhaps counterintuitively, work against the long-term sustainability of heritage preservation. Focusing on Chicago's Lincoln Park neighborhood and its National Register of Historic Places-listed sites, we explore the relationship between preservation activity and gentrification, the physical and social upgrading of a neighborhood. We identify a three-stage revitalization process that can lead to the degradation of a neighborhood's historic character. In a sense, a gentrifying historic neighborhood can become a victim of its own success as redevelopment pressures encourage physical change and the gradual loss of its historic integrity—the very reason for preservation to begin with. The public framework that supports heritage preservation in the US, while vitally important for protecting irreplaceable cultural heritage, is outdated. Simply, it has not kept pace with changes in American cities over the last fifty years, particularly those with strong real estate markets. An updated and more nuanced framework is in order, one that recognizes that honorific heritage programs and public subsidies for private rehabilitation can have significant adverse impacts on a neighborhood, both physical and social.