Revitalizing the Urban South Neighborhood Preservation and Planning Since the 1920s

Abstract

Abstract The urban South affords an exemplary case of historic preservation contributing directly to the broader processes of planning and revitalization. Since the 1920s, proponents of neighborhood preservation vied with downtown commercial interests in guiding planning efforts in many southern cities. From the 1920s to 1950, the preservation and planning movements overlapped significantly. They followed independent strategies as historic preservation gained an institutional base in the 1950s and 1960s and then merged into a more broadly based movement aimed at conserving the residential base of the center city in the 1970s and 1980s. Preservationists devised techniques of neighborhood conservation that later became the mainstay of neighborhood improvement programs in southern cities. While neighborhood preservationists were often ancillary to the planning mainstream, plagued by charges of elitism and devoid of broad-based political support, they were key backers of city planning in the South. In conjunc...