One Step Ahead of the Bulldozer: Preservation as Community Development in Houston, Texas

Community development corporations (CDCs) are often at the forefront of providing affordable housing and social services, restoringdisinvested communities, and rebuilding neighborhoods. Most CDCswork in older, inner-city communities that, given their age and location, likely contain older and historic buildings. Thus, there is aseemingly logical overlap between community developers’ targetneighborhoods and the tools, strategies, and resources associatedwith historic preservation. This article uses a qualitative case study ofHouston’s Avenue CDC to explore how and why community developers use preservation within the context of a high-growth city. Formore than two decades, Avenue has worked in three core neighborhoods in an effort to stave off gentrification via teardowns andtownhome redevelopment. The findings show that, for communitydevelopers in growing cities, carefully crafted preservation strategiesmay be a way to challenge the forces of gentrification, displacement,and wholesale physical destruction