Restoring Urban America: The Use and Impact of Historic Rehabilitation Tax Credits in Twelve Cities

Over the past forty years, federal, state and local governments have adopted a number of public policies in support of preservation and in hopes of spurring private reinvestment in the historic built environment. This research examines one of the most influential policies – historic rehabilitation tax credits (RTCs). Preservationists and others argue that RTCs are a key driver of urban revitalization, but the National Park Service, which oversees the program, publishes only rudimentary and highly aggregated descriptive statistics. Despite widespread praise and continuing policy development, the impact of RTCs on U.S. cities is almost entirely unstudied. To fill this gap, our research explores methodologies to assess and evaluate the multi-faceted impacts of this leading preservation program, using address-level RTC project data (obtained from the National Park Service and State Historic Preservation Offices). The study focuses on twelve purposefully selected cities: Atlanta, Baltimore, Cleveland, Denver, Dubuque, Omaha, Philadelphia, Portland (OR), Providence, Richmond, Seattle, and St. Louis. This dataset allows for a comparison of cities with and without state RTC programs, with different local preservation cultures, and in a mix of weak and strong-market locations.