about
PRESERVE DETROIT IS a community informed plan to protect Detroit's historic buildings and places citywide.
Public engagement during this planning process will guide the City of Detroit in the development of a vision, strategy, and policy to preserve historical places of cultural significance.
We are working to look beyond historic designation to keep Detroit’s history alive for future generations.
The outcome of this planning effort will be a Citywide Historic Preservation Plan that utilizes innovative tools and strategies for preserving places and celebrating Detroit’s stories. We would love your help!
our vision
We see a future where all of Detroit’s neighborhoods are celebrated for their distinct history. The care of their places and spaces driving economic prosperity, density, and revitalization—increasing quality of life and preserving history for generations to come.
To do this, we are working to develop methods new methods that acknowledge, celebrate, and preserve culturally significant places that are important to Detroiters city-wide.
Community Engagement outcomes
The Preserve Detroit community engagement process will help the City of Detroit:
Identify an inclusive and citywide vision for historic preservation.
Provide direction for future historic resource survey and historic district designation.
Explore additional tools and strategies (other than the designation of historic districts) to encourage preservation, rehabilitation, and appropriate infill development in the city’s older and historic areas.
Develop a comprehensive policy for city-owned historic properties and city-sponsored development projects affecting historic properties.
Integrate historic preservation goals and policies in the City’s Master Plan of Policies.
Identify and address areas of the City Code that discourage historic preservation and building reuse.
How does historic preservation improve places & spaces?
See the full list and write-up on Place Economic’s Twenty-four Reasons Historic Preservation is Good for Your Community.
Start ups and young businesses
If small businesses are important, start-up and young businesses (less than 3 years old) are even more so. Almost all net new job creation comes from new businesses. Where do those businesses choose to locate? Often in local historic districts.
walkability/bikability
In 2007 Walk Score was released to the public. Since then urban planners, real estate professionals, public health workers, transportation experts, and others have stressed the importance of Walk Score; it has become a basic tool of urban analysis. But most neighborhoods in America are not very walkable. The American Journal of Preventive Medicine noted, “Neighborhoods built a half-century or more ago were designed with ‘walkability’ in mind. And living in them reduces an individual’s risk of becoming overweight or obese.” For multiple reasons people are prioritizing walkability in their choice of where to work and live. The Urban Land Institute reports that 50% of U.S. residents say that walkability is a top priority or a high priority when considering where to live. What neighborhoods are walkable? Historic neighborhoods.
density at a human scale
Density. The D word. Density has lots of proponents – transportation experts, infrastructure engineers, public works directors, urban planners. The argument goes like this: “We need to have density to efficiently provide public services. Everything from bus systems to school locations to fire protection to waterlines are more efficiently and cost-effectively provided if we have density.” And you know what – they are right. Cities need density. But here’s where the argument falters; density is seen as a synonym of high-rise construction. Wrong. Where is density being provided right now? In historic neighborhoods.
environmental responsibility
It was Carl Elefante, immediate past president of the American Institute of Architects, who first coined the phrase, “The greenest building is the one already built.”
first place of return
Many cities in the United States, primarily in the northeast and Midwest, have been losing population for decades. In recent years, however, some of them have again begun to grow in population. So a question arises – when cities begin to grow after extended periods of population decline, where within the city does that growth take place? The answer – in local historic districts.
Jobs
Historic rehabilitation means jobs—generally well-paid jobs, particularly for those without advanced formal education. Rehabilitation tends to be more labor intensive than new construction, so work restoring historic buildings has a greater job creating impact per dollar spent than new construction. In Savannah, for example, one million dollars spent on the rehabilitation of a Savannah historic building will generate about 1.2 more jobs and $62,000 more in income for Georgia citizens than the same amount spent on new construction.
Property Values
There is no area of preservation economic analysis that has been done more often than measuring the impact of local historic districts on property values. Regardless of the researcher, the methodology, or the location of the study, the results of these analyses have been remarkable consistent: In nearly every instance properties in local historic districts have greater rates of appreciation than properties elsewhere in the same city.
Foreclosure patterns
December 2007 marked the beginning of what has come to be known as the Great Recession. Hardest hit in the recession was the real estate market. While the recession was officially designated as having ended in June, 2009, the real estate market in hundreds of cities didn’t recover until three or four years later. In a few markets a decade after the real estate crash, values have still not reached their pre-recession levels. Economists argue over the causes of the recession, but one thing is not in dispute – millions of Americans lost virtually all of their assets through the foreclosure of their homes. In the 10 years from the beginning of the recession 7.8 million homes were foreclosed on, and millions of additional families faced some type of foreclosure action during that time. Although most markets have recovered, the rate of home ownership in the United States is still five percentage points below its height of more than 69% reached in 2004. But even at the city level, the rate of foreclosure varied greatly from neighborhood to neighborhood. In more than 20 cities we’ve looked at, foreclosure rates in local historic districts were decidedly lower than the rest of the city.
Small businesses
While it’s the companies of the Fortune 500 that get the headlines in the Wall Street Journal, it is small businesses who are the backbone of the American economy. 96% of all businesses employ fewer than 50 people; 89% fewer than 20. These small businesses employ 23 million more workers than do firms of 500 with more people on the payroll. Since the end of the recession, those small businesses have added 30% more jobs than have the big guys. Further, it is small businesses that offer the greatest entrepreneurial opportunity to women and minorities. So an economically dynamic city should be particularly concerned about creating an environment hospitable to small businesses. It is often historic districts that are the location of choice for small businesses.
Get involved
Embrace your inner preservationist at one of our community engagement workshops.