Some understand mid-century, neighborhood-scale preservation to be a reaction to the destructive impacts of urban renewal. In Washington, D.C., however, neighborhood-scale preservation predated urban renewal. This article investigates the factors that influenced the implementation of both practices in the early 1950s, shedding light on later decisions in other cities, when the strategies were more commonly combined. A focus on the contrasting fates of alley dwellings in Georgetown and Southwest demonstrates that the built environment mattered little on its own; the scale of building conditions, geographies of race, and prevalence of private investment dictated the differential implementation of these planning approaches.

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This paper reflects on a digital public history project conducted by the authors in Madison, Wisconsin. It uses these reflections to show how digital methods can create new possibilities in the field of historic preservation, and to emphasise that new technology alone does not cut through old challenges relating to public engagement. The bias towards newness and fluidity in digital methods offers an instructive contrast to the bias towards permanence and continuity in historic preservation. Bringing these two worlds into dialogue offers the possibility of strengthening each. K E Y W O R D Sdigital methods, historic preservation, participatory geography, urban history, USA

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