Historic preservation is largely an urban profession with strong ties to city planning and development. Advocates tout preservation as a key driver of urban revitalization, but there remains a dearth of empirical research that addresses this intersection. This article reviews the current state of affairs in preservation practice and scholarship and builds new connections with four leading discourses in urban revitalization: the New American City, place matters, anchor institutions, and legacy cities. We call for an expansive research agenda to address preservation’s role in revitalization and to rethink preservation policy in the twenty-first century.

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Historic preservation is common practice across the world, including in US cities. At the same time, population decline, economic distress and vacancy prevalent in declining cities, also known as legacy, shrinking or post-industrial cities, creates a pressing threat to a vast array of urban historic buildings. In the USA, recent planning and policy emphasises strategic demolition and/or targeting resources in potentially viable neighbourhoods, with little attention paid to historic preservation. To fill this gap, we use a comparative case study of federal historic rehabilitation tax credit (RTC) investments from 2000 to 2010 across the neighbourhoods of six legacy cities: Baltimore, Cleveland, Philadelphia, Providence, Richmond and St. Louis. This is the first study to use disaggregated, longitudinal RTC data to analyse investment at the neighbourhood scale. We use the Hirschman-Herfindahl Index to evaluate investment concentration and US Census 2000 data to characterise neighbourhoods where developers chose to undertake RTC projects. The findings show that RTC investments occurred across a wide range of places, including very lowand low-income neighbourhoods, and produced both market-rate and affordable housing across each city's neighbourhoods. The findings indicate that preservation occurs across a wide range of legacy city neighbourhoods and inform urban planners and policymakers about locations where the private sector is willing to invest with favourable financing.

Historic preservationists tout the federal historic rehabilitation tax credit (RTC) as one of the nation's most successful urban revitalization programs, but minimal research exists on the local use of this private‐sector, market‐responsive tool. Using geocoded data on RTC investments in Richmond, Virginia that occurred between 1997 and 2010, the research explores the city's RTC geography, finding that these investments are most intense in the central city, but have centrifugally diffused outward over time. The research shows that RTC investments are contributing to Richmond's postindustrial transformation, offer a measure of resiliency in the recently volatile real estate market, and function as a de facto housing policy without directly resulting in gentrification. The research offers policymakers improved understanding about the urban geography and spatial effects of RTCs and outlines potential policies that can capitalize on and further encourage these private‐sector investments.