Preserving Downtown America: Federal Rehabilitation Tax Credits and the Transformation of U.S. Cities

Ryberg-Webster, Stephanie

doi:10.1080/01944363.2014.903749

Cited by 22 publications

(20 citation statements)

References 13 publications

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“…Geographically, these transitions are concentrated within and around the downtowns in each of the four cities, expanding the existing footprint of the Multifamily, Educated, Turnover type, paralleling the endogenous gentrification process identified by Guerrieri et al (2013) (Figure 6). The location and potentially gentrifying nature of these transitions align with recent revitalization trends in downtown areas or places with anchor institutions (Adams 2014;Mallach 2015;Ryberg-Webster 2013;Silverman, Yin, and Patterson 2013).…”

Section: Transitioning Neighborhoodsmentioning

confidence: 90%

Spatial–Temporal Neighborhood Patterns in Four Legacy Cities

Kinahan

2020

Urban Affairs Review

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Legacy cities are characterized by long-term, declining trends in both population and economic characteristics, but how these events translate to the neighborhood scale is less well understood. This research investigates the evolution of neighborhood types in four legacy cities—Baltimore, Cleveland, Philadelphia, and St. Louis—from 1970 to 2010. Working from a multidimensional framework of variables across five census decades, hierarchical cluster analysis and discriminant analysis are used to develop a neighborhood typology, identify temporal trends, and describe the pathways of transition. Results reveal four crosscutting neighborhood types: Black Distressed; Lower Middle; Multifamily, Educated, Turnover; and Upper Middle, which persist across space and time. Most neighborhoods (61%) remained classified within the same type over 40 years, and transitions were concentrated in two decades (1970–1980 and 2000–2010). The results offer a new descriptive dimension for understanding the unevenness present across legacy cities and suggest that existing policy approaches continually reproduce the same neighborhood outcomes.

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Section: Transitioning Neighborhoodsmentioning

confidence: 90%

Spatial–Temporal Neighborhood Patterns in Four Legacy Cities

Kinahan

2020

Urban Affairs Review

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“…Scholarship on historic tax credits have focused on their use in downtown revitalisation, low‐income housing, job creation, adaptive reuse, improved property values, and the preservation of important cultural structures (Ryberg‐Webster ). Yet, evidence demonstrates that these “social goods” are also a catalyst for gentrification (Smith ).…”

Section: Historic Tax Creditsmentioning

confidence: 91%

From the State to the Shareholder: Rent and the Production of Shareholder Value in Real Estate

Tapp

2020

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Following the 2008 global financial crisis, the use of real estate tax credits to generate shareholder value for investors increased significantly. While tax credits are lauded as crucial to the delivery of social goods like affordable housing, the multiplier effects they supposedly generate fail to account for the hollowing out of the state that occurs as public funds are transferred to shareholders. Through a detailed case study of the historic tax credit industry in the United States, this research shows how many of the banks and financial institutions investing in tax credits have come to rely on overly engineered forms of landownership, deeply discounted credit pricing, and a wave of stock buybacks to boost their corporate profitability. This paper therefore develops a theoretical framework to understand taxation as a financialised accumulation strategy where the state serves as an important—if not problematic—source of real estate profit.

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“…(1) recent scholarship shows new downtown growth, even in legacy cities (Birch, 2002(Birch, , 2005(Birch, , 2009Mallach, 2011Mallach, , 2015; (2) research on downtown RTCs (Ryberg-Webster, 2013) shows high levels of activity in the core, which would skew an analysis of distribution across neighbourhoods; and (3) (CUPR, 2014). Investigating paired financing is beyond the scope of this research.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 97%

“…Research shows that RTCs have underpinned downtown revitalisation (Ryberg-Webster, 2013), but little is known about the use of RTCs in these cities' neighbourhoods.…”

Section: The Federal Historic Rehabilitation Tax Creditmentioning

confidence: 99%

Historic preservation in declining city neighbourhoods: Analysing rehabilitation tax credit investments in six US cities

Ryberg-Webster

Kinahan

2016

Urban Studies

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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.

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Preserving Downtown America: Federal Rehabilitation Tax Credits and the Transformation of U.S. Cities

Cited by 22 publications

References 13 publications

Spatial–Temporal Neighborhood Patterns in Four Legacy Cities

Spatial–Temporal Neighborhood Patterns in Four Legacy Cities

From the State to the Shareholder: Rent and the Production of Shareholder Value in Real Estate

Historic preservation in declining city neighbourhoods: Analysing rehabilitation tax credit investments in six US cities

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