ABSTRACT
This chapter examines historic preservation on Benefit Street in Providence, Rhode Island and its impact on the neighborhood’s residents, built environment, and on the practice of historic preservation itself. Beginning in the late 1950s, Providence preservationists developed Benefit Street in the image of an idealized past. By 1967, over 150 buildings had been privately restored, encouraged by preservationist ability to manage the area’s real estate market through for-profit preservation companies, selective clearance, and historic district zoning. With the publication of its award-winning planning study, Providence became a national model for pro-market preservation. But the visually coherent and socially homogenous neighborhood that raised property values and drew middle-class residents back to the city also produced gentrification, displacing black residents and limiting economic and social diversity.
