The purpose of this project was to create a document which would inform readers involved with urban community development of the benefits of integrating historic preservation into their affordable housing programs. Preservation's roots in community activism are explored and compared to the community development movement. The goals of the historic preservation movement are explained as they apply to an urban context. The document also describes the achievements of preservation in ending the damage caused by urban renewal and creating a broad public appreciation of historic buildings. Development tools related to preservation are shown to be useful for urban revitalization. Readers are informed of the elements of architectural and community character which preservationists seek to save. The definition and appropriateness of several levels of preservation are discussed in terms of when they are pragmatically useful. Neighborhoods in Savannah, Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, Indianapolis, and Baltimore which have used preservation to revitalize for the poor are profiled. Several single family projects performed by an Indianapolis CDC are analyzed to determine the added cost of integrating preservation into their rehab, with the result showing that added costs are low or non existent. Three multi-unit housing rehabs in Indianapolis are analyzed to determine the cost of preservation work, and these also revealed that although preservation added less than 10% to the cost of the project, it brought valuable tax credits which raised equity exceeding these costs. The effect of preservation on low-income urban neighborhoods was broken down into benefits and costs, with benefits such as increasing property values and attracting investment to the neighborhood seeming to outweigh potential costs such as increases in taxes and rents. This advantage was particularly true if a non-profit community organization targeted their development at meeting the needs of those most likely to suffer from the costs of preservation. The document closes with guidelines on how a CDC can analyze the utility and compatibility of preservation with its existing purpose and programs. The general thrust of the conclusion is that preservation is a valuable tool for upgrading low-income communities for their existing residents, as long as it is teamed with other mechanisms to meet the needs of the disadvantaged. / Department of Architecture

No description available.

The purpose of this study was to (1) develop a statistical model that classifies the housing problems of affordability, quality and crowding as elements in a choice set facing low-income urban renters, (2) identify the demographic, socioeconomic and regional factors which influence housing outcomes, (3) use the resulting model to estimate the probability that an individual household faces a particular combination of housing problems, and (4) consider how the receipt of housing assistance alters those probabilities by addressing the question of targeting assistance. The study used data from the American Housing Survey of 1989 to estimate the model. These were low-income renters who both lived in an urban area and moved from one residence to another during the prior twelve month period. The mean income level of the final sample was $14,336. Sixty-one percent of the sample had affordability problems, twenty-eight percent had quality problems and six percent had crowding problems. The theoretical framework for the study is discrete choice analysis based on a random utility function. The conceptual framework included the development of seven, binary, logit models. These models represent a sequence of choices which the low-income renter makes when finding housing. The assumed choice hierarchy was affordability decisions followed by quality decisions and finally crowding decisions. The affordability and crowding models performed well; however, the quality model was somewhat disappointing. It appears that either quality is not easily modeled using a binary variable or households perceive quality differently than do the policy makers who establish quality guidelines. The models clearly show that affordability problems constitute the biggest hurdle for the low-income renter. Regional location is a significant factor in estimating the probability of having housing problems. Households in the western region of the United States are most likely to have multiple problems. A major contribution of this study is the focus on housing assistance and how receiving assistance alters the probability of low-income households finding basic shelter. / Ph. D.