History in Urban Places

Historic Districts in the United States now number over 8,000; the phenomenon of the Historic District has been of special interest to those concerned with historic preservation and town planning, but there has been no analysis of such districts' significance from a historian's point of view. History in Urban Places explores the connections between American urban history and historic preservation. Hamer argues that four stages of history are represented by historic districts. The first is the history that the district actually embodies; the second is the story of what happened to the district from the time the historically significant events occurred until the present, when those events are judged to be significant; the third is the process leading to the district's classification as historic; and the fourth is the history of the district once the designation is official.