Preserving the Vanishing City considers the unique challenges, conditions, and opportunities facing Cleveland’s historic preservation community during the 1970s and 1980s. While pro-preservationists argued for the economic and revitalization benefits stemming from saving and repurposing older buildings, population loss and economic contraction prompted decades of deterioration, underinvestment, vacancy, and abandonment. Stephanie Ryberg-Webster uncovers the motivations, strategies, and constraints driving Cleveland’s historic preservation sector, led by the public-sector Cleveland Landmarks Commission, nonprofit Cleveland Restoration Society, and a cadre of advocates. She sheds light on the ways in which preservationists confronted severe, escalating, and sustained urban decline, which plagued Cleveland, a prototypical rust-belt industrial city. Preserving the Vanishing City chronicles the rise of the historic preservation profession in Cleveland and provides six case studies about targeted projects and neighborhood efforts, including industrial heritage, housing preservation and restoration, commercial district revitalization, securing local historic district designations, as well as grassroots organizing, coalition building, and partnerships. Ryberg-Webster also addresses the complexities of historic preservation within the context of rapid racial change in Cleveland’s neighborhoods.  A comprehensive history of preservation within the context of one city’s urban decline, Preserving the Vanishing Cityrecounts the successes, failures, and creative strategies employed to save Cleveland’s built environment.

Preserving the Vanishing City considers the unique challenges, conditions, and opportunities facing Cleveland’s historic preservation community during the 1970s and 1980s. While pro-preservationists argued for the economic and revitalization benefits stemming from saving and repurposing older buildings, population loss and economic contraction prompted decades of deterioration, underinvestment, vacancy, and abandonment. Stephanie Ryberg-Webster uncovers the motivations, strategies, and constraints driving Cleveland’s historic preservation sector, led by the public-sector Cleveland Landmarks Commission, nonprofit Cleveland Restoration Society, and a cadre of advocates. She sheds light on the ways in which preservationists confronted severe, escalating, and sustained urban decline, which plagued Cleveland, a prototypical rust-belt industrial city. Preserving the Vanishing City chronicles the rise of the historic preservation profession in Cleveland and provides six case studies about targeted projects and neighborhood efforts, including industrial heritage, housing preservation and restoration, commercial district revitalization, securing local historic district designations, as well as grassroots organizing, coalition building, and partnerships. Ryberg-Webster also addresses the complexities of historic preservation within the context of rapid racial change in Cleveland’s neighborhoods.  A comprehensive history of preservation within the context of one city’s urban decline, Preserving the Vanishing Cityrecounts the successes, failures, and creative strategies employed to save Cleveland’s built environment.

Legacy cities, also commonly referred to as shrinking, or post-industrial cities, are places that have experienced sustained population loss and economic contraction. In the United States, legacy cities are those that are largely within the Rust Belt that thrived during the first half of the 20th century. In the second half of the century, these cities declined in economic power and population leaving a legacy of housing stock, warehouse districts, and infrastructure that is ripe for revitalization. This volume explores not only the commonalities across legacy cities in terms of industrial heritage and population decline, but also their differences. Legacy Cities poses the questions: What are the legacies of legacy cities? How do these legacies drive contemporary urban policy, planning and decision-making? And, what are the prospects for the future of these cities? Contributors primarily focus on Cleveland, Ohio, but all Rust Belt cities are discussed.