Would you post this study on the list so the neighborhood also has access to this information. Chris Card
Actually, I have two papers which approach this issue from different perspectives and lead to similar conclusions. The bad news is that they're not available in electronic form. The good news is:
a) I'll be happy to fax copies of both to anyone who wants them (e-mail me your fax no).
b) I can supply a few hard photocopies -- but obviously don't care to go into the wholesale repro business.
c) They're probably both available in the archives at the Lippincott Library -- so, here are the references:
* Gale, Dennis E; "The Impacts of Historic District Designation: Planning and Policy Implications," Journal of the American Planning Association, Vol 57, No 3 (Summer 1991), pp 325-340.
* Asabere, Paul K, Huffman, Forrest E, Seyed, Mehdian; "The Adverse Impacts of Local Historic Designation: The Case of Small Apartment Buildings in Philadelphia," Journal of Real Estate Finance and Economics, #8 (1994), pp 225-234.
There's a raft of other documentation to support the overall contention, namely that the heavier the constraints (and Philadelphia's are among the heaviest in the US) and the fewer the "incentives" such as tax relief (and Philadelphia essentially offers no such incentives), the more encumbrances are placed on owners. But the rest of what I've found so far is in bits and pieces while the above two are integral packages.
Three other minor points -- so we're all on the same planet.
1) Jeff Abrahamson used the word "proof" in bringing this up on the listserv. Researchers in fields like this -- and sophisticated users of the findings they present -- wouldn't think in terms of "proof." More in a level of confidence about the truth or falseness of a hypothesis, the strength of a correlation, etc. So, when Asabere et al say that the buildings in the districts they studied "experienced a 24% reduction in price compared to nonlocally certified properties" their data and analyses support a 95% level of confidence in this figure.
2) A mention was made previously of rising prices in Society Hill (or somewhere) with historic designation. The studies above allow for this, in that they're comparing property value changes in areas with and without designation. They may both go up, down, or fluctuate -- but those in the historically designated districts appear to fall behind those in otherwise comparable areas without historic designation, hence the 24% "discount" figure in the study by Asabere et al.
3) Paul Asabere is still at Temple. Dennis Gale is now at Rutgers. I've never spoken to or read anything by David De Long at Wharton (and don't know where he stands on the question) but his name has been given to me as someone who may have done some work in this area too. We can probably call on one or all of these people when we start the program of open public debates (we are planning to open this up to more people than participate on this listserv or who go to SHCA Board meetings, aren't we?)
Al Krigman
