Prof. Peter Byrne has posted Historic Preservation and its Cultured Despisers: Reflections on the Contemporary Role of Preservation Law in Urban Development on SSRN. The piece has a thoughtful discussion of historic preservation. He argues convincingly that the “cultural heritage conveyed by a community’s historic buildings is a public good, the value of which is not fully internalized in property rights . . . [r]egulation may be done well or poorly, but regulation must exist.” He puts Edward Glaeser’s breathless appreciation for Houston’s development policies in context, well worth a read.
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