Stuff You Should Know - Selects: How Historic Districts Work

Episode Date: July 10, 2021

A fascinating thing about Americans is that we can disagree on anything. Such is the case with historic districts – areas of historic importance protected by local laws. Seems innocuous, but are they also to blame for the affordable housing crisis? Learn all about it in this classic episode. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Hey everybody, when you're staying at an Airbnb, you might be like me wondering, could my place be an Airbnb? And if it could, what could it earn? So I was pretty surprised to hear about Lauren in Nova Scotia who realized she could Airbnb her cozy backyard treehouse and the extra income helps cover her bills and pays for her travel. So yeah, you might not realize it, but you might have an Airbnb too. Find out what your place could be earning at airbnb.ca slash host. Hey everybody and welcome to the Saturday Selects.

I'm Charles W. Chuck Bryant, co-host of Stuff You Should Know. And this week we're going to dive into the archives to talk about an episode that I quite enjoyed actually. It's about historic districts. I don't live in a historic district, I kind of wish I did. I live in an old house from the 1930s and there's a lot of old houses around me, but it ain't a historic district. And the reason I know is because I did this podcast on them and just having old houses

around doesn't make it a historic district. If you want to find out what that really means, well then just open up your ears and continue to listen and you'll be done. So please do enjoy our Saturday Select for this week all about historic districts. Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of I Heart Radio. Hey and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark, there's Charles W. Chuck Bryant and there's Jerry over there and that makes this Stuff You Should Know.

Save the clock tower. Oh that's good. You like that? That's good. Just popped into my head. Oh for real? Yeah. I wasn't reading this article and doing this research thinking back to the future, back

to the future. I'm surprised. It just popped into my head. I actually hadn't thought about Back to the Future at all, but that's a really, that's very appropriate Chuck. But that is not a historic district, that is just a landmark building I think. That could still qualify for a registry on the National Register of Historic Places. It just wouldn't be a historic district, which is what we're talking about today.

Maybe this should just be the end of the podcast. The end. Chuck, have you ever gone into a neighborhood just been walking around town and all of a sudden you realize that you're in the most charming, adorable place you've ever been in your life? Sure. Well then you've probably been in a historic district. Yeah.

This is pretty cool. I feel like this, we haven't done one like this in a while. You like this one? I was fully expecting you to say like, I hate this so much. No, I love historic places. I know, but sometimes, yeah, I don't know why I thought that, but I'm glad that you, I'm glad that it panned out. I actually selected it because I knew you were going to hate it, so eggs on my face.

I don't know, it kind of harkened back to some of our episodes we used to do, like row houses and... Shotgun houses? Yeah, that stuff. Sure. Well, let's say row houses. Yeah, yeah. Shotgun houses.

We did do a full episode on shotgun houses. Yeah. And their architectural importance. I thought that was a pretty good episode. Agreed. I think we released it as a selects recently too, didn't we? I don't think I did, but that might have been one of your picks. I don't think I did.

It was Jerry. Well, it's a ghost producer. We need to let Jerry select them some from time to time. Jerry didn't have time for that stuff. That's fine. She needs nothing else on her plate besides Miso. That's true. And overseeing the largest podcast program in the world.

Yeah. It's pretty impressive, Jerry. Jerry said thank you. Yes, she does. She said thank you, holding Miso soup in her mouth. So I think I've already kind of gotten the intro out of the way where I asked if you've been in a charming area and said you've probably been in a historic district. Well, I mean, there's a good chance that you have if you've been in the United States

because there are more than 2,300 of them. Yeah, that's a lot. That's a lot. I mean, they're all over the place and you might say like, okay, well, that's great. This is an area that has been designated to have some sort of historic significance. Can I please go to sleep now? And we'll say, no, no, please don't go to sleep yet because there's a lot more to it. And in one of the more surprising twists you're ever going to have in your entire life, it's

actually controversial. Historic districts can be. Oh, yeah? Yeah. Did you not read that one article? Yeah, I was just being coy. Okay. My stomach just bottomed out and terror.

So should we talk about Charleston, South Carolina? Yes. A place where I, well, I didn't go there, I went to the beach near there. Oh, the Isle of Palms? Yeah, just a few weeks ago. Oh, yeah. But we were within spitting distance of Charleston, South Carolina. Why would you spit on Charleston?

I wouldn't. I love it. Bill Murray lives there for God's sakes. Yeah, he does. Apparently he's a man about town there. And I think his family lives there too. Yeah, that's why he lives there. Oh, gotcha.

Yeah. So, they formed the very first historic district in the United States in 1931. Yeah. They established the Board of Architectural Review, and this quote here is pretty great. This is the official quote from that architectural review board. Can you please read it in the Mid-Atlantic accent? Mid-Atlantic, why that? Because that's the one, the old timey one that you're probably going to use.

I was going to do an old Southern thing. Oh, oh. That's right. Yeah, that's way more, way better. The preservation and protection of the old historic and architecturally worthy structures and quaint neighborhoods, which impart distinct aspect to the city of Charleston. That is beautiful. They actually have quaint neighborhoods in their charge.

Yeah. Right. So, I mean, like from what I've read too, Charleston like actually is legitimately interested in its architecture and preserving its architecture. Yeah. Although, as we'll see later, there were some people that think Charleston didn't do it right. Oh, is that right?

Yeah. That's in the article. Okay. So, or that they're overdoing it. That's how I took it. Yeah. Sure. Okay.

Cool. Cool. So, but Charleston was the first one to basically say this is historically significant architecture. This is a historically significant area, and we want to make sure that it stays that way. That's right. There's a layer of protection, legal protection over this area that the rest of the city doesn't have.

And within five years, the word had spread to New Orleans, and they said, that's a pretty good idea. Heck yeah. Chief, we're going to do that for the French quarter. Yeah. That was my New Orleans accent. Oh, is that it? Yeah.

Yeah. And that, you know, what they're basically saying is, is that it can be either one and it all depends on your local jurisdictions, which we'll get to, but historically or aesthetically, these buildings in this area, they're linked together. Right. And so the Charleston thing basically provided the Charleston and then the New Orleans when basically provided the groundwork, which was this area is protected, and we're going to form a board who is charged with making sure that it stays this way as much as possible.

We're going to vest some legal authority into them. And these people are who you have to go through if you want to do anything significantly altering to the exterior of your place if you live in this area or have a business there. Right. Or maybe not even significantly depending on where you are. Yeah. They can get very picky. So it kind of like, you know, plotted along this idea.

It was around for a couple of decades. And then this whole process of urban renewal that was kicked off after the highways started being built. In part because of the highways because people were saying, wait, you're going to blow right through, you know, the Lower East side and Chinatown with this highway in Manhattan. We don't want you to do that. This is worth protecting. So build your highway elsewhere.

And then also as the highways were built and traffic started being rerouted away from other towns, these other towns that used to be thriving started to fall into disrepair. Some people were saying like, Hey, let's knock down these old buildings and build new ones and maybe business will come back. It initiated this idea that no, no, we've got some historic stuff here and we need to protect it. And it really started to kick off in earnest in the, in the fifties and by 1956, the federal aides had gotten involved and through the National Park Service established the National

Historic Preservation Act that said, you NPS, you're in charge of designating what's an historic site and what's not. That's right. And in 1966, the, they created the National Register of Historic Places run by the National Park Service or not run, but I guess just sort of maintained. Sorry. Yes. I said 1956.

I meant 1966. Oh, okay. I got everything else right. Yeah. That's right. So here's the deal. You can be listed on the National Register and that's really like, that doesn't, I mean, it means something.

I don't want to say it doesn't mean a whole lot. But if you really want to protect something, you have to go with your local historic district. You have to create and protect it locally. That's a very big deal, but we're going to go over both national and state, which is sort of like national and then local, which is pretty different. It actually is, but it's really, it's impressive that the local level is the one that has the real teeth as far as historic districts are concerned. As it should be.

So, but most people want to start out with the national district at the very least because there's a certain amount of cache to it to having your place designated as a national historic, either structured district or area, but there's, there's multiple things that can fall under or be logged on to the register of historic places. Apparently in other countries, they have similar registers, but they'll include things like events, people, just not necessarily things or objects, but in the United States, there's a real emphasis on place and situation and buildings in particular. And so if you're on the national register of historic places, you are two things.

You're an object and you're inanimate and you probably are in situated in a specific area, you're like where you are or what you are is kind of tied to the area you're around. That's the real focus of the United States National Register of Historic Places. That's right. So there are five overall categories, buildings, it's pretty obvious structures, also kind of obvious, but that could be, it says in here that could even be an aircraft as a structure. Yeah. I saw that there's a grain elevator in the Fox, Illinois that's protected because it's

an example of the transition between one story and two story grain elevators. Amazing. It is amazing. And I don't want to yuck anybody's, that's the thing about this, like to me, as you can see Chuck, I'm bleeding a little bit out of the corner of my eye from being bored and even saying that sentence, but I'm sure there are people out there who really appreciate the different architecture of grain elevators and that's the point. It means that if it's on the national register of historic places, it is important to some

group of people. And so don't yuck they're young, even if you find it's boring. Agreed. Because they might find what you find interesting is boring. Number three, it can be an object. Number four, it can be a site. And this is a big one in the United States because like Civil War battlefields, stuff like that, Appalachian Trail.

Yeah, MLK historic site. Sure. It's like a bunch of, well, we'll tell you, we'll talk about that later. Or it can be a district, which is basically some kind of combination of those first four. Or just let me group like, you know, this street has 10 houses, 10 beautiful Victorian houses that were all built by the same architect. And so this is, we're going to consider this a district. Right, so like maybe in each of those instances, if one of those houses was in a neighborhood,

it might qualify for designation as a historic building. But if you put them together, because they're together, they form this district, which is, you know, the sum of these parts form something larger and that connects them. And there's a couple of qualifications that they have to meet to be part or listed on the national register. Almost without exception, they have to be 50 years old. I think the law is that it has to be exceptionally important to be younger than 50 years old and still be designated on the historic places register.

That's right. The other thing it has to be is significant, which sounds kind of broad, but, and I guess it kind of is because significance is in the eye of the beholder, but that's why we have boards and things like that to determine whether or not they think it's significant. To behold things for us. And then finally, it's got to be evaluated that significance in historic context, which kind of speaks for itself. Did any great history happen there?

Right. Well, you know, was this Bob Dylan's house in Minnesota when he was a child? Sure. Although I don't know if that's on the list. I just threw that out there. It could be. I mean, it could be. That's a home run.

But say like, let's say you said, well, this building used to house a soda shop that made pretty good chocolate malts. And so it's representative of that time. Well, if you were on the board, looking at this application, you would look around and try to put it in context, like, yes, people liked chocolate malts at soda shops at one period in American history, but was this the place where chocolate malts were invented? Or is this the place where everyone widely agreed made the best chocolate malted? It's like, no, like it has a history, but not necessarily significant history in context

of the larger era that it's a part of. So it would probably get passed over. Yeah. Like the four sort of historic contexts that you have, it's not a shoe in necessarily, but you have a good chance. If something important historically happened there, like this is the place where so-and-so was shot and killed, or born perhaps on a more up note, did someone live here that was significant?

George Washington slept here? Sure. Or associated with them. Not necessarily. Is it related to a certain architectural period or method of construction? That's a big one for the park service. Sure. Like this is the last house that used plaster and lath for their walls.

Or there's a college in Florida called Florida Southern College that is, like the entire campus was designed by Frank Lloyd Wright. So that is clearly going to be accepted on the National Register. Or finally, was there information at this place that is historically important? Yeah. Or might there be? Because they can afford protection to say like an archeological site that's a known archeological site that they haven't really dug yet.

Yeah. Like we'll find it. Right. They're saying there's a pretty good potential that some information or history or historical significance will be yielded from investigation of the site, but we want to protect it now before developers come in. That's right. One thing though, if you want to be a historic district, like if you want to say like these

three square blocks or a historic district, that doesn't mean that every single property in there is what's called a contributing property to that district. Yeah. They're non-contributing properties are allowed. Sure. Like if you have those 15 Victorian houses on a block and then there's the one modern McMansion. Right.

That's non-contributing. I think we can all agree. But it doesn't disqualify the rest of the area necessarily. It depends on, from what I've seen, it's very much a subjective measure. How much that McMansion detracts from the feel or the authenticity of the rest of the site, what they call integrity. Yeah. That's really kind of interesting, I think, because all this stuff is subjective, but

the integrity there is how the physical characteristics of that property reflect, like on this day, reflect that significance historically. Right. So like if you have that row of Victorian homes, but every single one of them was altered in the 60s or the 70s or the 80s, and the people inside made some really weird decisions and so altered the interior, the exterior of these homes, that yes, they were all part of this Victorian era and they were once pretty good examples of it. They aren't any longer.

Even though it qualifies for all these other things, it would not be considered a site with integrity and it might get passed over unless everyone agreed to restore the houses back to that Victorian era. That's the saddest letter to get, I think, is I'm sorry you've been denied because your property has no integrity. Pretty much. And you, sir, do not either, that's how they finish every letter like that. Should we take a break and talk about how you might create a historic district?

There is one other thing before we do, Chuck. I think it's a fine idea. I'm not shooting down your idea, but I do want to point out that areas have to be unified, not necessarily physically, visually, geographically, but somehow they have to be linked to be considered a district. That's right. All right. Now you want to take a break?

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All right. So if you're a person and you live, let's just take us for instance. Okay. So let's say I wanted to get my house in my neighborhood in Atlanta recognized as a, or my block as a historic national historic district. Okay. And the real reason I want to do this is because of the street near my house, they're going to expand and it's a real bummer because they're going to have to tear down a few of the houses

that are really what I think are significant. And they might take possession of that little strip of land that you've been exercising squatting on. Yeah. More importantly, they will take my little strip of land. Right. Okay. So what would you do?

Like what, what are you going to do as step one, Chuck, to protect your home? Well to place it on the national register, I would start at the state, the state historic preservation officer. And this is a person, every state has one. You can go to the NPS website to find out who yours is and get in touch. And they're basically going to help you out with, I mean, you're going to, you're going to plead your case, of course, but they're going to help you fill out this form explaining why, I mean, they may say, listen, don't even bother, but what they're supposed to do is

help assess whether or not it might be eligible and help you fill out all your national forms to send in. Right. Like how old your house and if you're like, oh, it's built in the nineties, it's still pretty nice. It'll be like, don't, don't bother. That's right. But you're, since you have never done this before, you're a dingus at it and they're

there to help you figure this out and how to do it right. They're not the ones who are going to judge this. No. A board will. And typically a state board for a state historic preservation board, their review board is made up of people who know what they're talking about, architects, historians, archeologists, anthropologists, people who have been trained in this stuff who can say, yeah, this actually isn't that great.

There's a much better example of it, you know, a couple blocks over. As a matter of fact, why don't we go to the other place and make that a historic district? Yeah. And then you're like, no, snobs, but the officer that you are contacting, it's their job to help you get there, your application in and state your case, and then get it in front of the review board who will then take you from there and say, this is a great idea. This is a terrible idea, or I don't carry their way and it's time for lunch approved. That's right.

And this is, again, going for that national register. And one reason you might want to do this is because here's the thing. It's sort of a badge of honor. Like we said before, and we'll talk about it again later about the local one. That's one you really want. But if you are on the national register, it does provide you with some legal protections federally. So if that road is a federal highway project, then it could protect your house.

Or even better, even if it's a local or a state project, if it's getting any federal funding whatsoever, same thing applies. Sure. They have to say, what's going to be the impact on any historic district of this project? And if the impact is deemed too great, the project won't go forward. So there are some protections for it. But for the most part, it's kind of symbolic and there's a little bit of cachet. You can put it on your Zillow page that your house is part of a national historic district.

Right. But they can't say, I mean, you can live in a national historic home and you can let it fall into disrepair and look like garbage. And they can't come in and say, whoa, whoa, whoa, you're on the national register. You can't let your house fall into disrepair like this. Right. Yeah. Clean yourself up.

You got a stain on your shirt. Get a shave. What's your problem? Exactly. They don't say that. Those are individual property rights. And it's only up to local governments to infringe on individual property rights, not the state or federal government.

So while the state or federal government will have laws restricting its own activities in regards to historic districts, like expanding a road or something like that. Yeah. If you get on the national register of historic places, your whole neighborhood gets on there. Your neighbor can do whatever they want with their house still. So if that was your whole ploy all along, Chuck, to really keep your neighbor from doing something like say, I don't know, putting a second story on their house, you're going to find that you have been frustrated.

That's right. You can go to the state, but the state is basically like federal as far as protections and stuff like that go where the real teeth come in is with the local historic districts. And it is very different. They don't have to meet the same guidelines. A lot of times are very similar, but they don't have to have the same exact guidelines as the national historic districts do. So the first thing that you're going to need though is there's got to be an ordinance,

the local preservation ordinance, which is basically just, hey, here are the rules on how we do this around here. Here's how we're going to identify these houses. And here's what it means if you have one. Right. So, and this isn't like, this is like square one stuff. Like this is what a city has to do before it ever creates its very first historic district. If your city's already done this, then you would just basically go through the same process

that you would with the national register in applying to get a historic designation for your neighborhood in your city from your local municipality. But if they've never done it before, they've got to create new legislation for it, new laws protecting historic areas. And then they also have to set up a preservation commission too. Basically the same thing that Charles in South Carolina did all the way back in 1931. That's right. So you're going to go in front of the commission.

They're going to hold some public hearings where people can come and argue the case for or against. Yeah. Because not everybody likes this idea. No, not everyone does, as we'll see. You have to have, in fact, it's kind of hard. You have to have like the communities really got to be behind this in order for this to go through.

Yeah. In most cases from what I've seen, you need a majority of homeowners and business owners in the area to agree to this. And I think even if the opposition is particularly vocal and mad about it, they still might be able to derail local ordinance designation. That's right. But it's all going to be considered by the commission. And they're going to make that recommendation to the officials.

They're going to say, you know, you're going to reject this? Are you going to say it's okay? Is it all great or not? And here's the deal. If you get named a local historic district, this is when they can say, no, no, no, no, you live in a historic home in this district. You can't let it fall out of disrepair. You can't, there was this one case where it was in Maryland, I think, where I guess these

front porch columns were being replaced by a family and they skimped a little because wood is expensive and used, whether you use fiberglass or something, right? And they said, no, no, no, no, you can't do that because you live in the historic district and you have to use these original materials to preserve this house. Yeah, you got to use wood. Like you said, I don't know, maybe they were like, we don't want to cut down a tree or maybe they were just cheaping out. But I think they sued or yeah, I believe they sued in order to try to keep them, but that's

a really typical part of any local historic district ordinance is if you're going to make any kind of repairs, especially significant repairs, any alterations to the exterior or anything like that, you need to use historically accurate materials. You have to submit it for approval to a local design review board too. Right. Sorry, I got ahead of us. So the first thing you have to do is say, I want to replace the columns in the front of my house because they're falling apart, I want to replace them.

Can I please do that? Please, sir, please let me. And the local review board or commission will analyze this and they'll say, sure you can, but this is what they have to look like. This is the materials they have to, they have to be made out of. And this is the color that they have to be painted and you have to follow that or else you can be fine. They can place a lien on your property and the penalty can be pretty stiff actually.

Yeah, and here's the thing, like I can at least understand this and we'll talk later about freedoms to do what you want with property that you own, but this I can stomach a little bit and we've talked about homeowners associations before. Those are the ones that really get me to where it is not historically significant. It is an excerpt with 700 houses and a subdivision that require you to have the same mailbox. So in that sense, having a homeowners association covenant and having a historic preservation district on a local level where they both have teeth that they can actually find you or tell you what to do to the exterior of your house or your yard, the point is the

same in this sense in that they're trying to keep things a certain way. At least I think what you're saying is that at least with the historic district, they're trying to preserve something that has been deemed historically important, whereas with the suburb, it's just they want to make sure everybody's lawn is cut or just looks the same or no one paints their house pink or whatever. But they have the same aim, which is like this is what we're all saying is very nice and pleasant. I just watched Pleasantville last night for like the 500th time, it's a good movie.

I've only seen that once. But oh man, it's so good. But we've all agreed that this is pleasant and this is what we want our area to look like and then this is how it's going to stay and you can't change it. And if you do, you have to petition and this review board can tell you, no, you can't do that. Yeah. And of course, I know that the answer to my problem with these, the exurb is don't move

there then. Like, you know, the stuff going in, then don't buy a house in that neighborhood. And I think most people who do buy out there are pretty aware of that. And I think some of them are looking for that because it tends to protect property values. Like you're never going to have a neighbor who just parks like a boat with a moth eatin' cover over it in their front driveway for five years. Like that's just not going to happen out there. But at the same time, it's also eye-bleedingly boring to live out there as well.

Yeah. Can I also just say that I love that your Halloween, October movie watching is Pleasantville. Do you know what I watched last night? What? The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Oh, it's so good. The original? Yeah.

Can you believe that? No. I had never seen it. That's really surprising. What'd you think? Wow. It was, it was disturbing. Yeah.

That hammer scene that he drags out for like 20 minutes of the hour and 20 minute long movie. Yeah. It was tough. And I realized that, you know, I'm prepping for a movie crush, slasher movie special. Oh, nice. But I didn't, I never watched a lot of that stuff growing up. I don't know if it's because I was churchy, but I just realized that I'm maybe so because,

and I don't think it was like, ooh, I thought I would be in trouble. I think just like the people I was around didn't really get into that stuff. So you missed a really crucial window in horror movie watching because I can see coming into it as an adult. You're like, like you said, this is highly disturbing stuff and this is, this isn't fun. Like you, like it has to kind of dovetail with that period of your life where you feel immortal. Right.

And so it kind of bounces off of you, the disturbingness of it. And then as you get to be an adult, you can kind of start to appreciate the, the truly disturbing aspects of it, but it's still tempered by that, you know, teens and 20 something viewing that you remember as well. Yeah. I didn't have that. Just coming into it like this, you know, late forties is not a good time to start watching Texas Jainsaw Master, man, I feel for you.

I liked it. I mean, I thought very much appreciated it. It is. Well, it's a classic. All right, Chuck. So we've kind of hinted a little bit at the idea that not everybody's on board within historic district and for, you know, getting a real designation, like a local designation where there's actual restrictions on you, the person who owns the home can or can't do

things without permission from a board of people you might not even have ever met in your life. For it to be really successful, you need the community behind that to get that designation and everybody going in with their eyes open saying, okay, you know, this is, we're willing to spend the extra money on wood. We're willing to spend the extra money on, you know, a handmade window if one breaks because we're not allowed to replace the original single pane windows that make it 20 degrees in our house all winter long.

Like we're going in with our eyes wide open like that. But even if most of the community does, there's probably still going to be somebody who says, I'm a libertarian. I don't believe in this kind of stuff and I'm really not happy about this. And that person is basically going to have an historic district shoved down their throat. Yeah. And you'll probably not you, but if you are that person, you will be the one that's vocal if you know about the meeting and you're there and you want to make hay, but you can be overruled.

And all of a sudden you are subject to those whims. Libertarians hate that. Well, there's a bunch of sides to this coin here. One is, there's a bunch of factors. Let's talk about the pros. How about that? Yeah. I mean, one of the pros is many times it increases property values because there's a standard

that has to be upheld in your house. And those around you won't be falling into disrepair. Right. And plus, if you are like, if your housing prices are stable and rising in relation to the rest of the town, your tax base or your taxes also tend to rise too. And so these areas very quickly start to become very wealthy areas of town. So it's a weight for people to basically secure their investment in their property. Yeah.

And I guess we're talking about disadvantages mixed in here too because there are some people that say, hey, in the U.S. that can be code for keeping the wealth in the pocket of the few because who's going to be owning these houses are people that have a lot of money? Yeah. There was a guy named Kristen Capps who wrote an article on CityLab back in 2016 that basically said that the inequality in housing and the housing pricing crisis laid it at the feet of historic preservation districts, which is pretty preposterous in a lot of ways. But he did make some really...

It's probably a factor. Sure. But I think his point was like just do away with historic preservation for districts, for neighborhoods because most of these things are covered by zoning laws that say you can only have single family homes in here. Well, only certain people can afford really expensive single family homes with really high taxes. And so it keeps out people who would otherwise love to enjoy this amazing neighborhood with

this, you know, these mature oak trees and beautiful sidewalks and neighbors walking around being friendly. Or this good school. And Trader Joe's on every corner or really good schools that these neighborhoods shouldn't just be for extremely wealthy people, but in saying that it's only single family housing allowed in this, no one can ever build a high rise with a bunch of apartments that those people who might be able to afford to live in and enjoy the neighborhood. And so on the one hand, they're like, well, yeah, we don't want high rises here.

It has nothing to do with the historical architecture. And it's a blight. And other people say, well, you're also just keeping poor people out too. Right. So it's definitely a double edged sword because that's very much accurate, but it's certainly not the cause or even a major solution to the housing crisis either. Yeah. And there are Republicans in Michigan that are trying to do away with a lot of these,

I don't know about districts, but maybe potential future designations because their whole thing is like, you don't want the federal government coming in here and telling you what you can do and what you can't do with your house, although it wouldn't be the federal government in that case. Well, be local, but these must be state reps and local reps. But they're saying, let's do away with some of this stuff. Like Michigan has far too many of these and your freedoms are being squashed. Right.

Exactly. You want to paint your house pink? Then you should be able to. And so some preservation district commissions are a little more laid back than others. Apparently in Georgia, if it's up to you to pick what color you want to paint your house, if the repairs you're doing are minor, you don't have to have a certificate of appropriateness. And then in other places, it is, a staunch is kind of an understatement, Old Town Alexandria. Very famous.

Like you can't do anything to the outside of your house in this Old Town district. But as a result, it's an extraordinary, it's an extraordinarily charming place to be. It's great. I think tons of people who visit DC make the trip over to Old Town just to go shopping or to eat or to do whatever, just walk around. So that's another benefit of having an historic preservation district. It attracts business or it attracts customers to your businesses. And very frequently, you'll find an influx of tourism dollars coming into this area

too. Yeah. And, you know, we've talked about a bit before the legendary Fabulous Fox Theater here in Atlanta are only remaining like amazing, huge old school Egyptian style theater was going to be a bank parking lot in the 1970s. Man. Like they were literally going to put a parking lot there. And I remember when I was a kid, they had the Save the Fox Theater campaign and it took,

you know, these celebrity benefit concerts to raise money. Ben Vereen. Did he come? I could see it. It was the right era. But Frank Sinatra came, he was one of the big wigs. Really? Yeah.

Yeah. Frank came to Atlanta and performed and raised money and was like, no, you can't tear down the Fox guys. That's my Frank. It was okay. I should have gone with Sammy. You should have done a Charleston accent for Frank. But that's the other side of the coin, which is like if people don't, I mean, there was

a time in this country in the 50s, 60s and 70s where that could very easily happen. And that did happen in downtown Atlanta. If you look at old pictures of downtown Atlanta, it looked like New York, a smaller version of New York City. And you know, now we've gotten some of that character back, but there was a period where they just tore down everything old in favor of putting up these bland white buildings in the name of like the future. And they called it urban renewal.

And thankfully in the last 10, 20 years, I'm not sure where the idea came from. People said, no, you can have the same effect. You can have businesses, you can have mixed use development by reusing and rehabilitating these same buildings. You don't have to tear it down and build something new. It's usually cheaper to do that, but it's much better if we do it the other way and kind of preserve the history. And that's definitely become the push lately.

But yeah, there was definitely a period in the middle of the last century where a lot of stuff was torn down. And as a result, I was on a website. I can't remember the name of it where they were listing the most boring cities in the world, the world, Chuck. And the first one was Atlanta. What? And the reason one of the criteria they were using was history, like how much history is

just kind of mixed into the fabric of the city. And part of it is all the tearing down that they did in the 50s and 60s, but also part of it was laid at the feet of General Sherman, who burned the town to the ground and burned up a lot of the history as well on the March to the sea. So Atlantis has kind of had a twofold knock around where a lot of historical stuff was not preserved and was actually torn down. As a result, it lacks a certain amount of character because it compared to other cities that have more history.

The old twofold knock around. Yeah. Yeah. That's a dumb, I mean, I'm not saying this just because this is my hometown Atlanta is not the most boring city in the world. In the world. It was in the top 10. The dumbest thing I've seen ever.

Well, here's the other thing too. I think there is a, and this isn't necessarily about preserving history, but I think there's just been a general return to taste and craftsmanship across the board in the last like 15 years. And some people may call it hipsterism or whatever, but, you know, there are artisan bakers now and, you know, handcrafted cocktails instead of fern bars and when they are building new buildings, they're trying to make them blend in and I just feel like there was a time where I think every, everyone in America thought the future was just going to be sterile and white and these sterile white buildings were going up everywhere in these in the baseball

stadiums that were just round white objects. And then starting with Camden yards in Baltimore, they started building these old style ball parks and that's all you see now. And I think that's just across the board is, I think people are respecting craftsmanship and history a lot more than they did for a long, long time, like decades. I agree, but it is true that that comes at a price because if you look at those neighborhoods where, you know, they are being rehabilitated and preserved by the people who are moving in there, as they're doing it, they're raising the home values and which also raises the

taxes and so people who have traditionally historically lived in these neighborhoods are being pushed out of the neighborhood. So that is one part, it's one facet that has yet to be cracked. Like how do you, how do you keep a neighborhood, you know, mixed as far as like income goes or use goes, like how do you, how do you really preserve that kind of thing? So it's not just like, yes, we're preserving this neighborhood at the expense of the residents who used to live here because it's, you know, richer people who are coming in and rehabbing areas, gentrifying basically is what we're talking about.

Well, we'll cover that in our gentrification podcast. Okay, but that's a big thing. So it is a criticism of historic preservation, but it's certainly not a reason to do away with historic preservation. And one of the other challenges I've seen is, okay, so let's say we're going to allow somebody to come in and build a high rise in this amazing historic neighborhood. Do you really think they're going to be building it for low or mixed income people to move into?

No, they're going to build it for the wealthiest people who probably have even more money than the people who own the houses in this historic district. And it's not going to help this housing crisis at all. It's just going to exacerbate it and we'll have ruined a perfectly beautiful historic district in the process. We should totally do one on gentrification. I agree. I agree.

I love episodes like these where it's like, oh, what's the resolution? There is none yet. You gotta stay tuned, everybody. We know you're very anti-resolution, so. I've read before that people who read fiction tend to be able to deal with open-ended endings more than people who don't, which is weird because I don't read much fiction these days. But I can still hang with no resolution, no closure. No closure.

You got anything else? I got nothing else. You're just waiting for me to stop talking, it looks like? Maybe. Well, if you want to know more about historic districts, why don't you go try to get your place put on the National Register. Why don't you, as you do that, let us know how it goes. Maybe keep us posted.

In the meantime, though, first, before I tell you how to get in touch with us, keep us posted. Let's say it's time for Listener Man. I'm going to call this government shutdown follow-up. Hey, guys, I'm a member of the permanent government in D.C. I thought you did a great job. It was great that you emphasized the cost of a shutdown is the key thing most people don't understand. These things aren't just a blip.

I want to point that the effects of the last shutdown still aren't over. When we got back to work, we were told that it took the agency six months to recover from the previous shutdown that lasted 16 days, and these things are exponential, not linear. With a 35-day shutdown, we just don't know how long it's going to take to catch up. We have settled into our normal and just expect to miss deadlines. The people we serve regularly understand and are working with us, but I don't think the general public gets it. You can't just push back all deadlines by 35 days because new work is constantly coming

in. There's no pause button just because the government has shut down. We're all working to catch up, but it hasn't happened. It's not like we can blame the shutdown either. People don't understand how work submitted after the end of the shutdown can still be affected by it, but we can't just double our workload. There's only so many hours in a day. That is from Nate.

Thanks, Nate. That was a nice little follow-up. Yeah. Thanks for bringing us down here. Right. We had just kind of gone out on such a mediocre level, and now it's a down level. Well, if you want to get in touch with us like Nate and bring us down or to keep us posted on how it's going to, in your quest to get your house or your neighborhood on the National

Register of Historic Places, you can go on to stuffvichidno.com and check out our social links there, or you can send us an email to stuffpodcast.iheartradio.com. Stuff you should know is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts on iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. Hey, I'm Lance Bass, host of the new iHeart Podcast Frosted Tips with Lance Bass. Do you ever think to yourself, what advice would Lance Bass and my favorite boy bands give me in this situation?

If you do, you've come to the right place because I'm here to help. And a different hot, sexy teen crush boy bander each week to guide you through life. Tell everybody, yeah, everybody about my new podcast and make sure to listen so we'll never, ever have to say bye, bye, bye. Listen to Frosted Tips with Lance Bass on the iHeart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to podcasts.