Neighborhood Historic Preservation Status and Housing Values in Oklahoma County, Oklahoma

Using county tax assessor data, this paper estimates the property value impacts of his-toric designation of neighborhoods for Oklahoma County, Oklahoma. Methodological contri-butions of the study include allowing for spatial and temporal variation of hedonic prices and historic district property values along with the use of finely-delineated spatial fixed effects. Neighborhood historic designation is found to be associated with significant relative apprecia-tion of housing values in most districts. Factors appearing to influence the rate of appreciation are the time span of neighborhood historic designation and the area crime rate. The variation in results across historic neighborhoods suggests that policy makers need to take into account the conditions under which historic designation most likely can succeed