Editing Georgetown, Texas (section)

===Historic neighborhoods===
[[File:Georgetown Downtown 4.jpg|thumb|upright|Typical downtown Georgetown buildings on "The Square"]]
In the 1970s, Georgetown's downtown was bleak and featureless. In an effort to modernize and compete with suburban retail development, building owners in the 1950s and 1960s had obscured some of their historical retail buildings. The Texas-Victorian streetscape was plastered with stucco, aluminum covers, brick, and multiple layers of white paint. Community leaders began to reassess this retail stock, and work with the Main Street program of the National Trust for Historic Preservation to enhance the architectural heritage of the city.

In this period, economics also began to favor the reuse of historic buildings, as the cost of borrowing money was soaring. In Georgetown, every bank offered significantly lower interest loans for the renewal of the town's grand Victorian buildings and facades. Rehabilitation tax credit programs in the 1980s made investing in historic property more profitable. By 1984, 40 rehabilitations were complete. Two years after Georgetown initiated its Main Street program, more than half the Main Street district had undergone some kind of positive transition.<ref>[http://www.preservationnation.org/resources/case-studies/gamsa/1997/georgetown-texas.html Georgetown Texas.] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100222215453/http://www.preservationnation.org/resources/case-studies/gamsa/1997/georgetown-texas.html |date=February 22, 2010 }} National Trust for Historic Places. 1977.</ref>

The city was recently{{when|date=May 2022}} named one of the best places to purchase a historic house. Today, Georgetown is home to one of the best-preserved Victorian and pre-WW1 downtown historic districts, with the Beaux-Arts [[Williamson County Courthouse (Texas)|Williamson County Courthouse]] (1911) as its centerpiece. Due to its successful preservation efforts, Georgetown was named a national Main Street City in 1997, the first Texas city so designated.<ref>[http://www.preservationnation.org/resources/case-studies/gamsa/1997/georgetown-texas.html Georgetown Texas.] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100222215453/http://www.preservationnation.org/resources/case-studies/gamsa/1997/georgetown-texas.html |date=February 22, 2010 }} Georgetown, Texas 1997 Great American Main Street Award Winner. National Trust for Historic Places. 1997.</ref> Georgetown has three National Register Historic Districts:
* [[Williamson County Courthouse Historic District]]
* Belford National District
* The University Avenue/Elm Street District