22 Savannah Historic District; Savannah, Georgia
The Savannah Historic District, roughly the size of the entire city during the mid 1800s, is one of the biggest historical districts of its kind in the United States. The district includes the First African Baptist Church, the oldest African American congregation in the United States, Old Harbor Light, numerous graveyards, and restaurants and bars dedicated to promoting tourism in the area.
While tourism is always great for a city’s economy, Savannah locals aren’t exactly thrilled about the number of tourists aimlessly wandering through their neighborhoods and peeking into their windows to catch a glimpse of these historical buildings. So far, the biggest fight in Savannah is between the locals who want to keep the historical buildings’ authenticity and new developers who want to build new structures quickly to profit from an influx of over 14 million tourists visiting the city every year. This bitter battle is just one of many reasons that locals distrust the tourism industry, according to the Savannah Morning News.
