Joe Riley, the mayor of South Carolina's historic Charleston for more than three decades, has shown how public investment in urban design and livability benefits entire cities, says the Raleigh-based nonprofit organization Preservation North Carolina.

The lawyer and Citadel graduate has led his city's rebirth as a national example of urban renewal -- and a top tourism draw -- through conservation and reuse instead of obliteration.

The preservation group recently brought Riley, now in his ninth four-year term, to Raleigh to talk about the role of public leadership in historic preservation. Before his speech, Riley sat down with N&O growth reporter Matthew Eisley. Here are excerpts of their conversation:

Q: What has historic preservation done for Charleston?

A: Wise, intelligent, visionary people fought to save historic buildings and largely succeeded. Our city is the success that it is, and our economy is as strong as it is, because of the preservation movement. It moved long ago from saving an old building to creating a sense of place. Hopefully our experience will be inspirational.

Q: Charleston seems to have been born historic. How did its preservation movement take hold?

A: Beginning about 1931, Charleston had a very normal period of coming to grips with the challenges of preservation and the acceptance of it. It took a good while. When I was a child, people spoke derisively of Charleston's "hysterical" society.

We lost a grand old hotel and America's first orphanage to demolition. The Dock Street Theater almost became a filling station. Charleston's historic preservation district has expanded over time. We're still growing in our knowledge of preservation.

Q: What can smaller towns and newer cities do that's similar?

A: So often, communities can say, "Now wait a minute -- that's Charleston." Every city and small town has the power and the opportunity to be enhanced through historic preservation. It's about heritage and scale and memories and texture. We can't just keep building and tearing things down.

Q: What do you say to citizens and policymakers who want to keep taxes as low as possible? Why should they invest public money in historic preservation?

A: I don't want to sound like I'm giving Raleigh or Durham or Chapel Hill or Charlotte advice. But we have to see the city collectively as an extremely valuable public achievement. We need to rejoice when we do something in a city that enhances everybody's citizenship. I've never heard anyone discuss how much [Rome's] Spanish Steps cost.

Q: What about the private market's role in preservation?

A: There's money in all this. In Charleston, land values are much greater than they were a generation ago because of preservation.

Q: What else does it take to make it happen?

A: This sounds quite boring, but having a very up-to-date strategic plan -- to know the best you can what you want and what you don't want. We have a good strategic plan, we work it, and we stick to it.

Get $150+ in coupons in every Sunday N&O. Click here for convenient home delivery.