The scenicness of historic buildings rivals that of natural features: evidence from crowdsourced photographs of English urban areas

Spending time in more scenic areas is associated with better health and wellbeing, making it important to understand how scenicness is influenced by environmental features. Urban areas, where natural features have often been replaced by buildings, are generally perceived as less scenic than rural ones. However, historic architecture may enhance urban scenicness. Using data from Historic England and Scenic-or-Not, a crowdsourced platform rating the scenicness of UK photographs, we investigate the relationship between listed buildings (as recorded on the National Heritage List for England) and scenicness. We find that the presence of a listed building in a photograph of an urban scene is associated with a 0.61-point increase in scenicness on a 10-point scale (equivalent to 0.53 standard deviations). This association is comparable to that of forests and lakes and is greater for buildings designated as more significant, listed earlier, and dating from earlier periods. These findings highlight the positive contribution of historic buildings to urban environments and provide empirical support for their continued preservation as public goods.