"The Patina of Place offers a multidisciplinary analysis of workers' housing as an index to social change and cultural identity in New Bedford, Massachusetts. Kingston Heath discusses both the city's company-owned mill housing and the subsequent transition to a speculative building market that established the three-decker rental flat as the city's most common housing form for industrial workers.".

"In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the booming textile industry turned many New England towns and villages into industrialized urban centers. This rapid urbanization transformed not only the economic base but the regional identity of communities such as New Bedford as new housing forms emerged to accommodate the largely immigrant workforce of the mills.

In particular, the wood-frame "three-decker" became the region's multifamily housing design of choice, resulting in a unique architectural form that is characteristic of New England." "In The Patina of Place, Heath provides the first book-length analysis of the three-decker and its cultural significance, revealing New Bedford's evolving regional identity within New England."--BOOK JACKET.