With its strategic position along Lake Ontario, the Genesee River, and the Erie Canal, Rochester has always been about location, location, location. Our sweet spot among the Finger Lakes made us the country's first boomtown, the birthplace of the modern photography industry, an international hub for the 19th century civil rights and women's suffrage movements - even a mecca for horticulture.

Naturally, that history seeped into Rochester's architectural flavor. Walk among the funky, colorful houses of the South Wedge or East Avenue's elegant, expansive mansions, and you're instantly transported to those days long gone.

To maintain this historic architecture, the city has established eight special areas called "preservation districts." These areas, which include more than 1,000 buildings, are closely regulated to maintain an overall aesthetic or historic theme.

But preservation districts are about more than laws and rules. Ultimately, they're "about city living, and bringing people back to the city," says Rebecca Rowe, preservation program coordinator for The Landmark Society, a local non-profit dedicated to researching and protecting Rochester's architectural heritage. "Having strong, healthy, vibrant neighborhoods is a very strong part of that."

Rowe runs the Home Room, the Landmark Society's extensive library of research and photos on historic neighborhoods and homes in the city. (You can also view it online at RochesterCityLiving.com, where you can see maps of the city's preservation districts, as well as listings of homes for sale.)

In a preservation district (also called an "historic district"), the homes and buildings may not possess enough historic significance to be individually classified as landmarks. Taken as a whole, however, they reflect or preserve a given time period in a city's past.

Take the Susan B. Anthony district. Besides the eponymous activist's home, most of the houses there have no particular local or national importance. But taken together, these homes - which date from the 1830's through the Great Depression - are a good example of what middle- and working-class neighborhoods once looked like.

In preservation districts, appearance is everything. Yards and house exteriors are tightly controlled by the city government to fit a certain look. Before making any changes, residents must first get written approval from the Rochester Preservation Board, a group that also approves Landmark designations and advises the city on preservation matters. The board regulates everything from house additions to landscaping projects. Residents must get the group's OK before hanging signs, modifying windows - even before altering the steps on a front porch.

"That's not to say that you can't get permission for changes," says Rowe. "But it's about providing a certain level of protection for the people in that neighborhood. Now your neighbor can't do something really hideous or ridiculous to their home."

Because of that protection, homes in preservation districts tend to have higher property values and sale prices than similar houses elsewhere. One 2001 study from the Journal of Real Estate Finance and Economics found that historic district designation increased property values anywhere from 5 percent to 20 percent.

Rochester's preservation districts include:

East Avenue

Bounded by: University Avenue on the north, Park Avenue on the east and south, Probert Street to the east and Alexander Street on the west.

The largest and oldest preservation district in Rochester, the East Avenue area includes more than 700 buildings. It is one of New York's most extensive and intact collections of late 1800's and early 1900's houses. The district is also one of the hottest living spots in town - and it has been that way since the 1900's. "This is where the rich people lived," Rowe says. It's "where you'll find the mansions [and] the more opulent architecture from the turn of the 20th century through the 1920's."

Mt. Hope/Highland

Located at: Mt. Hope Avenue, from the Ford Street Bridge to Elmwood Avenue

Set on land that was once part of the famous Ellwanger-Barry nursery, the Mt. Hope/Highland area still maintains a horticultural feel. With its green, park-like atmosphere and open porches, the Mt. Hope/Highland Park district "was really conceived as a garden community in many ways," says Rowe. The district also includes parts of Mt. Hope Cemetery and Highland Park, the latter of which was designed by Frederick Law Olmsted, the architect behind Central Park.

Grove Place

Bounded by: University Avenue to the north, Carpenter Alley on the east, and Grove Street to the south and west.

Grove Place is Rochester's only 19th century-era residential neighborhood still standing within the city's central business district. "You don't see that anymore," says Rowe. "Neighborhoods like this get cleared as cities grow up and skyscrapers move in. But this neighborhood has thrived." Grove Place is also downtown's oldest continuously occupied neighborhood, a fact reflected in the district's vibrant mix of architectural styles. Here you'll find townhomes from the mid-1870's next to single-family Victorian cottages, with both adjacent to contemporary brick townhouses.

High Falls/Brown's Race

Bounded by: Platt Street and Volt Place to the north, Genesee River Gorge to the east, the railroad to the south and State and Mill Streets to the west.

The city's earliest industrial sector, the High Falls/Brown's Race district reflects Rochester as it was during its days as an Erie Canal boomtown. "It's the only district that really has an industrial character to it," says Rowe. Today, the City has attempted to reinvent High Falls as an entertainment district, but to limited success; Frontier Field and Tribeca are here, but so are several vacant bars, clubs, and restaurants that have had to close their doors.

Corn Hill/Third Ward

Bounded by: Troup Street to the north, Plymouth and South Avenues to the east, Adams Street to the south and Eagle Street to the west.

Sitting on the banks of the Genesee, Corn Hill is the city's oldest residential neighborhood, dating back to Rochester's settlement and boomtown days. The houses here are a hodgepodge of old and new, with 19th-century restored dwellings sitting next to contemporary townhouses and condos. Throughout most of the 1800's, Corn Hill was the choice district for the rich to live in. "It was really the first fashionable address in the city," Rowe says. "That's where the people with money went first, or the people who didn't have the transportation to go out to East [Avenue]."

SusanB.AnthonyDistrict

Bounded by: Silver and Wiley streets to the north, Canal Street to the east, West Main to the south, and Rossenbach Place to the west.

With its houses circling an open public square, the Susan B. Anthony district is the city's last surviving example of an 19th century-era neighborhood tract. It's also, of course, the former address of Susan B. Anthony, the legendary suffragist and civil rights leader who lived there from 1866 until her death in 1906. "The neighborhood has a very high degree of historic integrity," says Rowe. "You have this little pocket of the 19th century; drive down Madison Street, and you're in this whole other world."

Beach Avenue

Located at: Beach Avenue on Lake Ontario, bounded by Clio and Tamarack Streets

Like today, Lake Ontario in the late 1800's was a popular summer retreat. People flocked to the beachfront, lured by Beach Avenue's boardwalk and amusement park. The area especially attracted the wealthy, says Rowe. "If you had a mansion on East Avenue, you might have a summer home on Beach." Today, the houses still reflect that summer resort atmosphere, with many of the impressive 19th-century summer homes still surviving. The Beach Avenue district also includes the "Secret Sidewalk," a sidewalk that runs along an old trolley route, winding between Lake Ontario and the Beach Avenue houses.

South Avenue/Gregory Street

Located at: The intersection of South Avenue and Gregory Street

This district zeroes in on the South Wedge's commercial block, which houses a broad mix of independently owned shops and restaurants. The South Avenue area still closely resembles what 1800's-era commercial districts once looked like. It's also a reminder of how convenient they once were. "Places like this become very walkable," Rowe says. "Instead of having to go out to the East Avenue Wegmans, you have a local grocer you can walk to - the way it would have been 100 years ago."