The "Handbook of Texas" said "In the 1980s and 1990s the continued future of the Fourth Ward as a black community came under serious attack" due to plans to demolish Allen Parkway Village and replace the complex with housing for high income people and office buildings. The "Handbook of Texas" said that citizen opposition and "more importantly" the mid-1980s economic decline delayed those plans. The "Handbook of Texas" said that the neglect of the housing units and the resulting disappearance of those units, the reluctance of investors to invest capital into the Fourth Ward, and "future of the neighborhood" all "undermined" "he viability" of the Fourth Ward. On January 17, 1985, Freedmen's Town was added to the National Register of Historic Places list. Because it was placed on the register, federal redevelopment funds could no longer be used to demolish structures.