What is the role of artists in historic preservation and neighborhood revitalization? A panel moderated by gallery owner Hall Bromm wrestled with this subject Saturday afternoon at the 12th annual preservation conference hosted by the Historic Districts Council.

Mr. Bromm, who owns the Hall Bromm Gallery in TriBeCa, is a steadfast preservationist. He was among the founders of the Committee to Save Washington Square Market, which was successful in attaining historic district status for TriBeCa.

“I am concerned with preserving the emerging artist as a species in New York City,” a former executive director of the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, Jenny Dixon, said. Her lament was a familiar one: Up-and-coming artists have more difficulty finding affordable space than they used to.

“Artists are the ones who have gone into neighborhoods and seen a texture, seen something so beautiful. What they have done has helped others come in and see it and exploit it,” she said. “How do we keep artists in our neighborhoods?”

Robert Rosenberg, a former New York City housing commissioner in the Lindsay administration, was on hand at the discussion. His take was practical. “Artists move in, developers come, the artists move out,” he said.

He gave examples of neighborhoods where an influx of artists proved to be a catalyst for development: SoHo, Chelsea, DUMBO, the South Bronx, and Williamsburg. Ms. Dixon, director of the Noguchi Museum in Long Island City, agreed: “Artists have indeed been one of the cheapest development tools in New York. DUMBO is a perfect example.”

She said her husband was able to buy an entire building in Williamsburg at a time when there were “gunshots and crack vials” around. And he paid a price that would have netted him only a studio apartment in Manhattan.

Mr. Rosenberg spoke about the role of artists as an engine for the city’s economy. “There is no better city than New York to talk about the arts as an economic driver,” he said. It was no surprise to the audience that the arts are a force for revitalizing neighborhoods, sparking economic growth, and transforming people’s lives.

He said cultural institutions can help transform economically weak areas into vibrant, art-focused destinations. His examples included the New Jersey Performing Arts Center in Newark and the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater. “The Alivin Ailey troupe flies through the air where before bullets flew through the air,” he said.

He touted Robert Moses’s perseverance in getting Lincoln Center built. “By the late 1980s, this substantial investment in the Upper West Side paid off in a drop in crime, appreciated property values, and one of the nations’ premier art institutions,” he said.

But, Mr. Rosenberg observed, chain stores have been taking over the once-unique landscape of the area around Lincoln Center and reducing the area’s charm. He said the presence of Bed Bath & Beyond, Pot tery Barn, Victoria’s Secret, and Armani Exchange have made strolling around that area feel like visiting a shopping mall. In about a decade, changes have made it almost unrecognizable to a longtime New Yorker like himself.

Giant footprint stores that can pay higher rents have replaced many smaller restaurants and stores that people once associated with an evening at Lincoln Center, he continued. Ms. Dixon had similarly gloomy comments about the area south of Houston Street: “SoHo is now really a mall. It was at one point a neighborhood that had lots of texture,” Ms. Dixon said.

She spoke of sitting on the certification panel at the Department of Cultural Affairs, determining who qualified as artists for housing. The audience roared when she said, “I remember when a woman presented her sixth-grade son’s artwork from school so she could be certified as an artist.”

Nicholas Evans-Cato, president of the Vinegar Hill Neighborhood Association and a teacher of drawing at the Rhode Island School of Design, spoke of his difficulty in getting fellow artists engaged in preservation battles.

One audience member asked if this might be generational problem. Another audience member, who had recently heard a segment on National Public Radio, said 20-somethings may have lost a sense of collective action.

One panelist, Stephen Goldsmith, a sculptor and a former director of planning for Salt Lake City, said voices of artists can enhance preservation strategies by helping a city “visualize change before it takes place.” Artists’ creativity can be a helpful resource, he said. But as audience member Susan Tunick, president of the Terra Cotta Society, said, artists would have to tone down their narcissism for that to happen.