Fools with Bulldozers
Charles Hill at www.dustbury.com provides a recap on the SandRidge demolition plan, and then provides this quote from the legendary planner William Whyte:
It is significant that the cities doing best by their downtowns are the ones doing best at historic preservation. Fine old buildings are worthwhile in their own right, but there is a greater benefit involved. They provide discipline. Architects and planners like a blank slate. They usually do their best work, however, when they don’t have one. When they have to work with impossible lot lines and bits and pieces of space, beloved old eyesores, irrational street layouts, and other such constraints, they frequently produce the best of their new designs — and the most neighborly.
And to this Mr. Hill makes his own final comment:
Any fool can hire a bulldozer, and many do.
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Wow. Very moving, very true.