Readers: Preservation Review Should be Citywide!
Readers who voted in the poll last week clearly support making preservation review citywide rather than allow some aldermen to exclude their wards:
Q: Should Preservation Review be Citywide or Continue Ward-by-Ward?
- Citywide! 84 [87.5%]
- Unsure/no opinion 4 [4.17%]
- We shouldn’t have any preservation review districts 4 [4.17%]
- Aldermen know what is best for their ward 2 [2.08%]
- Other answer… 2 [2.08%]
Our aldermen, however, have a custom known as “aldermanic courtesy” where the interests of the city as a whole take backseat to the ruler of the ward. As a result I don’t expect this group of 28 to make a change for the better.
The two “other” answers were:
- It should be regional.
- It doesnt really matter, they will do what they want to anyway
True, they will what they want.
– Steve Patterson
From an article in this month’s Governing magazine:  “Harvard economist Edward Glaeser, one of the nation’s most influential thinkers on urban affairs, . . . in his first book, Triumph of the City: How Our Greatest Invention Makes Us Richer, Smarter, Greener, Healthier and Happier, Glaeser takes on the Jacobs vision and offers a different set of lenses, one based in urban economics
One of Jacobs’ four prescriptions for successful cities was “the need for aged buildings.†(The others were mixed primary use neighborhoods, short blocks and density.) Maintaining a mix of older housing and commercial stock, Jacobs believed, allowed neighborhoods to retain the diversity that she valued above all else. “New ideas,†as she put it so memorably, ‘must use old buildings’.
Glaeser . . . rejects Jacobs’ belief that preserving old buildings will maintain neighborhood affordability. That, he says pointedly, “is not how supply and demand work.†New York City’s subsequent history certainly suggests that on this point Glaeser is correct.
Glaeser also stakes out a very different position on neighborhood organizations and historic preservation than Jacobs. He argues that New York City’s Landmarks Preservation Commission, originally established after the destruction of old Penn Station in 1963, has become excessively powerful, with authority over 25,000 buildings and 100 historic districts, amounting to about 15 percent of Manhattan’s non-park land. By following Chicago’s lead instead and encouraging new residential construction, Glaeser estimates that New York City could cut the cost of an average 1,200-square-foot apartment in a high-rise building from about $1 million today to roughly half of that, making Manhattan much more appealing to (upper) middle-class families.”
We continue to face economic challenges in St. Louis. We need to balance many people’s desire to preserve an earlier, golden time with the basic reality that we simply can’t save every old building. I have no problem with landmarking indvidual buildings, but I don’t believe in districts (the citeria is too broad), and I certainly don’t support citywide “preservation review”.
http://www.governing.com/topics/economic-dev/is-it-time-to-retire-jane-jacobs-vision-city.html
From an article in this month’s Governing magazine: “Harvard economist Edward Glaeser, one of the nation’s most influential thinkers on urban affairs, . . . in his first book, Triumph of the City: How Our Greatest Invention Makes Us Richer, Smarter, Greener, Healthier and Happier, Glaeser takes on the Jacobs vision and offers a different set of lenses, one based in urban economics
One of Jacobs’ four prescriptions for successful cities was “the need for aged buildings.” (The others were mixed primary use neighborhoods, short blocks and density.) Maintaining a mix of older housing and commercial stock, Jacobs believed, allowed neighborhoods to retain the diversity that she valued above all else. “New ideas,” as she put it so memorably, ‘must use old buildings’.
Glaeser . . . rejects Jacobs’ belief that preserving old buildings will maintain neighborhood affordability. That, he says pointedly, “is not how supply and demand work.” New York City’s subsequent history certainly suggests that on this point Glaeser is correct.
Glaeser also stakes out a very different position on neighborhood organizations and historic preservation than Jacobs. He argues that New York City’s Landmarks Preservation Commission, originally established after the destruction of old Penn Station in 1963, has become excessively powerful, with authority over 25,000 buildings and 100 historic districts, amounting to about 15 percent of Manhattan’s non-park land. By following Chicago’s lead instead and encouraging new residential construction, Glaeser estimates that New York City could cut the cost of an average 1,200-square-foot apartment in a high-rise building from about $1 million today to roughly half of that, making Manhattan much more appealing to (upper) middle-class families.”
We continue to face economic challenges in St. Louis. We need to balance many people’s desire to preserve an earlier, golden time with the basic reality that we simply can’t save every old building. I have no problem with landmarking indvidual buildings, but I don’t believe in districts (the citeria is too broad), and I certainly don’t support citywide “preservation review”.
http://www.governing.com/topics/economic-dev/is-it-time-to-retire-jane-jacobs-vision-city.html
New York and St. Louis have no comparison.
I didn’t vote in the poll, but find the results encouraging. Preservation of historic and interesting architecture in the City seems to be a priority gaining in popularity. That too is encouraging.Â
I didn’t vote in the poll, but find the results encouraging. Preservation of historic and interesting architecture in the City seems to be a priority gaining in popularity. That too is encouraging.
New York and St. Louis have no comparison.