Like a theocratic state where scientists and rationalists have to subjugate themselves to ignorant clerics, in much of the United States where the money has been made by people too shortsighted to see the inevitable catastrophic end of suburban development those of us who understand what makes a city work and what gives the city a competitive advantage find it impossible to break through the faith based understanding of the shamans of sprawl. Tearing down a house to add six parking spaces and expand the drive through at a Starbucks is nothing to be proud of…unless you j u s t d o n’ t g e t it. Putting your office in the very first building beyond the downtown that has the layout of a suburban office park demonstrates that you don’t want to get it. Bragging about those two things at a meeting of the Urban Land Institute means that you aren’t even aware that there’s something to get.
These are the parking spaces and the expanded drive thru:
This is the house next door to the home sacrificed for lattes in the South End:
This is the office building that should be…different:
This is the church which was razed to make way for it:
And if such a beautiful edifice had to be torn down, it should have been replaced by something more like this:
