Where’s the Balance?
Developer Mitch Kass, of Fort-Lauderdale-based Glenn Wright Homes, defends the construction. He is building a dozen houses, some nearly 4,000 square feet, in a neighborhood next to one of Delray Beach’s historic neighborhoods.
“We’re doing a regentrification of the housing stock. We’re not destroying the Everglades here,” Kass said. “We’re regentrifying what’s outdated.”
‘Outdated’. Frank Lloyd Wright is ‘outdated’. Victorian is ‘outdated’. Arts and Crafts is ‘outdated’, as well as Georgian, Federal and Queen Anne. History is outdated by it’s very nature. What would you rather have?
Historic homes make way for McMansions. The ones I passed outside of Dallas were creepy enough ~ huge houses built to within 3 feet of the property line, hundreds walled into little Stepford Wives communities piled one on top of the other that belch out their commuter residents onto one four lane road through the middle, all wreathed in that damn brown air. And they were built on open prairie.
hat’s the matter? There’re no dang trees for you to hug on the prairie.
“What’s”, I mean.
PIMF
PIMF
PIMF
nyah.
Therefore destroying nothing of a historic nature, trees or otherwise. Historic downtowns with these things popping up like mushrooms are revolting. Older places have character, history, neighborhoods that should be cherished and nurtured. Pensacola finally got smart. Folks who well have the means to build anything and anywhere they want pay a premium now to live in our few historic neighborhoods.
A fair amount of the east Coast Florida problems go back to Keno-like landgrabs by the city ~ they’re taking the old historic, residential neighborhoods for private developers.
I watched a house go up in an old neighborhood just outside of New Orleans. The neighborhood was originally a suburb for young families built in the 40s and 50s with typically, by today’s standards, small lots and 1200-1400 square foot houses. To cram this house onto that lot, they had to build it sideways. No lawn mower necessary. Not a single blade of grass.