kitikiti'sh writes:

I live in a great small town. It's a thriving little community, has a wonderful downtown, and a strong economy. It also has (for the time being) quite a few historic buildings.

The town has one historic district, established in the '70s, that covers a few blocks of large and distinguished 19th-century homes, but no historic district or design overlay district for the rest of the city. Even the historic district, there are no guidelines for new construction- a vacant lot in the district now has a suburban-style "snout" house coming right up to the sidewalk.

Downtown, the oldest house in town is scheduled to be torn down for a new snout house. A few blocks east of downtown on the main street, a large brick Italianate house- well-kept, in superb condition- will be torn down for a medical building, and an interesting industrial building will be torn down for a vacant lot. ...

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By Perry Norton FAICP

I have some knowledge of the historical roles of central cities, but what is the role today, if any? The central city is certainly not the hub of transportation anymore, nor is it the commercial/retail center. There is very little manufacturing in the center. In Detroit, General Motors Tech is out on the 8 Mile Road, isn't it?

So, what's left? Well, the City and County Complex is probably downtown, and the courts, thus offices full of lawyers. There may be a theater or two, but there are theaters elsewhere - outside the centers of cities, in Overland Park KS, for example..

In the August 1992 issue of Planning magazine (APA) there was an article titled "Is downtown worth saving?" It didn't strike me that the answer contained therein was a resounding "yes". Oh there were some contributors to the article who used poetic language about the downtown being the essence of ethnic diversity, and the intellectual village of the 21st century. They thought, as to be expected, that downtown was worth saving, but they didn't, in my opinion, contribute much to the question: for what? ...

By Alan Bedenko, Brian Castner and Christopher Smith

The Manifesto of Buffalo’s Regular People

We are regular people; neither obstructionist nor unnecessarily permissive. We believe that development projects should be reviewed and debated on a case-by-case basis, on their own merits. They shouldn’t be demagogued, lied about, or otherwise treated unfairly.

We also believe that small cliques of people whose public personae are defined by their opposition to new development don’t speak for the entire community, despite their claims. We believe that we can speak for ourselves and don’t need to have our interests represented by people who perhaps unintentionally advocate for the failed status quo.

What follows is the manifesto. Live it, learn it, love it. ...