The Revitalist

The NY Times has caught on to the uproar over teardowns (the tearing down of smaller, older homes to replace them with much larger new construction). The National Trust has been campaigning against this phenomenon for a couple years now. The article notes that it is most common in resort areas where the land is more valuable than the house (e.g., coastal towns with older bungalows). Although, I have also noticed this trend in Raleigh where my family is. The older neighborhoods "inside the Beltline" are (always have been) the most desirable addresses and are being re-populated with giant cubes of brick veneer and pre-cast.

I sympathize with the argument that sometimes these older houses don't fit modern lifestyles very well, and not everyone is willing to put up with inconveniences in the name of character. At the same time, I feel the loss of coherent identity in these neighborhoods (and I am more than a bit uncomfortable with the conspicuous display of wealth). The article mentions several municipal strategies for coping with this trend, including incentive zoning. I think encouraging behavior is generally more effective than punitive regulation, but this is going to take an unusual combination of dedication to the concept and willingness to compromise. Ultimately, I think we're likely to wind up with self-selecting neighborhoods where people who care about the integrity of these neighborhoods will be willing to live with the limitations, and those who don't will go elsewhere. That probably wouldn't be such a bad thing...