How NIMBYs weaponize historic districts

[@onaraisedbeach]

Edinburgh, Scotland resident here. The whole Old and New Towns are UNESCO World Heritage sites. There are been many scandals, including the construction of the hideous 'Golden Turd' (St James Centre), but the story that really sums up upper middle-class NIMBYism for me is a New Town woman who painted her front door pink. There are lots of different colours of doors here - green, yellow, red, blue - but for some reason, pink is where the buck stopped according to exceptionally peevish neighbours. If she doesn't paint her door a different colour, the woman is facing a £20,000 fine. Yes, £20,000 for the "wrong" colour of door. Meanwhile, many of those same neighbours have inherited wealth and run short-term lets, prohibiting young(er) people like me from ever owning a home in the city centre. But yes, a pink door is the problem. NIMBY priorities, eh?

[@paddym6778]

I just don't see why so many developers are opposed to just using the local materials when building in Edinburgh and keeping to local styles. Like why in Edinburgh New Town of all places they decided to try and build a bronze turd-shaped modern landmark I don't know. I think you can definitely build new buildings but keeping them in fitting with the city's character I don't think is a wild expectation (something the Radisson hotel on the Royal Mile did well)

[@onaraisedbeach]

@@paddym6778 The Radisson is a great example of that. I used to be a tour guide, and would regularly ask people what they thought the newest building in that part of the High Street was. They never guessed correctly! Modern buildings need to be built, not least to address the housing crisis - but there's no reason they can't fit in with their surrounds. I will forever hate the Golden Turd with every fibre of my being. The only positive about it is that, from a particular spot on George Street, it forms a poopy right atop the head of the statue of Henry "I prolonged slavery" Dundas.

[@sm3675]

​@Paddy M That is a whole other convo. Architects and the common man view art differently.

[@ulrichspencer]

That's a real shame, as I think there's a lot of character to be added from people doing little things like painting their doors pink. If everyone lives in identical style buildings with almost no ability to make them appear lived in, you miss out on something better. Plus, like, I know a lot of people hate modern buildings in old neighborhoods, but my absolute favorite cities are ones where you have a mix of building styles from different times all mixed together. For example, here in Montreal, our area around downtown and old town has a beautiful mix of buildings from the 18th to 21st centuries, and I think the city has that much more character for it. Paris is famous for its distinctive Parisian style, but I honestly think having the exact same style of building everywhere is really bland. Mix it up a bit! Different vernaculars, different materials, different facades, different heights, different uses! A mix of styles makes a place feel so much more organic and lived in, and much less like a museum.

[@GirtonOramsay]

I wish I could have that kind of money and free time to care, let alone complain to the city, about such frivolous details of my neighbor's house.

[@westrim]

Historic districts are like any tool, I suppose. They can be used for good purposes, and are intended for good purposes, but can be used to break needed things too.

[@fallenshallrise]

Our cities our degrading because so many laws on the books make it difficult or impossible to add density while making it simple and easy to remove any historic density. Adding a 4-plex or some row houses on a corner lot is nearly impossible. Demolishing or gutting a historic apartment block to build a a few big luxury units or 1 home, taking multiple units off the market, is simple and easy. The voice of 1 old wealthy person is worth more than 100 young people just starting out. People who already own properties in these neighborhoods should welcome in some new energy and some young families and be happy with their 25% return on investment instead of expecting to double their money every two years.

[@barryrobbins7694]

@@fallenshallrise Unfortunately, that old person’s money is often handed down to a young person who has the old person’s way of thinking.

[@vincegay986]

Too often, housing that replaces historic structures is no more affordable to obtain and maintain than what it replaced. Affordable housing needs to be a higher priority, and there needs to be more support for options in the middle ground between neglect and blight, at one extreme, and degradation and demolition, at the other extreme.

[@KuK137]

@@barryrobbins7694 Or worse, seeing there is non zero chance old person at least earned the money somehow while young parasite is just a hoarder...

[@barryrobbins7694]

@@KuK137 People inherently have value. Wealth does not correspond to a person’s value. Someone’s work may pay well but be detrimental to society, even if it is done in a legal manner. Someone may inherit wealth and put it to productive use in a way the helps society. Of course, some people don’t care about such things.

[@Droidman1231]

Great video as always. What kills me about NIMBYs is, if you want a sleepy, low density, car dependent lifestyle, almost every city in America will happily accommodate that. Yet NIMBYs seem intent on stopping progress in the few walkable, sense, transit served neighborhoods. Like urbanist already get scraps in this country and NIMBYs aren't even happy with us getting scraps, they want those too.

[@AbstractEntityJ]

To be fair, modernists have a history of deliberately wanting to destroy historic buildings. People get defensive about preserving historic neighborhoods for that reason. People who want development and densification should focus instead on non-historic urban neighborhoods, of which there are many in North America, both in the cities and inner-ring suburbs. Like for instance, in the Toronto area, there are a ton of non-historic inner-ring suburban neighborhoods in Etobicoke and Scarborough that would be perfect targets for further densification. Some of these old 1950s/60s era detached homes could be torn down, rezoned, and replaced with condos or townhomes.

[@TeutonicTribe]

@@AbstractEntityJ This proposal is insanely sexy🤩😍

[@AbstractEntityJ]

@@TeutonicTribe Thank you!

[@MrBirdnose]

Everyone who moves to a city wants to be the last person to move to that city. Once they find a place they like, they don't want it to change. That's been a constant everywhere I've lived.

[@DADRB0B55]

Yes lest bulldoze 10000 year old monument to build shithole modern day box, it would be different if modern architecture had any semblance of real cultural identity. You can make your neighborhood, & design to be walkable to don’t need to invade an already existing area & force your ideals on the native population

[@zienatasilviestu4698]

If you want to designate your neighborhood or house as a historic district/structure, then go ahead, but if your prime objective is to preserve property value (because that's very likely the case), then you have absolutely no right to be surprised if your kids can't afford to buy a house deep into their adulthood, assuming that you aren't a 1% person who can just give your kids a house. You can't be part of the problem and then be surprised at the problem itself.

[@molybdnum]

The issue is clear - it isn't bout preserving value but preserving a perpetual increase in value. Thinking about that for a few seconds it should be obvious that collectively we can't keep up if property values rise forever and the conflict of self-interest (and institutional profit interest) must be resolved.

[@danarrib]

Blaming the current homeowners for not being able to buy a house makes little sense. The biggest problem is being able to use houses as an investment (for renting). If a person is only allowed to own ONE house (the one where he/she lives), the prices would drop. Government shouldn't allow people to own more than one house... Or maybe impose heavy taxes for all the houses of people who owns more than one... And use this money on housing programs for people who don't own a house.

[@GrandTourVideos]

Couldn't have said it better. Really hit it on the nail.

[@GrandTourVideos]

​@@danarribMakes perfect. It's greed. Pure and simple.

[@_human_1946]

> If you want to designate your neighborhood or house as a historic district/structure, then go ahead No. Raising a low-income family's rent to preserve "neighborhood character" is never alright.

[@precisa_]

In my city of São Paulo, Brazil , there are quite a few neighbhorhoods that have used historical preservation to keep existing when they really shouldn't. Especially the neighbhorhoods of Jardins and Pacaembu, created following a lot of the same Garden City principles that led to american suburbs, manage to be extremely low density and unaffordable neighbhorhoods, surrounded by tall buildings, while creating a pond of single family homes in what should be some of the city's most central land, kept protected by historical preservation, despite the fact that almost all the original and historical homes have been taken down and replaced by mcmansions.

[@chronometer9931]

If you destroy all the heritage buildings then you won't be able to see those old buildings from your past. What's really stopping your cities from expanding? I doubt rebuilding those two districts would make a big difference and if it did then what was stopping your city from expanding two more districts? It's all arbitrary...

[@cabellones]

@@chronometer9931 são paulo is a megacity, it do not have were to grow (12,3mi the fourth most populous in the world). that district problems is one of the problems, a bigger issue is speculation. I moved from there 14 years ago but I still remember the Downtown pretty much abandoned because of speculators, tall buildings practically empty because of that. this happens to a lesser degree everywhere (if you took the train, it was common the tracks pass abandoned factory buildings or just ruins of that buildings, but there is no action because the owners of the land, most that happen is a favela growing because of neglect)

[@aapjeaaron]

It's one thing that Europe manages pretty well. The government website for information on this says it themselves. The best way to preserve a historical significant building is if it is economically viable and for buildings to remain economically viable they need to be able to adapt to the changing needs of the society. A big example is that in a city with a big university a lot of the old protected town houses have become basically Disney-esque facades. Where a building might look like three separate buildings but it is actually one complex for student housing.

[@GdzieJestNemo]

on the other hand renovating a historical building is pain in the ass - you need a expertise/approval of a special architect and meet loads of additional criteria that takes lots of time and money resulting in many such buildings being left dilapidated. Special funds (from EU and national level) help with that, but often it's still not enough and result in estates being bought up by super rich or companies/invest funds

[@ianhomerpura8937]

Warsaw rebuilt its historical district - the Stare Miasto - from scratch after WW2, built a highway right under it, and still got the designation from UNESCO. Dresden is now rebuilding its Neumarkt, with new housing and commercial units built all around the Frauenkirche. Potsdam is now doing the same, rebuilding extensively around the state parliament building. All of these target younger people to own homes of their own, right in the middle of their downtown areas.

[@Csilva857]

Boston did the same thing for Fisher college. It looks like individual row homes but in fact they have all been connected on the inside and function as a large dormitory .

[@mythirlmaiden]

I love historic homes and historic districts (when done correctly) to me it makes more sense to require that people building in a historic district need to maintain the character of the district so if you're building a triplex it has to look similar to triplexs of that area, it has to mesh with the surrounding houses and that also goes anyone buying single family dwellings any outside renos have to blend with the other houses in the area. This would allow for density while protecting historic neighbourhoods.

[@alexanderstevens8774]

I agree with this approach if the problem was really about historic preservation. For example in the Los Angeles area, you can see every single type of building style imaginable. However, most new construction of SFH are cookie cutter suburban homes or bespoke modern box-shaped house. Then you have the new 5-over-1 apartments that might only differ by paint and property size, all to say these are built for cost reasons and nothing else. I've yet to see someone build a new craftsman, Spanish, colonial, Art Deco, or really any other building style unless someone demolished a home and specifically asked for it.

[@JohnFromAccounting]

Yes, building new projects in the style, or a similar style, of the neighbourhood would do better to preserve it than to allow the building to become dilapidated.

[@Ndsl710]

That would be hard to enforce, but I agree

[@Nopenopenonono-u3q]

One way Victoria BC tried to split this circle when passing its missing middle initiative was prevent the demolition of historic homes, but made it much easier to add laneway or carriage houses to lots with historic buildings. Not ideal, but it seemed to be a compromise that many could live with.

[@_human_1946]

*square this circle

[@jimbelvin4010]

Agreed. In my neighborhood, we have many underutilized alleys in back of houses. I think our city should encourage the creation of carriage homes along the alleys. This would increase density with no impact on the main streetscapes

[@peoplesrepublicofliberland5606]

Meanwhile some states and Territories don't use the Historical Districts enough and have lost many of their most beautiful Buildings. San Juan Train Station in Puerta de Tierra is an example

[@mikemcinnis2198]

Look at what’s going on in McMinnville, OR. Historic district, old buildings being demolished for a new modern hotel. This is clearly a case of who has more money

[@euroschmau]

After Society Hill historic district was designated, the city was quick to tear down a massive chunk of it to built three luxury condo towers and several blocks worth of low-rise modernist housing. It was such a gutting of Philadelphia's oldest neighborhood that it can be compared to when Mussolini plowed a road through the neighborhood adjacent to the Roman Forum.

[@Kodeb8]

One thing I don't like about "historic districts" is they reinforce the idea that walkability is a gimmick, or a thing you drive to, that is separate from your house. Well that and that a lot of "historic districts" get turned into tacky touristy open-air malls.

[@jameskennedy7093]

I’m really glad as a Philadelphian that you brought up Society Hill because you barely touched on the half of it. The preservation of the actual colonial buildings is good but there are whole sites that create a fictional narrative of history that isn’t even true. The park next to Christ Church at the 2nd Street El stop used to be stately 19th Century buildings and is demolished now, the who,e of “Independence Mall” is just a bunch of dead park space when it used to have really beautiful 19th and 20th Century buildings, and there are lots and lots of basically non-historic 1970s rowhouses that are preserved by the district. I even saw a post about a “historic parking garage” getting designated as some kind of Art Deco masterpiece. Give me a break. The other day there was a who,e saga where a “historic gas station” had to be moved across the city to preserve it just so some other development could happen. Even stuff like the building I grew up with as a kid thinking was the “site of the Declaration of Independence drafting” at 7th and Market is a fiction- it’s just a 1970s replica. I definitely like a lot of things about Philly’s historic character, especially its tiny streets and parking free buildings, but the way it gets used in Philadelphia by NIMBYs can be toxic.

[@pacerdanny]

Historic site -- how real or fake? -- is an interesting topic. Olvera Street in downtown LA was almost completely invented in the early 20th century as an atmospheric "historic" site in a district that had been occupied by poor people from many different backgrounds. Yet after nearly a century, it now has a kind of historic pedigree of its own that goes back generations.

[@lozoft9]

IMO the federal gov't needs to change the law (and preempt state and local laws) so that instances of historic preservation are only accepted if they're unique in form and function in their OMB-designated metropolitan statistical area (MSA) and over 100 years old. I'd even go as far as making it illegal to historically-designate residential buildings.

[@williamhuang8309]

"Historic Parking Garage" is just another word for "we don't actually care about history, just property value preservation"

[@yuki-sakurakawa]

Well, arguably Society Hill in Philadelphia didn't just retain its colonial era buildings, but it regained its white heritage 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿🤣 No native Americans though. Just the English. Maybe some Dutch, but not too much of that riff-raff 😋

[@ab-tf5fl]

@@williamhuang8309 Actually, I would argue "historic parking garage" is really about "we don't actually care about history, we just want ample, cheap parking".

[@hallamshire]

I live in a metro Detroit neighborhood that was built in the 1950's. I called it "Ford-landia" because it is so obvious that the motor companies stamped out the same house again and again. But it is a really cool neighborhood. What breaks my heart is that it is a growing trend to take the mid-century bungalows, tear them down, and make $ 1-5 million houses that people my age can afford. Moreover, those houses take up the full lot and block their neighbors' sun. Yet, people go grip to people on city council about folks turning their garages into second dwellings. I wish we could preserve the cool mid-century look of this neighborhood - NOT to keep it from poor people but to keep rich people from tearing down affordable houses thay are hostoric!!!

[@Jack-fw4mw]

The justification for these sham historic districts would be funnier to read if they weren't rubber stamped. "And then a grocery store was built here, and then the street car lines were torn up" like wow, so much history worth preserving.

[@emmaripley9688]

I live in a historic district in St Paul MN (Cathedral Hill) where there is a campaign against bike lanes, called “sos - save our street”, because of “historical preservation”. They are also falsely claiming the bike lanes would remove mature trees (also not true).

[@aetherograph]

Just get rid of the cars and make the road only for bikes and horses and wheelchairs and pedestrians, that would preserve the historical feel of the neighbourhood perfectly, how about that? XD

[@Dave-YellowDogWelding]

@@aetherograph I'm just imagining a wheel chair or bike trying to get through two foot of snow in a Minnesota winter, hahaha!

[@angellacanfora]

Well, that's depressing. I can cross St. Paul off my list of possible places to retire! Next...

[@upsidedownbagofflour697]

8:02 This is key. Historic districts should be about preserving HISTORY, not exclusively beauty.

[@flashsurfing]

NIMBY - Not In My Backyard, created to stop failures of planning, such as building toxic factories next to housing, now more often being used for the opposite of a failure of planning, to stop multifamily housing next to housing

[@barryrobbins7694]

Thank you for your comment. Please see my comment about defining NIMBY. I share your concern, but I also don’t want to create confusion, if the definition is already agreed upon. Of course, there will always be individuals who misuse a term regardless.

[@ab-tf5fl]

My favorite local example of historic preservation abuse is a "historic" parking garage in the middle of downtown Seattle. It is obvious, just by looking at it, that the real motivation behind the decision has nothing at all to do with history and everything to do with concerns over the cost of downtown parking.

[@MrBirdnose]

If it's the one I suspect you mean, a bunch of actually historic buildings were knocked down to construct it, too.

[@Quantum-yz9fc]

The biggest problem imo is that many newer buildings, especially new apartments and townhouses, look absolutely awful in comparison to older apartments and townhouses.

[@mattbear4802]

blame humanity's addiction to profit

[@ianhomerpura8937]

Brick townhouses are very susceptible to earthquakes. Wood houses meanwhile are vulnerable to tornadoes and fires. Hence why glass annd steel are becoming more popular with developers. Easier to build and maintain, can be set up much faster, and pretty much disaster-proof.

[@artistjim114]

I moved to Stone Mountain Village in GA, and wondered why it wasn’t as diverse as the surrounding areas. It makes total sense now!

[@MrJahka]

I’m not a nimby in any sense but honestly I’m opposed to new construction where I live because every new building is one of those hideous plastic tinderbox 5 over 1s. I’d literally rather have zero new buildings than another one of those fugly gentrification boxes that ruin the neighborhood’s aesthetics

[@JohnFromAccounting]

The good news is that they will be knocked down in 20 years because they're disgusting and run down. I am seeing many hideous late 90s and early 00s building near me being demolished for the same boxes you're talking about. In another 20 years, they will be replaced with something else, hopefully worth keeping.

[@matthewconstantine5015]

It's very frustrating. I'm a big fan of historic preservation, but I've seen it abused so often for exclusionary reasons. I can't remember if it was local to me (D.C. area) or in a city with a bunch of urbanists I follow (NYC, probably), but I've seen more than one case of people trying to get parking lots designated as "historic." Growing up in a small New England town that absolutely gutted its historic downtown (aided by two major fires, but the worst wounds were self-inflicted), I've seen the irreparable damage that having absolutely no sense of history can do. My childhood downtown was a multi-lane car sewer, with empty lots, empty mid-Century buildings, run down parks full of unhoused people, no local businesses, ten or twelve apartments, and not much else. The few buildings that go back to the early 20th or late 19th Century were allowed to rot. All the business got shunted to periphery car-only, malls and strip malls during the town's "urban renewal" efforts in the 50s & 60s. The economy never recovered. There has to be a balance. I'd also like to see newer buildings built with more interesting, sometimes "historic" aesthetics. But I'd like that in places that have no historic housing for it to clash with, too. Out here in the suburbs, where new housing developments are sprouting like mushrooms, they're all ugly & samey. Like, you could drive into any expanding area in the US and see exactly the same buildings being put up. It's so boring. It's like an architecture A.I. got stuck on one setting and that's all we've been able to build for the last 20 years.

[@JohnFromAccounting]

Parking lots should be prohibited from being considered historic. It's empty land. There's nothing there. How is that historic?

[@TeutonicTribe]

@@JohnFromAccounting I used to visit a suburban Copenhagen indoor mall where the parking lot consisted of open (for H2O seepage) paver stones & was ringed by sidewalks & decades-old shade trees. I saw the same for beach parking in FL. I wouldn’t necessarily call these ‘historic’ but they certainly get more respect than what we’re usually subjected to in the US.

[@dragonofepics7324]

I'd love to see new buildings built with more historical aesthetics too. Im in a weird spot with this stuff. I hate NIMBYs blocking high density and walkable living but I also can't stand the whole aesthetic of minimalistic architecture. Its so sterile and cold. Why cant we just use brick? It's a historical material, looks nice, its durable and I don't think its expensive (been around thousands of years). Nice architecture doesn't have to be extremely ornate. In my home city theres a bunch of old dilapidated brick buildings that still look better (in my opinion) than both minimalist styles and modern cookie cutter suburbs. To be fair to minimalism though greenery can make buildings look a lot nicer. Maybe once the trees in those neighborhoods get up in age they'll look less ugly.

[@DADRB0B55]

Nah you would need vine growing on the buildings themselves to cover up that dogshit & most won’t allow that because it will damage the building overtime but one house has those vines all over & it actually looks pretty awesome

[@geoff5623]

Cities often enforce aesthetic design standards, like requiring setbacks above the first few floors, articulation to "break up the massing", low total floor space limits, and small floor plates (resulting in podium & tower buildings), that actively prevent recreating many of the best architecture buildings of the past. Many beautiful old buildings are just giant boxes - but they're well ornamented. And they're completely illegal to replicate today. From what I understand, NYC still limits the total amount of residential floor space of apartment buildings to less than many of its iconic pre-WWII apartments (which is one reason for new pencil towers). People in my city are raging about boxy older low rise apartments being slated for redevelopment into towers, but the rest of the city was down-zoned decades ago to stop more of those small apartments from being built. What little was allowed after that needed sloped roofs, and more parking, and unique exterior design, and articulations that made them leak in the rain. Its difficult to impossible to put together a land assembly of uninteresting SFHs to build a new moderately sized apartment, so the only space that can be redeveloped for more homes is small older rental buildings being replaced with towers. Then they're also complaining about 4 to 6 home multiplexes being built near older SFH, because they're "too boxy" and won't "fit in". (Never mind the McMansion cubes already bring built to close the same size 😒).

[@b_uppy]

We had one of our few unique historic buildings demolished. It was in the mission style. Nobody thought to save it. Zoning and historic buildings are a mixed bag to be sure. Definitely want to save the beauty and character of older buildings and neighborhoods, but we also need housing. Funny how it is often the rich that end up the best protected by these rules. Much of the problem with historic districts comes as much from a subtype of redlining, making maintenance of certain homes just as difficult...

[@MiguelGarcia-vj7oo]

What building was it by the way? Now I'm curious.

[@b_uppy]

@@MiguelGarcia-vj7oo Nothing you'd know of.

[@PaulCuenin]

As a result of the presenvation of the city of Charleston all the development is happening in North Charleston, Mount Pleasant, and West Ashley instead of the city of Charleston. I can see at some point the main city of charleston becoming a suburb of a much more dense and populated North Charleston.

[@iluvcamaros1912]

I lived downtown as a student a decade ago. It was already obvious it was becoming a rich white people & tourist theme park. I mean the architecture was glorious though. I adore the peninsula. But it was all something the historic residents of the city (black people) weren't benefiting from.

[@jimbelvin4010]

Sometimes, historic districts bring needed protection to the long standing character of an established neighborhood. I live in an older neighborhood - mostly bungalow style houses built circa 1915-1925. Recently a real estate speculator bought an existing & charming one story house. Cost of lot is $495,000, cost of house was $451,000. He bulldozed down the house & is erecting a 4,000 square foot ultramodern 3 story mega house selling for $2.2 million. One side of the new house has a 3 story blank wall placed as close to his neighbor's house as it can go, blocking off southern exposure/sunlight from the rooms of the neighbor's house. So the developer can throw a perfectly good house into the landfill & lose the $451,000 value, but recoup the loss by building a mega house. If this trend continues, it will destroy the supply of smaller homes & drive up costs as speculators buy up land in our neighborhood. An historic district designation will create limits on out of scale houses.

[@danielmalinen6337]

In Finland too, it is difficult to balance between preservation, renovation and replacement. For example, an old school building from the 19th century no longer serves its purpose as a school because it is no longer suitable and functional as a building in modern standards, but at the same time the Finnish Museum Agency demands the protection of old buildings and has forbidden their demolition because there are not many 19th century buildings left in Finland since most of them have been demolished to make way for the newer, more modern and more functional ones. The result of protection has been that there are a few old historical buildings in Finland that cannot be used and that have no use, which is why they are now standing empty and decaying, even though the purpose of conservation is noble and important.

[@TheZipeedoo]

Most rust belt cities have demolished their brutalist concrete housing blocks built in the 1960's/1970's. "The projects", such as Chicago's infamous Cabrini-Green project. Except Minneapolis. It's Cedar Riverside was designed by some semi-famous Scandinavian architect. It's not fit for human habitation for several fundamental reasons, but it has been given historic preservation status, and thus it continues to stand as a sort of Gulag within the metro, a place that concentrates the poorest of the poor.

[@pruwyben]

It's ironic that Jane Jacobs fought for historical preservation, only for it to be used to prevent creating the kind of neighborhoods that she argued make great cities - density, mixed use, and buildings of varied ages.

[@gerberjoanne266]

The story of the demolition of the original Penn station breaks my heart. It's almost too painful to watch.

[@KyurekiHana]

I've heard people at my local coffee shop talking about trying to get my neighborhood in Seattle designated a historic neighborhood, because they don't like that the strip mall that the coffee shop is in will be torn down and replaced with apartments over a larger commercial center. A lot of them have fond childhood memories of going to that coffee shop or the restaurant in the same building. These same people have been fuming every time someone in the neighborhood decides to remodel their home to change from a 1950s craftsman style to something more modern. I worry if it does go through it will be yet another blow for Seattle as a whole.

[@kertchu]

Why not have the coffee shop rebuilt as part of the apartment?

[@KyurekiHana]

@@kertchu the developer has offered to give all tenants space in the new building, but it's likely going to take several years, and the owners of the coffee shop can't afford to wait. The reality is that construction takes time, and it won't be the same as it was pre-construction. People just want the past to exist forever, because they hate the future.

[@JohnFromAccounting]

The 1950s craftsman style is modern to my eyes. America has very little historical architecture, and it's mostly concentrated on the east coast.

[@KyurekiHana]

@@JohnFromAccounting So what would you call the flat, angular, boxy style that some people use instead? That's what I mean by "something more modern".

[@MrBirdnose]

@@kertchu ​ @KyurekiHana Usually what happens is a bunch of local businesses get displaced, and when the new development is finished national chains move in instead, because they're the only ones who can afford the more expensive rents. I lived in Seattle for a while and they're incapable of building anything but luxury condos there. Every dense infill development just pushed more middle class people out to the suburbs.

[@Urbanhandyman]

Declaring a district as historic is like pouring molasses over the entire designated area. Any steps made in that zone will now bog you down, both residents and people looking to develop. It's also the beginning of the end of its authentic character; it's now a type of living museum space.

[@westrim]

The true story of the Boston Molasses Flood is revealed!

[@bmp456]

Until modern architecture dials down the ugliness, I see nothing wrong with making a neighborhood a “museum”

[@Urbanhandyman]

@@bmp456 I'll agree that modern planning is turning out acres of bland, cookie-cutter, this-could-be-anywhere, designs. It's only a matter of time before some of the ugliest modern buildings and zones are designated historic only because of their age.

[@dtrahn1218]

Examples? Actual cases? The guy doing this video is a Planner. Urban Planners are apologists trying to make up for their colossal past mistakes and collusion with the corporate forces that wrecked inner cities from the 1920s to the 1970s. It's been one misstep after another. In the early 20th century, it was colluding with the oil and auto industries to wreck neighborhoods and later to slum clear under the moniker of "urban renewal." Now planners seem to want to paint the efforts of WOMEN who fought against white male city officials, industry and planners as mere "NIMBYism"?? It's bad enough when officials regularly demeaned activist women by calling them "little old ladies in tennis shoes." It's ironic that he showed a picture of Jane Jacobs without mentioning Elizabeth Werlein who saw the beauty of the French Quarter where city officials only saw it as a slum or Susan Pringle Frost who after watching Standard Oil pull down another historic building in Charleston fought for the first district. Yet he only mentions it as "an effort to remove minorities." Mentioning this without going into more context on the times and situations is disingenuous and casts aspersions on Women's efforts in the area of historic preservation. Shame on him. Comparing historic districts in the east coast's compact walkable cities to the mess of sprawled California and Oregon is laughable. Economic downturns that left much of the northeast's building stock to rot ultimately ended up making those areas more attractive for revitalization. However, the thing that attracts people to a community is ironically the thing that they then try to destroy. Hence the need for the districts in compact walkable cities.

[@losaltoshillsguy5863]

So just build elsewhere.

[@woutervanr]

I'm not American, but it almost physically hurts to see what Penn station was like and knowing we DELIBERATELY destroyed it. Every. Single. Time. It's hard, but definitely necessary to not let that feeling control me or others though.

[@Thebreakdownshow1]

That is one good looking building. Talking about the Pennsylvania station.

[@JohnFromAccounting]

@@SigFigNewton Penn Station elevated the character of everyone who walked inside. Usually, such grand buildings were for kings and statesmen. With Penn Station, it was for everyone. The poorest man in New York could walk into the station like a king, and the richest man in New York would walk in the exact same way. It minimised the class divide, at least for that short walk through the station. Such buildings are not built often today, and we see the class divide worse than its been in many decades.

[@c_splash]

I find the point about the National Register of Historic Places interesting considering that it provides no actual protection to properties on the Register. It's only a list of historic sites and has no legal teeth with which to preserve them. Being on the Register can prove to be a great piece of evidence when you need to convince someone of a site's significance, but it's no guarantee of protection.

[@CMG78]

I live in a historical preservation district in a Wisconsin city The district itself is comprised of a couple buildings on the local college campus, the Village green and the homes surrounding it what were all built in the early1800's. the district itself is among some of the most beautiful homes and walkable areas in the community. the irony is it created a area of extremely affordable housing because nobody wants to live there. When you live in a historic home,e that is on the national register you are no longer allowed to change the color of the house, get approval for something as simple as adding a flower bed even the typed of garden plants you have can and will be scrutinized imagine living with the worst possible neighborhood Comity and you will have a taste of what it is what it's like to live in a historic district

[@jimbelvin4010]

Most historic districts do not limit color choices, plantings, etc. Obviously, yours is more restrictive

[@williamhuang8309]

Being able to randomly designate anything as "historic" defeats the purpose of having a historic district in the first place. If everything's "historic" then nothing is anymore. There needs to be better, stricter criteria when deciding whether a building is historic, rather than just letting people randomly list their properties as historic.

[@Geotpf]

In many cases, such as some examples in the video, the point is just to stop new, denser development, not to preserve history. Calling an area a historic district is just a means to an end to NIMBY up the place.

[@AbstractEntityJ]

In Toronto, historic homes are routinely torn down and replaced with ugly modernist homes that are usually no larger than the original house. They do it to boost property values and sell the newly built homes for more money. So that's one case where historic preservation laws aren't enforced nearly enough.

[@sor3999]

They made some random furniture store "historic" in my town. It's basically an office building inside, but it has to maintain the façade of the old furniture store. No idea why that is, but I suspect people get nostalgic over the daily fixtures in their lives (and possibly an excuse to ensure it's not zoned residential). It seems anything that is old is now historic, regardless of historic significance.

[@JohnFromAccounting]

The only time an object becoming "historic" has been a good thing is the Immovable Ladder on the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem. There was an agreement in 1757 stating that the historic religious pilgrimage sites should be undisturbed. The Franciscans had carelessly left a ladder outside one of the windows, but only noticed it after the agreement had been made. They became unable to move it, and now it serves as an image of the historical preservation declaration.

[@Robespierre-lI]

I would have to see the store in question, but i would not assume that it's original just as an office building means it is necessarily not notable, historically or architecturally. Some of the most important buildings in modern architectural history are office buildings

[@JohnFromAccounting]

My street in Australia is caught under heritage rules. This is a huge problem. Our post-war concrete road is very damaged and needs to be completely replaced, but it's "historic", so we can't rebuild it. My neighbour wanted to make a new front fence, but wasn't allowed to, because the fence they personally built 15 years prior was "historic". And yet when someone wants to make a hideous box extension slapped on top of their house, ruining the curb appeal, they're allowed to do it no problem. They can't knock it down, of course, but they can make it uglier.

[@gadaboutwalks]

There was a recent case of residents in affluent Richmond (south-west London) objecting to a tall building in less well-off Stratford *14 miles away*. The proposed building interfered with a protected view from Richmond Hill of St Paul's Cathedral which are, um, 10 miles apart.

[@bow-tiedengineer4453]

an interesting thought: what if states were to pass laws stating that, for a city or neighborhood to label a district ad historic, it needs to also have a fund to assist with building maintenance, to enable residents to upkeep the historic buildings as they age, with the amount of funding needed based on how strict the restrictions are. If you just don't want the historic buildings demolished, but are ok with them changing their internal plans and uses, such as a residential building becoming a commercial one or a single family home dividing itself into multiple units, and you are OK with the lots subdividing and new constructions cropping up between the existing buildings, you wouldn't need to contribute much to the upkeep of the historic buildings, but if you are completely cracking down on everything and freezing the area in time, you'd better be able to put up the money to enable people to upkeep the buildings even if they don't have much income and would otherwise be priced out of the neighborhood.

[@kaitlyn__L]

It kinda reminds me of "conservation areas" in the UK. Where there's a historic style and you need special approval to build something out of that style.

[@kaitlyn__L]

@@SigFigNewton lmao

[@MrEricSir]

Some of these "historic" neighborhoods look like they still have their original, historic cable TV wiring.

[@DutchLabrat]

One thing many countries still need to learn is that it is possible to build relatively cheap, modern, social/working class/student housing that does not conflict with the historical look of an area. Most of that is about the shape and colour of the outer facade, it doesn't need to cost a mint to look good and fit in. And cheap local housing means local businesses and services can be staffed by local people resulting in less traffic in a socially more cohesive area.

[@tomdiperna964]

I have mixed feelings. I live in Boulder, Colorado which has quite a few historic districts and several historic buildings, especially close to downtown. While I love the feel of Boulder, I've also come to the realization I will never be able to afford to live in the city I grew up in. Boulder's reluctance to expand is understandable, but it prices out people who have lived here their entire lives and I feel like the Californians who have jacked up the property values have no respect for the city or those of us who are actually from here. Side note: perhaps a middle ground for the nimbys and developers would be to not build structures that are complete eyesores. Virtually everything new looks absolutely awful.

[@dragonofepics7324]

Agree. I'm pro-density but damn I hate the way most new developments look. Why can't they just use brick? Brick looks nice and as far as I know its not terribly expensive. Puts me in a very weird position. Also rich people jacking up prices that makes places unlivable makes me mad. I've never had to experience that ( no one wants to live in my city lol ) but I don't need to to know how awful it is.

[@ianhomerpura8937]

Boulder is technically a part of the Denver metropolitan area. Time to force city govt to expand.

[@ianhomerpura8937]

​​@@dragonofepics7324 brick is vulnerable to collapse during earthquakes. Glass, steel, and concrete usually does not. They might want to build in concrete then clad them in brick, but I doubt they will do that.

[@_PresidentSkillz]

This Video was about historic districts in the US. Can you also talk about those in Europe? Considering that European Old Towns can be either really old (ie medieval or baroque) or they are post-war reconstructions of buildings from those periods with much newer technology inside

[@mausklick1635]

Your comment about the cost of maintaining old buildings doesn't really jive with me. I live in a building that was built before the Great War and the maintenance isn't particularly expensive when you factor in that its 4 stories high, has a shop on the floor and many more inhabitants than any single detached home.

[@mattbear4802]

This is a huge problem facing Auckland, NZ at the moment. The old streetcar suburbs closest to the city centre, with quality frequent bus routes, are all 'heritage protected' because of the low-density 1920s villas in that area. All the intensification has been forced into outlying car-dependent suburbs and greenfield developments, and it STILL ends up being car-dependent intensification with only half-hourly local bus routes serving these new areas. So the city continues to sprawl, housing prices are still very high, the roads are still clogged up with cars - all because some selfish rich twats want to keep their inner suburbs permanently unchanging.

[@ianhomerpura8937]

It's just insane that a country with only five million people has a housing crisis that bad.

[@doomkitty8386]

A brief addition to that last point: I forget where I saw the study, but historic districts don't just slow down economic growth. They also mitigate recessions. Basically they cause the local economy to have both less risk and less reward, so there's a place for them from an economic development standpoint.

[@NothingXemnas]

I think that, worse than preservation of historical buildings and housing is the lack of consideration for refurbishing and retrofitting. They are really expensive to maintain, but they can become VASTLY cheaper with modernization. It is a compromise and it CAN change some of the appearance , but if the compromise is small enough, it can be potentially BETTER and ironically cheaper to keep than any modern cheaply made suburban housing. Lowered value, low cost and if anything goes, it maintains some of the older aesthetic of a neighborhood if that is the true end goal. But of course it isn't, right? It is all about VALUE. Old, collection cars are better kept than these things...

[@aetherograph]

Yeah once you actually dig into all the ways you can preserve historic buildings and use them for other things (as many historic buildings in new england are! So many old mansions are offices now, and still look fine and beautiful!), and retrofit them in ways that adhere to the 'spirit' of the era (such as san francisco's bright 'Painted Ladies', which use modern paint colours with historic patterns on the Victorian houses), it becomes clear that these NIMBY folks don't actually care about beauty, they're just hateful and hiding their hatred behind lip service to 'history'.

[@JohnFromAccounting]

It wouldn't change the exterior appearance, but taking up the flooring to retrofit modern plumbing and electricity is the best way to preserve historic buildings. It makes them usable to today's people without them having to compromise. Old buildings become run down because nobody wants to live with the compromises.

[@NothingXemnas]

@@JohnFromAccounting As far as I know, old plumbing can lose more than 20% of water efficiency. 20% of water bill coming from lost/leaked water? Indeed, retrofitting is the minimum. When I say "changing the appearance", I also mean the possibility of the people living in it adding solar heating or changing the external decoration's material to something more durable (new concrete or better paints), that can change the overall appearance. Other than that, I agree only the interior would need most work.

[@AnymMusic]

these people really said "we want this district to stay historic. And history, is segregation. Go away black people"

[@kino_cinante]

If anything is declared historic they should put their money where their mouth is. - No rentals or airBNBs allowed - 50% sales tax if sold to anyone outside the family - Non occupancy for 2 years transfers the property to the city - Historic status renewal every 25 years - 100% of owners must agree to historical status - The building can not be historic again if it loses it's status These rules should apply to private properties because a historic site is meant to benefit the community and not the owners.

[@laurencefraser]

Ehh, some of those seem more like rules intended to ensure that legitimately deserving buildings aren't preserved, even as others seem entirely reasonable.

[@JohnFromAccounting]

I agree on banning rentals and airBNBs. That is catastrophic for any historic area because it takes down the occupancy rate quite a lot.

[@transitcaptain]

Watched it on Nebula yesterday and thought it was interesting as it included topics that I am interested in. There has to be a better process to label a district as historic, or this country will be so dysfunctional

[@johnhodge5871]

"Will be"?

[@transitcaptain]

@@johnhodge5871 OK maybe it’s already dysfunctional

[@Shako_Lamb]

I'm studying historic preservation academically and I enjoyed this video. This kind of stuff is a cautionary tale in the field, and we certainly scrutinize it. I do have a bit of an opposite perspective though. I'm from a rural town that's extremely historically significant - multiple U.S. presidents had property or vacationed there - and it has a historic district but no legal enforcement of any kind, and through demolition and extremely heavy-handed renovation, the history has been disappearing at an alarming rate. The housing market situations over the past few years have led wealthy people from urban areas to buy up the property and demolish the houses, or renovate them so heavily that they may as well have been demolished (i.e., an HGTV-grade flip). A few years ago the town attempted to institute legal protections, and the political situation turned into much the opposite of the more suburban situation depicted in the video. The wealthy, NIMBY-ish people opposed the protections, while the more long-time residents and most of the small, tourism-oriented business owners supported the protections. It ended up failing, and three more historic structures have been lost since, bringing the town very close to losing its historic district and continuing to erode its historical narrative and tourism potential.

[@kino_cinante]

The video ended very abruptly. I think with modern technology we can make very detailed 3d scans of neighbourhoods for future generations. What is the point of physically preserving single family homes... There are literal millions of them compare to only one Grand Central Terminal.

[@aetherograph]

There was an interesting article in Current Affairs a few years ago, called "Why You Hate Contemporary Architecture" (by Adrian Rennix and Nathan J. Robinson), that really goes into one of the problems that I genuinely think historic status is trying to solve, when the problem isn't something you can address that way.

[@thepedrothethethe6151]

It's just someone being bitter about brutalism... a style that hasn't been in Vogue since the 1980's

[@user-te5po4bu8o]

This is why the entire downtown area in Charleston is completely inaccessible to wheelchairs.

[@losaltoshillsguy5863]

What a tragedy.

[@princeofchetarria5375]

Every time I see pictures of Penn station I get so sad / angry that they demolished it :(

[@damnjustassignmeone]

If you can find a semi-famous person who lived for a year above an old ugly laundromat, you can get the building protected forever and block development. True story. Happened in SF a few years ago. Guy who owned the laundromat couldn’t retire after that bc it was his only asset and he didn’t have much savings.

[@Andrew-gn9qp]

I think historic preservation districts are good if they actually preserve beautiful historic architecture and language, otherwise I don't see the point in adding historic districts just because some people lived there.

[@laurencefraser]

@@SigFigNewton There's an aweful lot of ugly useless new 'architecture' that gets built too, mind you. Parking lots, ill advised stadiums (the supposed economic benefits never materialise, the city ends up eating most of the construction cost even when it's supposedly a private enterprise, and the tickets end up costing so much that locals can't afford to go to the events anyway), and so on. And it's a rare building that manges to be both useful And beautiful. Most supposedly 'beautiful' new buildings are, in reality, bug ugly (ranging from oppressive to 'ugh' to Litterally Painful To Look At because some idiot didn't account for the SUN when including massive curved glass pannels everywhere) and badly designed from a utility perspective too. Very Occasionally a station manages to be both plesent to look at and not awful to use, but 'unassuming' is more common.

[@ladymorwendaebrethil-feani4031]

I tend to support things like preserving historic heritage, but I live in a country where zoning is much more flexible and where most people live in medium to high density neighborhoods. However in my specific city the city government recently passed a draconian zoning ordinance to appease the NIMBYS and this is causing a lot of problems. Now developers are building high rise buildings in environmental preservation areas in neighboring cities, causing deforestation and creating a large movement of cars, because there is no mass public transport to these cities. Basically, the city hall expelled the developers from the central areas and inner suburbs and sent them out of the city limits, into a valley beyond a mountain range. As the neighboring municipality does not regulate anything, they literally deforested the entire valley and destroyed a spring to build exclusively residential Vancouver towers of 20-30-40 floors, while the central area of the city, which is not historic, is becoming completely degraded and surrounding there are dozens of blocks full of industrial warehouses and partially abandoned warehouses, something very similar to Skid Row in LA, which could give rise to mixed high rise developments of this size, including buildings with social housing, all less than 1km from downtown and next to the subway. Most shockingly, the NIMBYs in my city are progressive and believe that restricting development will help create social housing. Even one of my friends is a left-wing NIMBY and he totally believes in a suburban model of the American way of life with single-family houses, with a garden and garage. In fact I think that people in my country in general are making the wrong decisions in many things and that we will pay dearly soon. And when that happened I'm going to become an immigrant.

[@shannonhooper7945]

I’d really be interested in your take on a trend I’ve seen since recently moving back to Seattle where the city allows new buildings to be built within & on top of the facade of existing buildings. It kind of makes for a weird visual sometimes but I think I like it. Seattle has also recently overhauled an old industrial neighborhood (South Lake Union) & turned it into a mixed use hub for tech/biotech companies & workers. It’s actually a really beautiful neighborhood now (especially compared to what it looked like 20 yrs ago) & I’d be super interested in your take on the area starting from maybe Westlake Park (a public plaza that they tried to make more of a pedestrian mall at one point) north to Lake Union & east to the Space Needle.

[@alexhaowenwong6122]

Speaking of college towns, Irvine was unusual in that it was a purpose built city for an institution just like Canberra, except the institution was a state university rather than the national government.

[@jcarey568]

Can you do a video about warehouses? In particular, they are popping up in Central Pennsylvania on some of the best farmland in the country, and residents are fighting back. Is it a losing battle? Also, can you do a video about the incredibly high price of farmland and what farmers can do to ensure that when they have to sell, then their land won't become a warehouse? What are some of the most successful strategies being used to maintain farmland for future generations? Does preserving farmland in land trust work? Thank you!

[@LaneCorbett]

He doesn't care about us rural folks, he just wants more cities

[@dcseain]

Washington DC 's facade preservation law strikes a balance of streetscape and modernization. It started with the Evening Star building on Pennsylvania Ave NW.

[@Grunch420]

Hey, I used to live at the very bottom of that map you showed of Laurelhurst, just outside the historic zone! Great vid, learned a lot about my city.

[@Spudeaux]

I live in a historic district in Jacksonville, FL. Something interesting that contrasts quite a bit with what you talk about in the video, is that in my historic district, and the other two districts in this city, additional dwelling units & multi-family housing have always been allowed, while when you get away from the city center, that's where they begin to be outlawed. Anyway, if you visit many cities in the south, you'll find a lot of sparse emptiness near the city centers where vibrant neighborhoods used to be, but were torn down to make way for progress that never actually happened. Another important fact that a lot of people fail to consider is that white people weren't the only ones who fled to the suburbs during the so-called "white flight". It was really anybody who could, which included a large number of middle class minorities. Historic designations may have resulted in changed demographics for a lot of neighborhoods, but I'm afraid that being razed to the ground would have been their only other possible fate, since that's exactly what happened to the places that people didn't care about.

[@dtrahn1218]

Thank you for pointing this out. Agreed. I live in the northeast "rust belt" area and am a land use planner. At one point during an economic downturn, my hometown thought "progress" would be tearing down architectural gems and replacing them with a parking garage. Luckily, wiser minds prevailed, and those buildings were preserved and are now occupied by flourishing businesses. We also own a building in a historic district where density and mixed uses are encouraged. Our city wants affordable housing but not at the cost of losing architectural integrity. You can have density and preserve beautiful architecture. I watched as mansions were turned into multi-family buildings around here in decades past and now are being returned to single family use. Yes, its gentrification but it's not a bad thing. It's reinvestment in degraded and abandoned building stock.

[@JohnFromAccounting]

The 1960s were a mistake.

[@dragonofepics7324]

@@dtrahn1218 Wait, why is turning mansions into multi-family dwellings a bad thing?

[@dtrahn1218]

@@dragonofepics7324 On its face, it isn't. In reality? During the 20th century property owners in many rust belt cities stripped houses in "mansion row" of their architectural features (mantles, woodwork, staircases, lighting etc.), made cheap renovations (fake walls, aluminum siding, generic trims) and ran them into the ground as slum housing.

[@veitforabetterworld]

It's bizarre for me to see these rules from the United States. I'm from Germany and we also have historic districts, but often this only means that the appearance of the house is regulated, e. g. the roof colour and angle, the window type, the maximum fence height or that it isn't allowed to have empty space between houses to create an closed Fassade front. Only some historical buildings or parts of buildings (usually but not all from the 18th century or older) are as we say in German "denkmalgeschützt" (protected monuments). These buildings can still be extended or renovated with approval from the "lower monument conservation authority" as long as the historic parts of the building remain preserved. Sorry for my bad English

[@JohnFromAccounting]

The cities which were destroyed and rebuilt quickly are also the ugliest. The ones that were left alone are popular tourist destinations, and great places to live.

[@sunshineimperials1600]

To be fair though, most of your “historical” buildings aren’t original anyways. Aerial bombings and warfare from both of the World Wars, especially the second war decimated nearly all of the history in German cities.

[@joshuamccready1447]

I live in an historic district that is a buffer against suburban sprawl in metro Detroit. The historic district I live in has prevented the razing of buildings for parking spaces and has allowed me to take my feet for local trips to groceries, dining, parks, and entertainment. There even used to be a train stop nearby which would take me to work if service were ever restored (it came close in 2018)... I'd say this video biases the identification of bad actors and does not really present a full view of what historic districts can do to preserve walkable cities that already exist. The video is especially bad as in its discussion of city council slathering of historic districts, in my town the historic districts were made as part of a survey of existing buildings and was constrained to historic areas one would expect. The video also fails to distinguish between what the national register of historic places really protects vs. what an historic district protects. In reality being on the national register does not save structures from demolition or significant alteration. Whereas in historic districts, projects such as road widening can be curtailed which preserves older more pedestrian friendly design. While it is true that historic districts add a layer of complexity to change, the idea that they are always weaponized is unfair treatment to the subject. Some criticism of cherry picking "high" examples of historic structures is warranted. Frankly, it isn't t he historic district that ultimately opposes allowing density, its ultimately the people in positions of power. My historic district is enabling dense housing that would otherwise not be built or would be built differently. At the same time, it does make demolishing structures which have deteriorated slightly more challenging. I live in Ypsilanti, MI. Come for a visit.

[@JohnFromAccounting]

Destroit doesn't have a problem with housing density. Well they do, in the sense that there are not enough people to live in the homes.

[@_Itchy_Bones_]

Don't diss the garden

[@YTLuc]

*Dubai and Singapore.* Can you do a video about the impact emerging global cities are having on urbanism and architecture?

[@hngldr]

My favorite is when people try to make a 20 year old parking lot "historic"

[@EibaProductions]

In Europe, especially in the German speaking regions, historic landmarks and districts are a real hazzle. For every change or building adjustment, everything needs approving by the local legislation and or national heritage comittee. That drives up cost massively. For instance, if you're buying a house considered "historic" or a "heritage", and you would like to change the windows, you would need to prove that the new windows do not change the outside look and are on the outside the same as before. In that case, it leaves you with new, old looking glass plates outside and new, modern insulating windows on the inside. That being said, old buildings in Europe are really old - especially from an American perspective.

[@purplebrick131]

Yeah Denkmalschutz can really be overzealous at times, I think there needs to be more flexibility in the system. And maybe not every ugly parking garage from the 60ies needs to be historic. On the other hand I'm absolutely glad we don't demolish what historic building stock we still have willy-nilly like they do in the US. There's only so much of it to go around after all. And for my part, seeing how Florence preserved their skyline and after all those centuries, its still just red roofs and the large dome towering above them was an absolutely wonderful experience. I wouldn't have those codes laxened for ugly modernist towers to be built in between the city fabric

[@JohnFromAccounting]

On one hand, yes it can make it more expensive. On the other hand, who wants to visit a hodgepodge ugly location? Passau is a beautiful city for the mix of medieval and baroque architecture, and you can see the progression between the styles. The modern buildings outside the altstadt are ugly, bland and an eyesore. All of the tourists on the river cruises love the altstadt and never even visit the newer modern zones. If they started putting modern buildings next to the rathaus or the cathedral it would totally destroy the tourism industry in the city.

[@chicosajovic7680]

At what point in time should a neighborhood be frozen in time? Pre human, early human occupation, European colonization, farming land, small rural village, industrial town or high density urban center?

[@theotherohlourdespadua1131]

France preserved a village whose only reason for doing so is that it was fully destroyed by the SS in 1944 along with most of the villagers in it as reprisal for supporting the Resistance. De Gaulle declared it a war monument to the evils of the SS in the 1950's...

[@JohnFromAccounting]

The point where all the wealthy people spent money on nice buildings. If you haven't reached that point yet, then let them keep demolishing and rebuilding everything.

[@scottsloop1402]

This is a really great video. Hadn’t thought about the effect of historical designation on gentrification

[@Nick-kz6dg]

Exactly what's happening in North Adelaide which is part of the Adelaide city centre but the residents refuse to allow development of any kind. The biggest example was the old LeCornu site on the main street left abandoned and grassy for over 3 decades.

[@dharrellsmith3523]

Love your videos keep up the good work

[@lucasjames7524]

The destruction of the old Pennsylvania Station is one of the most serious and damning crimes of the NYC officials in the city's history. As someone who once had to commute through Penn Station every day, it's literally like the entryway to Hell. Shame on everyone who ever thought that destroying the old Penn Station was a good idea.

[@laurencefraser]

I dunno, I've seen and heard a lot of things about awful behaviour from NYC officials. It certainly seems to have been one of the most Visible examples, though.

[@sor3999]

This video argues against it's demolishment, but then outlines why it was a good move. Sure it was a pretty building, but it just sounds like they overinvested in rail's expansion and it went into disrepair and was losing money. What other argument is there for maintaining a useless building? People just assume preserving the building will somehow bring back it's glory days. There are just some things you just can't preserve. Nostalgia isn't a good reason to take up needed space. There's no stopping the inevitable march of time and progress and no use clinging to what was.

[@JohnFromAccounting]

@@sor3999 It wasn't a useless building, it was a vital piece of New York's character and infrastructure. The NYC subway is filthy and disgusting, and that's partly as a result of shifting everything underground into the rat maze. Surprise surprise, when you shuffle them down into the rat maze people act like rats. When they walked into Penn Station, they were important people, and behaved in a way that important people do.

[@bobsykes]

Oh, yes. Jumping right over to Nebula for your college towns video.

[@StrawB0ss]

I live in a historic district in New Orleans. Historic preservation and property value preservation are not mutually exclusive. If someone wanted to build some denser residential in my neighborhood I would flip my wig for both reasons.

[@pongop]

Great video! Thank you for keeping it real and discussing so important topics. Yeah, Parks and Rec! There's also hotel near the town hall with a courtyard that they filmed scene in.

[@cubey]

I know of a city that had severe downtown decay in the 1970s due to stores moving to shopping centers and malls, and what gets tons of funding in the US? Police. They ripped out several historical blocks for a massive brutalist police station with a jail on top. They also put a separate, hideous low budget construction jail next to the historic train station. In addition, a 10 story tall, former hospital that moved to a new facility in the 1990s, is also a jail. There's at least half a dozen bail bond places taking up store fronts in the area. But now they're trying to revitalize downtown and it'll probably never happen. Who wants to live by that?

[@runswithraptors]

You must be in a major metro? I've never heard of so many jails in one area

[@cjaquilino]

Yeah, in my hometown (working class and majority minority) they demolished 50 historic buildings during urban renewal for two parking lots, a bank drive thru, and a drab looking police station. Wish we had the power to resist that.

[@MrJstorm4]

Do you recall the name of that city?

[@cubey]

@@runswithraptors Nope it's a pretty modest sized city. There's even more jails around the city.

[@cubey]

@@MrJstorm4 Texarkana, like in Smokey and the Bandit. It's two cities in two states and counties, so it has twice the police and twice the jails. It's half a mile of walking to pass by three different jail facilities according to Google maps

[@mind-of-neo]

Historic districts ALWAYS gave me a STRONG rich-people-only, you're not welcome here vibe.

[@xrz126]

WAAAAH NOT THE HISTORIC BUILDINGS WAAAAH😭😭😭

[@UrbanDox]

I always wondered if historic districts were used just for property value

[@donaldtank]

What if you want to put in a groundscraper apartment complex a groundscraper is a building built deep underground?

[@writnreal994]

it's simple: i see a critique with charleston sc on the thumbnail, i click.

[@sluggyyarvin]

Historic districts should be as small as possible and only be eligible if the super-majority of the properties are historic.

[@Bioniking]

Thank you for covering this and using your platform to spread awareness of these nimby issues. I live in the Bay Area currently, and I follow the housing news closely (as an aspiring planner). I think nimbys will be on the losing side of history, but they won’t go down without fight!

[@johnniemiec3286]

In regards to the new California law... if my neighbor basically turns a single family neighborhood into a high density space, do they owe me for lowering my property value? Because be sure, the homes on either side of that newly dense property will be worth less than they were and less than homes on the same street farther away from the four homes on a single lot situation. If I am paying the cost to buy a home in a nice suburb, I do not want my neighbors packed in on top of me as tightly as possible. That after all is a huge part of the allure of suburban over urban living, much more personal space.

[@josephfisher426]

It will only drive down your value if it instantly becomes a slum in which further investment is clearly unproductive. As long as there is demand to build more units on your property, your value should actually go up. But how long will this last is the question. Clearly a city will lose some low-maintenance residents this way, the sort of people who LIKE to maintain their property, and most sales for denser redevelopment are an exchange of a resident landowner with a direct stake in maintaining the unmeasurables of social order for an absentee landlord that sees only the dollar signs. You have to run it right, and California is leading the world in demonstrating that it won't do that. From a planning perspective, I would be concerned about the demographics. You can have dense housing only in certain places, and people who don't want to live in that type of area can preferentially locate themselves outside those areas at a much greater velocity than redevelopment can achieve. Does this hurt the affordable single-family areas?

[@tristerojade8543]

@@josephfisher426 The increased density will immediately degrade the quality of life in the neighborhood: more traffic, more noise, fewer trees, compromised views, etc.

[@josephfisher426]

@@tristerojade8543 That's what I would think too. But in that situation you're probably not selling the house for what it is worth to you or another homeowner like you, but what it is worth to a builder.

[@MrBirdnose]

I've lived in some places that were building out denser housing like that, and it actually drove property values up, not down.

[@johnniemiec3286]

@MrBirdnose interesting. I am in an area where every time a new multi family unit is proposed, all the neighbors scream about property values until the project is quietly moved on from. I guess I assumed if their argument was that easily paried then the developers would, at least on occasion, bring that up as an effective counterpoint. If they do, that part never makes the local story.

[@vickymc9695]

I live in a town where most buildings frontages have preservation orders on them. These are often used by landlords, and business as an excuse to not do small allowed disability adaptations. This makes the whole town extremely inaccessible. And because the landlord only have to keep the outside good; we have pretty buildings that are slums. Rotting from the inside out.

[@andrewdietz1312]

Historic districts have the same property value effects on "poor" neighborhoods ... You get old run-down buildings that continue to fall apart while all the residents are stuck on rent subsidies so they can stay living there. So the district creates an artificial ghetto that can't be redeveloped, but the properties are too expensive to maintain without outside money. Genius!!

[@MrBirdnose]

And often this is deliberate -- if an owner is stuck with a "historic" building that they aren't allowed to renovate, the only way out is to allow it to decay until it's condemned. Then it can be demolished and they can build what they want.

[@Cristal3]

I live near Maastricht, which is an old city in the Netherlands that dates back to roman times. The local population protested heavily against replacing the cobblestone paths in the shopping areas with proper pavement...without much consideration for the effect this has on disabled people who use mobility devices like wheelchairs. To many people historic preservation is more important than accessibility. Just another example of how NIMBYs weaponize historic districts.

[@ulrichspencer]

This video makes me think that maybe city ownership ought to be a requirement for a historic designation. For two reasons: 1) placing historic status on residents is a huge burden and super restrictive, and 2) it encourages our cities to only designate properties that are likely "worth it" to protect. Historic train stations? Absolutely! Keep it running as a really nice train station. And the taxpayers foot the bill for historic preservation of it instead of offloading it onto private individuals. Housing? Well, if people are still going to live there, all that does is place undue restrictions on what people can do with their own private property. That seems pretty anti-freedom to me, especially for a country like the US that purports itself to be the "land of the free". Plus, it just burdens lower-income residents with expensive and strict maintenance, which just pushes them out. And if you reeeeaaaally want a house to be historic, just make it a museum or repurpose it into something else public.

[@vincetagliano9910]

The line between YIMBYism and Soviet-style collectivization is a very thin one.

[@kosrules1884]

I think certain cities do it partially right. Like the city of Savannah I love visiting. Because they have a bunch of old historical Buildings that are now businesses. So they're being used by businesses that are used by businesses that are usually local. But I've also been to Charleston where some of their historical buildings are open. But a lot of it is just private buildings. They can only see the outside of and it's like. I would love to see some of close but it's also expensive place to just stay at because they don't allow New hotels to be built. Compared to the city of savannah which is It's a similar city concerned about the colonial cities and it has more hotels in its historic district

[@scottr303]

I have wondered about an unintended result of laws like those passed in Oregon, Minniapolis and California. Maybe someone here knows if this has happened. Developers will see an opportunity to buy lots, tear down the existing homes and build more new, even more expensive homes, that push poorer people out. Some will have to leave because they are renters while others will sell for some decent, not great, dollars for their land. One of the concepts I learned early on as a Plan Commissioner from a Citizen is "Expectations". People invest (usually their largest investment ever) with the expectation that they are in a single family neighborhood, hopefully owner occupied. To see their dream of a home in a single family neighborhood turn into a multi-family rental neighborhood can be traumatic. And.....it won't happen in the rich neighborhoods where they are protected by HOA's or deed restrictions but will happen in poorer neighborhoods where the land will be cheaper. Thanks

[@TetanusSnowfall]

As long as people are convinced that housing should just intrinsically increase in value this kind of capital-driven preservation is gonna stay the norm. These clowns don't seem to realise their areas aren't valuable because they're old; they have to actually have things of quantifiable worth if their whole scheme is having some ind of property-value katamari.

[@stephen7938]

The biggest issue here is that history rarely preserves most buildings in cities, that's not how cities grow and evolve and to alter or halt that is destroying history to be made itself. Selfishness is what it comes down to especially with historical districts.

[@johnson941]

I live in an old historic town, which is famous countrywide for our thatched roofed houses from the 18th and 19th century. It is mostly preserved great, but some places, there are appalling examples of 1970's single family homes, which just looks eye soaringly awful compared to the nice harmony between the older houses. So to say that "NIMBYs weaponize historic districts" is way off in my opinion. What is harmful is the lack of respect for the neighbourhood, that we see with every single new apartment complex. We even have our own example. A new apartment complex is currently being build next to some of the old well-preserved houses, but they don't at all follow the character of the other buildings surrounding it. While the others are 1-2 floors, these are ruining the area with 3-4. No building is that high, which makes it seem like the houses was build to capitalize on the higher house prices here (still very affordable compared to the larger cities) than over on the mainland, while holding no regard to the sense of historic significance, that makes the town more attractive to live in for a certain type of people.

[@laurencefraser]

I'm not sure it's 'way off', it's certainly a thing that Happens... it's just one of Many problems, some of which exist as a result of trying to deal with others, with how the USA does cities in general (not that it's the only place with such issues.)

[@johnson941]

@@laurencefraser And I agree on the point made about making an area "historically significant" in turn for higher housing prices benefiting the people, who already live there. However, in reality, the general trend is that, where there are profit seeking developers, there will be disgustingly ugly houses and apartments. All build in the same neutral "Neo-modernist" style to look good on CGI renders. New housing is never affordable, in 9,8/10 cases of very low architectural value and takes absolutely no regard to the houses, which have been there all the time. I am personally not against new houses because of my oh-so valuable selling price. I believe that good and affordable housing, that takes history, as well as green space and public places, into account is a good thing. However, developers have proven time and time again to disregard the neighbourhood character and just slap something up that looks nice on a render, but really just is poorly build boxes with money as the driving factor.

[@JohnFromAccounting]

Yes that is also true. Capitalists don't care about beauty, or cultural enrichment. They care about profit. There is more profit to be made in demolishing a beautiful house and constructing 8 units.