Originally Posted by BrianTH
The Larimer school building is so cool.
Generally, I think too many locals don't understand clearly what they have with these historic buildings, and why it is so important to the region's future. The world is still globalizing. Pittsburgh is not a national or even state capitol, nor huge or growing in population. And transportation, both local and intercity, will always be a challenge.
It does have some world class universities, but after that this is really the other big thing it has going for it--a historic built environment than many other cities could only dream of, because they either never had it or it got destroyed already.
That translates into neighborhoods that are cool, attractive, hip, and so on--and yet, affordable, whether that is for work, living, or play. You can build new neighborhoods on such a model, but it almost never really works out the same. Plus, GOOD new stuff is expensive. So the more historic elements you can incorporate, the more competitive you can be.
I'm not saying every building can or should be saved, but the attitude should be this is our legacy, our ace in the hold, and it should be played wisely.
Instead, I think the irony is there is SO much of this here, people treat it almost like an inexhaustible resource. We'll never run out of old buildings around here, right?
Until, we do. And then it will be too late to undo what we did.
Oh well. Hopefully as the local electorate keeps shifting to new people, with different perspectives, some of this will get better.
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