Quote:
Originally Posted by Nouvellecosse
Yea it's definitely ironic that many of the great cities today that are so iconic and worth preserving got that way after unimaginable destruction that completely swept away their earlier morphology. The Haussmann-era is a perfect example. If that stuff is worth preserving, does that mean it was also worth destroying the earlier stuff in the name of achieving?
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In Paris you see the odd medieval residential building and while they're interesting they're not to the same level as the architecture that the city is famous for.
https://www.google.com/maps/@48.8557...7i16384!8i8192
Then there's also medieval architecture of much higher quality like some of the old towers at the Conciergerie:
https://www.google.com/maps/@48.8565...7i13312!8i6656
Halifax has the same thing where, say, Province House or the older historic properties warehouses are more or less globally unique while there are some simple older wooden boxes that don't have the same significance and may or may not be deemed important to the area's character.
In the Halifax case though there are all kinds of empty and underused lots that can be redeveloped without sacrifice whereas pretty much every square inch of inner Paris is highly developed.
Personally I think Paris is a very odd comparison for Halifax. If you're looking at Europe you could also look at say the Netherlands which reminds me more of NS, like what you'd get if you made the Maritimes older and squished them into 1/10 the land area. Rotterdam seems a bit newer than Halifax, and Amsterdam sometimes has a similar relaxed and medium scale vibe but is much more historic and does a better job of heritage preservation. The transit there also makes Canada look pretty bad. I assume Scandinavia is similar or maybe even more advanced but I haven't been there before.
I couldn't help thinking in Amsterdam that 70% of the stuff there would be deemed "not economically viable" (i.e. not optimal for private property owner profits) and would be ruined after 10-20 of Halifax-style urban planning.