I recently saw a news feature about Detroit. Due to the foreclosure crisis, some homes were selling for hundreds of dollars in areas where they had once sold for 100,000. These had been well kept places, with nice lawns and bushes. They had been family homes; the places where photos were taken and lovingly stuck into books. Entire blocks, such as Pole Town (a once vibrant, Polish community), had been razed and were empty wastelands.
Not only are the people evicted with 24 hour notices, but this is the loss of history. Look at these buildings. How can we excuse the loss of these wonderful architectural glories? I admit that I am a bit of an art person, and I love the historical, but it's inexcusable.
How does kicking out a family benefit anybody? Allow them to stay at lower payments if possible. These banks are nothing more then criminals. Yet, they got huge buy-outs when the country sank into an abyss.
Where did these people go? We'll never replace the buildings once gone. The community is destroyed. I despise the suits more and more every day.
I don't know how it is in Canada but here it seems people could care less and less about history and preserving beautiful buildings. We let them to fall apart to the point that they either cost too much to restore or are beyond repair. My country is one of McHomes that lack charm and craftsmanship.
ReplyDeleteThe banks suck and I can't understand why they would rather foreclose instead of lowering payments.
Where I live on the west coast, everything is fairly new. A lot of buildings were destroyed in the great Vancouver Fire at the turn of the century. The worst thing is the destruction of the farmland, wetlands, etc. They'll also try to stick several houses on what was once one lot, cutting down all the trees in the process---no character. The strip-malls are ugly and the houses are generic with the vinyl siding in the newly built suburban areas. There's concern for making sure that native artifacts aren't lost in any new mega- developments. With the last bridge project, a dig was undertaken first on both sides to make sure that there hadn't been a settlement there. I know it's done properly as the person behind the one site was a relative, and he's avid and committed. They did find and protect Native tools, etc. The people involved are archeologists. People bitch about the cost, but once that stuff's paved over, it's gone for good. Unfortunately, it wasn't done in the past.
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