Knight, Sandra (US - Philadelphia) wrote:
Alberto: Maybe Historic Designation is a concept whose time has come. Maybe, like representational democracy or equality, it is just waiting around morphing until the correct distillation to be effective.This is a point that needed to be made. The desire for Historic Preservation is a good one, and our neighborhood would certainly benefit from a decent historic preservation initiative. But the current proposal has a lot of problems, most of which the Spruce Hill Neighborhood Alliance has described on its website (http://www.shnalliance.org). It's like handling crime; we want decent policing and crime deterrence, but we don't want to live in a police _state_. (Only people who want a police state are the ones who want to exploit it for themselves.)
That's why Councilwoman Blackwell's bill is so valuable. Despite the hysterical claims and rumors spread by HD advocates (some of which are genuinely slanderous), it gives our neighborhood leverage to demand an HD that's not the one-size-fits-all system of the PHC. If we can develop a better HD, one that shows popular support beyond that of the advocates' particular organizations, we can get Councilwoman Blackwell to throw her support behind designation. The SHNA's proposal is a first-start at this process.
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