Harry Veeder wrote:
dilapidated Mom-and-Pop retail stores
> thrive. It helps explain why certain run-down neighborhoods in our cities
> deserve to stay pretty much intact the way they are, as compared
to being torn
> down and replaced with another ill thought out housing project, and with
> disastrous consequences.
I hope you don't mean such neighborhoods deserve to be left run-down.
It is surprising, but often they do! That is what the famous urban
activist Jane Jacobs said. (She died in April 2006 -- read her obits.)
Japanese cities in the 1970s were dilapidated by U.S. standards,
especially the collegetowns I used to live in. I used to live in a
Meiji-era "nagaya" apartment building with no sanitation and a crowd
of eccentrics who made the "Maison Ikkoku" comic book characters look
normal in comparison. These places have been "cleaned up" since then.
They are now lifeless and soulless. Run-down is okay, as long as
there are many people around who are enjoying themselves doing legal
activities.
- Jed
