In today’s world, of often deliberately designed obsolescence, people are always replacing what is seemingly pretty darn good, for what they have been told will be better, and therefore are paying again and again for goods, that apparently offer some incremental improvement in performance and reliability. When it comes to buildings and homes, though, that which is old, isn’t necessarily of no and little value; for, in fact, a fair amount of old buildings and old homes are structurally sound, made of good materials, as well as competent craftsmanship, of which, quality and care of this sort is seemingly harder to find today; for we live in an era in which profit, above all, as well as the substituting of materials of lesser quality, are the shortcuts that often trump, good value and longevity.
The above signifies that therefore buildings and homes which are old, aren’t necessarily structures that necessitate always the removal or destruction of, especially if those structures have had periodic maintenance and upkeep throughout their life to date. After all, in many cases, repair and rehabilitation, is a far more cost-effective decision to make in regards to our older structures, rather than some simplistic reasoning that all buildings of a certain age, have no or little utility, at all. Additionally, older homes and buildings bring historic value to communities, of which, some of these structures are a form of beautiful architecture in their own right, as well as typically being materially different in their look than what is being so built in the present day.
Further to the point, the destruction of older structures and thereby the wholesale replacement of such, typically costs a lot of money, and of which, that which thereby replaces such, is going to have to recover its expensive cost of construction, through correspondingly higher pricing and the like, of that which was so replaced. This so indicates, that those that insist upon the wisdom of the new forcing out the old, need to be more cognizant, that not everyone or every community can prudently afford the new, and that the outright removal of older structures, actually serves to therefore take away opportunities and housing for those of lesser income and wealth, as well as limiting the choices for those that are more conservative in their expenditures so being made.
So then, a significant number of older buildings and homes have value and good purpose, of which, it should be part and parcel of communities that are considering redevelopment and the like, to take into fair account, that not everything that is old, has little or no utility; for the contrary view tells us, that they most definitely do, and further we know that a dollar saved, is the same as a dollar earned. So too, that which is new and valued today, will at some point, be considered old and of lesser value in the future, of which, the money, materials, and labor spent on these various infrastructures so having been built, needs to be fully acknowledged, so that rather than taking the position that something is always considered to be obsolete because it is old, we recognize instead the sensibility that we should not necessarily judge a book by its cover.