Guest letter: Carefree use of the wrecking ball wrecks more than just houses

The current housing woes are not an easy problem to solve.

There are many different elements working together to help build and sustain a neighborhood. The city of Minneapolis has already taken a major step in saving the housing in the North Side with its court victory in having a third-party receiver appointed to gain control of 141 properties. Its recent revision of the Comprehensive Plan includes a section on the preservation of homes. That kind of leadership needs to be followed by sincere investments by the corporate community. Habitat for Humanity and Rebuilding Together Twin Cities are two organizations that come to mind that help people stay in their homes or help them to get into their first home.

Demolition is the easy solution. But once it is gone, it is gone forever, and it should be the last resort. I say last, because we have examples of past demolitions that have not been a viable solution. Examples such as the Phillips neighborhood, where crack houses were demolished and still there are empty lots. Even Minneapolis' downtown urban renewal of the 1960s is still reflected by the many parked cars on empty lots.

From a reuse point of view, the embodied energy to build these homes is lost and additional energy will be spent to tear down and rebuild. Payback is noted in this excerpt from the article I wrote for the last issue of Preservation Minnesota:

"Demolition forever removes the embodied energy found within an existing home as well as all the resources used for its construction. Construction of a new 'energy-efficient' residence requires 13 years of energy efficient operation before the embodied energy of an existing residence and the energy used to demolish it is recovered. Furthermore, trends show that we do not build the same size homes as we replace. Thus, these new homes, even though they may be built to be energy efficient, require more energy to operate. We need to be smarter in how we use our buildings and wiser in land use. Historic preservation does this; an existing building gets a new life and little or no new land is required. Less waste goes to the landfill and less energy is consumed."

The most important element here is people. It's the memory and a sense of place that make each neighborhood unique. Neighbors need to watch their neighborhood. Once you lose the historic fabric of a neighborhood, it cannot be replaced. (Just think of what the interstate system has done to the Central and Elliot neighborhoods.)

"Social sustainability" is important to preserving neighborhoods as much as the physical buildings. More home ownership and not absentee landlords are needed in neighborhoods, which was one of the successful goals set up by the Powderhorn Park Neighborhood Association with their use of Neighborhood Revitalization Program (NRP) funds.

John Stark is Minneapolis architect and president of Preserve Minneapolis, a new nonprofit dedicated to preserving the historic buildings and places in the city.