Dear Editor:
The North Shore News recent four-part series, Our Changing Landscapes, was a feel-good piece of development-industry propaganda.
Just look at the politicians, municipal staff and architectbuilder-developers the North Shore News chose to repetitively quote, as the so-called "experts" of why the North Shore has opted for high-density/highrise over single family communities. This same ideology will only continue to geometrically proliferate until it finally smacks into the same less peaceful, more violent, ever greater grid-lock, rat-race wall as that of a multitude of other inner-city urban areas in the world.
This series of narrowly selective interviews, that excluded the wisdom and insights of so many dissident voices that would take the North Shore in a diametrically opposite direction, makes so many why's crystal clear.
These why's, writ large, ask:
- Why, historically, has there been such a woeful lack of awareness of what real heritage is or isn't?
- Why, as a result, has so little been preserved to date or selected for preservation (but probably won't be)?
- Why haven't the North Shore's politicians and municipalities ever opted to permanently put into place the necessary bylaws, zoning regulations and legalities that will ensure the protection and preservation of the heritage and character of its original homes and single family neighbourhoods, or the original mature native trees, lush landscapes and prolific gardens that once proliferated on the streets of all its communities?
- Why has the general populace gone along with all that has been and continues to be squandered, the very essence of that which gave the North Shore its uniquely rare, iconic look?
Goodbye, heritage. Goodbye, character. Goodbye, North Shore iconic look.
Jerome Irwin, North Vancouver
