Owning The Views: Architecture, Consumer Self Restraint and Zoning
....
....welcome to the modern West. In recent years, every element of
private property has been boiled down to an economic value and any
zoning that might dampen that value now comes replete with a price tag,
a lawsuit or a proclamation that liberty has been lost.
Who owns the views in our communities and does any entity have
responsibility for preserving them?
This was a question I posed recently to students at Montana State
University where I was invited to deliver a talk to budding building
designers in the school of architecture.
The name of the class: "Personal Ethics." It was taught by professor
Lori Ryker, one of the leading thinkers in the West when it comes to the
topic of compatible architecture.
....
Is it a pompous and aesthetically elitist presumption to even think
about compatible building design as something less than a socialist
plot? Perhaps. Or perhaps not. Imagine the West if an "anything goes"
approach to planning and zoning were adopted as standard protocol.
The paradox of Libertarianism, the religious belief that freedom to make
any choice automatically means MORE OPPORTUNITY for self expression, is
that eventually the clutter produced by compliant Libertarian-driven
anti-planning and zoning may all end up looking like the same mess. Is
there not a tyranny that accompanies those who have no aesthetic
threshold imposing their will upon those who do?
Should the fate of sacred "viewsheds" in a community be left up to those
who have no regard for them? Should the desire of one person who aspires
to have property values appreciate by leaving a landscape more
aesthetically attractive, naturally, be held hostage to the junkyard
operator?
cont'd....
http://www.newwest.net/index.php/main/article/8949/