Photo via Wikimedia Commons
Time to Stop Building Disposable Places by Daniel Herriges You hear it so often it sounds like a cliché: “Our
ancestors used to build things to last. Now we build them to be thrown away.” Sometimes, this sentiment is a cliché or an oversimplification: when it comes to homes, for example, our ancestors built plenty of rickety wooden shacks. They’re just not standing today for us to pass judgment on. But our forebears did so because of a lack of resources; they built what they could, with the intention of improving upon it incrementally as they could afford to. Disposability in modern society is different: it’s a function of our affluence, not our poverty. We make Southern Oregon Business Journal
things without regard to their durability because we can afford to, or we think we can—from single-use personal items like razors, to larger items like furniture. (Many of us have a chair or table that belonged to a grandparent or great-grandparent; how much of today’s IKEA wares do we expect our own grandchildren to hold onto?) But what happens when we apply that mindset to the very communities we live and work in? The Manhattan Institute’s Michael Hendrix, writing for Dallas News, wants to sound the alarm about the consequences of “disposable” growth. In an op-ed drawing heavily on the work of Strong Towns, titled 18