It's our Tear-Down Culture, My Friend.

All over Raleigh new replaces old. Or, the old is just torn down. King's is gone, to provide parking for clean and shiny NEW IMPROVED RALEIGH. On nearly every block downtown, there's a leveled lot or a building scheduled for oblivion. Look towards Raleigh's old, established and quite wonderful neighborhoods. You'll see homes waiting to be torn down, empty lots and homes newly constructed, often simply super-sized versions of the old houses.

Now, I am most certainly NOT against in-fill construction. My love's livelihood depends on it and I want to see cutting-edge, progressive and green architecture populate Raleigh's neighborhoods.

But I wonder, what happens when a house is simply destroyed?

There are many impacts, I fear, environmentally, socially, historically and economically. This last one, economics or just plain money, is almost certainly also the catalyst for the whole mess.

Next door to my house (until about 9 this morning) was a small, old, dilapidated house. It wasn't a gem, however, its previous occupants were. Our neighborhood (though perhaps not too neighborly) YMCA bought the house a few years ago along with several others in our tiny 'hood. All were slated for demolition.

It's not that I'm against progress, nor the expansion of good organizations such as the Y, but it hurts me to see these houses leveled. I'm not sure why, though I think it might have to do not only with the tremendous amount of waste created by routine (not salvage) demolition but with the people whose lives were spent there, their memories and their stories.

Their once-homes are gone.