This week I'm in a little burg outside of Indianapolis. When we first pulled off Hwy. 70 and came to the motel, I was very unimpressed. Chain restaurants. Industrial park style buildings. It turns out that this was the "new" part of town.
Later, we drove into the old city center and my opinion of Greenfield radically changed. The old buildings were beautiful. As near as I could tell, they had been built for beauty and not cost savings. The difference was remarkable.
I would never trade a typewriter or car or drug from 1920 for those available today. So why is it that buildings from that period look so much better?
And it made me wonder: have we given up esthetics for progress? Are block building WalMarts really what we want in lieu of Victorian homes. Do we want architecture approved by accountants rather than architects and artists?
