What to call the city now? Rubble? Demolition Site?
Despite massive public outrage, and despite having expert advice that it was salvagable, the Anglican church has decided to demolish the cathedral. Well that's been obvious since the bishop started talking about 'no appetite' to 'build a replica' back in June or July or whenever it was - a comment which has always annoyed me because if we used the same bricks and stone it wouldn't be a bloody replica, it would be the old one repaired and restored. Her careful use of that word has led a lot of people to the point we are at today. The icon of our city, the thing that gives us identity to the rest of the country, will be bulldozed (okay not literally, but figuratively it will).
On top of that we are having a new building shut down practically every day because it's 'quake prone' and many will now be demolished. The older buildings that were spared from the quake are falling victim to the 'uneconomical to repair' garbage. By the time the 'too badly damaged' ones and the 'uneconomical' ones are demolished there will be nothing left of the city (not to mention what becomes of the city's economics if all the damn buildings are shut down and no-one can operate a business). And what we are getting in their place is a whole lot of uninspired concrete and glass square things. I look at the people in this city, who are creative and innovative and engaged and being hampered by bureaucrats and money men, and I despair. The people who live here are being shut out of the rebuilding of this city and what will be constructed doesn't look like somewhere I want to be. All the vaunted 'Share An Idea' stuff has still to be signed off by the government and in the meantime several horrible looking buildings have been given the go ahead. There is no cohesion, no vision and certainly nothing resembling anything that people wanted from the central city plan.
I sit here tonight and I don't see any sort of good future for this place. An army of bean counters and bureaucrats are busy destroying our past, against much detailed advice from experts in many fields from business to engineering, and developers are rushing in to put up disgusting things to replace it. The future is bleak and the post I made all that time ago about the cathedral being the still beating heart of the city may just be true but in a way I didn't envisage - it will now stop beating and without a heart what becomes of the city? It becomes a lifeless body, kept alive artificially but with nothing left to give it any soul. If the cathedral was once our best symbol of hope it is now clearly a sign of hopelessness. Practically everything I spoke about in that post is now gone - Cashel Street has been bulldozed to make way for the container mall, the buildings on the Strip are all coming down, or seem to be, as well and of course the cathedral is about to be knocked down too. If that one was subtitled 'regaining hope' this one should probably be called 'losing hope.'