Archive for July, 2006
The flip side of historic preservation . . .
From The Walk-Through, the real estate weblog of the New York Times:
Tim and Laura Dierks were interested in buying this small Brooklyn house until they realized the implications of its location, in the Carroll Gardens Historic District. If they wanted to add a top floor, they would have to wade through an extra layer of bureaucracy, gaining approval from the Landmarks Preservation Commission. There was no guarantee this would happen.
This is a risk in Phoenix, too. As much as we might love the legacy housing we have managed to preserve, the homes that have received historic designation are as much ossified as protected. Significant changes, at least any that might be visible from the street, are essentially forbidden. That’s as may be, but we also have very few opportunities in the Central Corridor for contemporary architects to create new classics.
1 commentWhy stop at recycling the newsprint?
It’s deja vu all over again at the Arizona Republic. Magazine names Willo district one of top cottage communities it says in Wednesday’s paper:
They’re busting their buttons in the downtown Phoenix neighborhood of Willo.Cottage Living magazine has named the historic district as one of the “Top 10 Cottage Communities in America.”
A profile of the neighborhood, generally bounded by Central and Seventh avenues and Thomas and McDowell roads, will appear in the July/August 2006 issue of the national publication.
Great news. Trouble is, it’s old news. The same article ran in the paper on June 30th.
Oh, what the heck. Even if it’s a twice-told tale, it’s still a great story:
“Places with charming architecture, where you can skip the car and stroll to locally owned shops and restaurants; places where neighbors know your name and are happy to have a cookout on Friday evening,” [Cottage Living Editor in Chief Eleanor Griffin] said. “Willo boasts crisply manicured lawns and small, doted-on houses of all types – it’s definitely a charming community of tight-knit residents.”No comments
All right, let’s call this a beta launch…
We’ll do a true soft-launch shortly, then work toward a go-live soon after that, at which point this post will go away.
For now, we need a lot:
1. Blog entries appropriate to the site: Historic/distinctive/mid-century posts: news/homes/neighborhoods/architects, etc. Books to recommend, better yet book reviews as blog entries. Web site recommendations, also best as blog entries. If you’ve never done a weblog entry before, relax: The style of blogging is intimate, confidential, low-stress. The first editor I ever had said, “You write like you’re writing a letter to your sister.” But exactly! That’s what works with real live people.
3. Links in general: Web sites, books. The books in the sidebar are exemplars. If you think something else should be there, say so.
4. Content. Of the eight internal pages in the sidebar, one is kinda-sorta done at this writing. If you want to suggest content for the others, jump in in the comments fields of those pages. I’d love it if you took the photos or dug up the info for a Distinctive Neighborhoods page.
5. Bugs! Report unexpected behavior, typos, bad grammar/logic. If something seems wrong, speak up. Ain’t nobody here but us chickens for now.
etc.
We have software coming for the “Show us your house” and “Featured listings” pages, but it ain’t ready yet.
Bloodhound owns this, of course, by the Henny Penny Law, and we are asserting a blanket copyright over everything. With respect to the former, we want to be brokerage-neutral, so other than the copyright notice, we will draw attention to ourselves in only those ways available to other agents/brokers–by our contributions. With respect to copyright, all we’re doing is effecting a common defense. If you acquired something by mixing your labor with it–the John Locke standard–it’s yours. We’ll help you defend it if that proves necessary.
Ultimately, the user community will establish the modus vivendi of this site, but from a Realtors’ point of view, we have an opportunity to promote, educate and grow the marketplace. Everyone else will get satisfaction from their efforts. You will have the opportunity to get paid as a consequence of the work you do.
At the meta level, we’re playing with a lot of Web 2.0 ideas–community participation, wisdom-of-crowds, viral marketing, etc. We’ll be doing more of that stuff as we progress. In the long run, survival for traditional Realtors will come down to findability. Our true competition — national RealtyBots — will be eminently findable. A site like this permits each of us to emphasize precisely those strengths absent from disintermediated business models–all to a steady, stable, self-selected population of volunteer reader/contributors, all of whom are already interested in our product.
If you had the link from me by email, you’re welcome to work. If you don’t wanna, you don’t gotta, but the further and faster we move the ball down the field now, the better the results should be for everyone.
Best,
Greg Swann
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