Dad’s are funny. Sometimes they are comical too, but almost always funny. My dad has been spouting two sayings for as long as I can remember, his 3 rules – “No excuses. No lies. And I’m here to learn.” -Â and “Prior planning prevents piss poor performance.” It’s the latter that I want to touch on today. I was walking home a few days back and saw this (also the picture to the left of this post). It appears to be a parking garage that is roughly 15 years old, at the most, being demolished.
What resources went into building this structure? What is required to dismantle it? I don’t know if you can see the water being sprayed on the debris to tamper dust, but this is a fairly new parking garage that is being demolished to make way for a street that is being widened or returned to its previous state. On the backside (as you look at the picture) the road is being straightened. Several years ago – in the early to mid 1990s I believe – it was curved to allow for a hospital complex to be built. From what I’ve read, that facility lasted less than 10 years before moving several miles west to a new campus. Now the road is being returned to its former straightness and this parking garage is being demolished.
If only they had listened to dear old dad, “prior planning prevents piss poor performance.” Granted, I don’t have all the information regarding why the hospital left in the first place, though it’s not too hard to imagine that money was a big factor. For the past decade, there has been a void in the neighborhood where the hospital complex is. Some of the buildings still stand, though when I first moved here I recall a few of the buildings being razed. What if a long-term view had been taken? What if buildings and parking garages could be rehabilitated or renovated or saved somehow? Again, I don’t know what will happen to the debris from the garage as it’s taken down, but that is hardly the point. Recycling material should be a last ditch effort. The saying isn’t “Recycle, reuse, reduce.” There’s a reason it is inverted. Urban planning involves numerous stakeholders with the intent to create a long-term vision that is mutually beneficial. Sometimes though short-term thinking prevails. In that case, we all lose.
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