Don Luxton led off a panel discussion at SFU Woodward’s last night, hosted by Heritage Vancouver, with an explanation of The Future of Heritage In Vancouver – What the New Thematic Framework Means for Our City. (It’s not just about registering more Edwardian mansions and arts-and-crafts bungalows. There’s a place for lawn-bowling pitchs, aboriginal middens and gay bars.)
Don is the perfect guy to do it as the consultant to the City’s next phase in updating the Heritage Register. (He worked on the first one back in 1986, for heaven’s sake, and is one of the key go-to consultants in the province.) Indeed, maybe Don should be on the register himself: he’s been around long enough and certainly worth preserving. His contribution has been historic!
Don has less patience these days for using indiscriminate heritage preservation as a nimbyist strategy to prevent change. Indeed, his best quote came late in the evening:
“This is not a city to be in if you’re afraid of change.”
I like that quote. I would rephrase it as “this is not the universe to be in if you don’t like change.”.
Change is going to happen whether we like it or not nad whether we’re involved in it or not.
The only choice we have is to be miserable or not.
Judging by the paucity of comments on this post, most people don’t give a rat’s about heritage preservation; and most of those who do, as alluded to above, will be too dead to care.
For me, the most important message of the evening was that heritage is not just about preserving the past, it’s also about building the future.