4 ms·

The west side of San Francisco is nobody's idea of a World Heritage site. It's just bland California sprawl.

• arethuza 8y ago
  And there are many parts of Edinburgh that aren't that exceptional (or even very nice) - you don't keep everything in a museum but the things that are worth protecting should be protected. The catch is getting the balance right between the two extremes - it always seems to be presented as a false dichotomy between "no controls" and "no change". NB I'm no claiming that the Edinburgh planning process is perfect - just reacting on my experience of owning and living in listed properties in an extremely heavily controlled area.
  • greglindahl 8y ago
    So the unexceptional and un-nice areas of Edinburgh are also extremely heavily controlled? I can't figure it out from reading what you wrote. For SF, the whole place is heavily controlled.
    • arethuza 8y ago
      No there has been amount of new development in the last 20 years - particularly along the coastline where old harbour and dock areas have been redeveloped. Edinburgh does also have the advantage of excellent public transport links into the centre (e.g. hence the old joke "nice castle, pity they built it so close to the railway"). From what I remember of walking around SF - parts of it are very nice and large parts of it are pretty unexceptional. Not sure why would want to apply the same rules to both. But the nice parts are definitely worth of protection in my view.