Should Older Houses In Wichita Be Demolished And Replaced? (Erie: new home, neighbourhood)

[KevK]

Yes older homes have character. As you drive through College Hill, you see lots and lots of character. When I grew up there, our house was almost 100 years old 40 years ago! It still had the room in the basement where wood or coal was stored to burn in the furnace- although the furnace was a gas unit. The fuse box was one of those you screwed the fuses in and out of. The house had a big grate furnace in the middle and, the further away from it you were in the dead of winter, the colder it felt. Insulation was unheard of and the place was big and drafty. But 5 of us grew up in the 2 bedroom- and a 3rd "sorta" bedroom in the basement.
I drove through the old neighbourhood a few months ago. The old houses are still dominant as you drive up Green, Estelle, Volustia and Erie. Our old house sits there empty. It looks like a neighbourhood that really is not "the place to be" anymore.
As I drove and looked at some of the properties that have fallen into disrepair, I thought to myself it might be a good idea to buy them, demolish the old homes and put new housing there. The location near the center of the city is great and, if the old homes were demolished and replaced by desired new homes that are energy efficient and perhaps even some town homes, that neighbourhood might make a come back. But of course it would lose its "character".

[leighland]

It depends. In England for example, they don't keep every home/building ever built. They pick and choose a couple to keep, those that have some additional historical character besides 'being old' and knock a lot of others down to build strip malls, grocery stores, etc..The big problem there is England has outrageous land zoning laws and any construction is restricted to very small areas because of the emphasis on open space.

My grandmothers home is over 250 years old. Although I love the weird little closets, the cobblestone foundation, the character of its ancientness, it really has fallen apart to the point that it needs a teardown and rebuild.

In Wichita, there just are not a lot of old homes/buildings. I think the ones that are most interesting are in the flats near the train tracks.

[TedH71]

We found an 100 year old house and were excited about the price ($30k) and the fact that it had 8 bedrooms and a half way decent back yard. Problem? It needed a lot of renovating plus the house literally was built with abestos! Hence the reason for the low price because it would have taken alot of money to hire a special crew to take the abestos out and then jack the house up to fix a few structural faults then go from there. Almost all of the house's windows were wavy (indicating it was an old house with old windows...if you didn't know this now, you will....glass is not a stable thing. It is actually a liquid that moves and acts like a solid..it moves very slow so old windows have the wavy effect...interesting!).