Nice shot, Chris -- keep 'em coming!
This phenomenon you mentioned of bland new buildings replacing old character / historical buildings just keeps going and going ... it happens everywhere.
In my city, most of the heritage buildings are gone. When I look at photos of the streets of Edmonton in the 1940's and 1950's, I can't even recognize it. When my mother arrived to the city as a 20-something, looking for work in the late 1950's, she was impressed by the original city hall, the law courts building with its grand colonnades, the main public library, the central post office with its grand sandstone entrance ...
There were also several absolutely gorgeous movie theaters, many of which were quite cavernous and decadent in their decorations. And dance halls. And lovely 19th-century hotels. And 'clinker brick' apartments, which were unique in being constructed in a roughly-hewn, obsidian-like brick that was quite beautiful.
Shall I go on? All of that is gone. There's not much left from that era.
Meanwhile, the hordes of people way out in the 'burbs complain that they can't get to their big-box stores fast enough because of slow traffic on the freeways.
If it's any consolation, this isn't necessarily a North American phenomenon. I think this kind of thing has been going on in many locations around the world for centuries.
I was in Italy last year and visited Rome. When I went to the Roman Forum, I was shocked at how little of ANYTHING was left to gaze at. After the fall of the Roman empire and the decline of Rome as a city, the inhabitants just tore down temples and buildings in a haphazard way, so they could either (a) steal the building materials or (b) clear out the space and use it for something else.
So our modern gripes about this are not so modern after all.
