Health & Fitness
Creative Destruction
Making way for the new in our lives sometimes means some up-front demolition work.
The Patch article “” got me thinking about a conversation a few years ago with a fellow pastor. His community organizing group was trying to pressure a slumlord in the neighborhood to tear down a whole block of empty, decrepit houses. They invited the landlord to a meeting to tell him in person and as a group about all the problems his houses attracted – pests, drug activity, and lower property values, among other things. He said he’d show but then didn’t.
I can’t say I blame the guy for not showing. That would be one awkward meeting. But what made it necessary for the community to rally and put personal pressure on this man is that in pure financial terms, tearing the houses down didn’t make sense. It costs about $10,000 to demolish a rowhouse. And when you’re done, what have you got? You’ve got another lawn to mow, and no chance to sell that house for even $10-20,000, if somehow by a miracle the market in that neighborhood picks up.
What would make tearing an old house down make financial sense would have to be finding more value in the demolition. Selling the bricks for a dollar each, or finding a lucrative use for the land that would make the lot worth the twenty thousand dollar difference between leaving the house up and pulling it down. Something like truffle farming, since $10,000 for 1/30th of an acre is pretty expensive for farmland. On the other hand, the convenience to the customer base for a farm would be outstanding...
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Of course many of us have things in our lives, whether physical, emotional, or spiritual, that aren’t useful, but are still hard to get rid of. Do you have a shell in your life, taking up space and sheltering rats? Is there a space that used to be warm and welcoming – a home and a shelter – but now it’s empty, boarded up, with wild trees growing out the top window? Even though in a certain way, doing something about it might require a tremendous up-front cost, it could still be worth your effort to make life more livable.
The thing is, though, that leaving that old shell where it is means you’ll never have room for the amazing vertical forest you’ve been wanting to plant. Or the community garden, or the elaborate art installation you’ve been dreaming about. Having space for the new means creative destruction of the old. Maybe it’s time to pony up and Or at least start researching how to decorate and sell your bricks on EBay.