Saint Mary’s College archeologist Jonathan Fowler is sounding an alarm with a brand new research. In accordance with Fowler, the centuries-old structure that provides to Halifax’s heritage and historic vibe is slowly being wiped away as town grows.
“You take a look at the maps and also you see outdated Halifax of 1878,” mentioned Fowler. “We have layered that over the trendy metropolis, and also you evaluate what was there and what’s there now.”
Fowler is main a research that measures city change as an educational train. He concedes, building and improvement are a part of the pure evolution for all cities in North America.
“Cities have at all times been about change and are very dynamic, and that is OK,” mentioned Fowler. “However in a historic metropolis like Halifax, we’ve to be deliberate about that change and be clever about it or we’ll get up in a metropolis that does not seem like something we all know.”
Many buildings have disappeared.
Fowler’s analysis has uncovered that Halifax had nearly 8,931 buildings in 1878. Since then, only one,143 have survived, which is an attrition fee of 87.2 per cent.
Historian Blair Beed hopes these findings function a wake-up to spark concern for individuals who want to protect Halifax’s heritage.
“We’ve got simply not evaluated the buildings to say which of them are outdated and which of them are traditionally outdated and we wish to hold,” mentioned Beed.
Fowler mentioned there have been many adjustments in Halifax over the many years, however it ought to be famous it nonetheless stays a metropolis wealthy in historical past.
“There’s a lot preserved in sure locations,” mentioned Fowler. “The speed of attrition, or the attrition throughout town just isn’t in uniform.”
Primarily based on his analysis, Fowler has decided that some pockets of town have been nicely preserved, whereas different areas have undergone dramatic change, with massive areas torn down and rebuilt.
Fowler hopes his research results in a slow-down within the fee of change sooner or later which might result in an effort to protect a few of Halifax’s older buildings.
