Cities never seem to be in balance, there's always a bunch of unused office space with landlords chewing their nails, or not enough space for the current boom with people scrambling to cash in on that need.
Currently London is having a boom in the Spitalfields area. I can understand the developers want to get done quickly or they might miss out entirely. But many people don't want wholesale change, they don't want to see "historic" sections razed for more look alike commercial buildings. The compromise which nobody seems happy with, is retain the front wall. But instead of gutting and modernizing the interior, they've followed the letter of the law rather than the spirit, and propped up the old front wall like a Halloween mask, making the area look like a Hollywood back lot.
Yes sir, we'll just build a new Rock Ridge right over here.
What qualifies a building as historic, ask ten people you'll get ten answers, and some of those answers will be in conflict with each other.
I've a feeling it won't be too many years before people start demanding those facades be removed for safety.
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