Bruce Barrett wrote:

     "An example: a friend of mine born in Germany who now lives in Whitehorse,
     tells a story about her ancestral home back in the old country. Her family
     has lived in the same house in an unbroken succession since Y1K, that's
     right, over one thousand years. Incidentally, she is the first to have
     broken that chain. I suppose it had to happen sooner or later. No wonder
     European cities shrug off the influence of tourism."

     I'm sorry, I don't think I can buy that.  Many of Germany's most popular
     "historic" cities are largely reconstructed after heavy damage in World War
     II.  I can still remember how impressed I was with the "Old Town" in Bremen
     in the 1950s and how disappointed I was when I found out that it was
     reconstructed.  They were reconstructed, I suspect, in part at least
     because tourism was, and is, a vital source of income.  While continuity
     with the past does seem to be much more a part of many people's daily lives
     in Europe, particularly where there hasn't been a lot of destruction and
     particularly among non-"gast-Arbeiters," I'm not sure we should be quite so
     quick to assume that the Europeans do things that much better than we do.
     Their solutions are different because their places, their problems, and
     their people, are different.  Also, I'm not sure everyone would agree that
     the tourism on the Roman Forum, for instance, are that much more
     sophisticated than those in Savannah, or create fewer problems.


     Marilyn Harper
     National Register of Historic Places
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