-----Original Message-----
From:   Candice Brashears [SMTP:[log in to unmask]]
Sent:   February 19, 1999 12:25 PM
To:     [log in to unmask]
Subject:        Re: Heritage Tourism - without the tourists?

<snip>

 How do we teach our cultural heritage through preservation of living cities
and limit how many people may come and experience it?  The throngs of bodies
in St. Augustine and Savannah all wanted a chance to - so did you.  How is it
done without turning our landscape into lots of Colonial Williamsburgs and
Sturbridge Villages?

----------------------------

Easy.  Live in the living city.  First: be sure to turn the city (or town, or village, or farmstead, or crossroads) you live in or trade in or work in into a living place, real and genuine, by preserving your own and then living life there.  Be sure to add some new stuff that you need today so that it'll still be useful, but make sure it fits in and is really part of the real place, and not someplace else.

Next: be sure to see some other places so you can get some good ideas, have some variety in your life, and to be a real well-rounded person.  When there, do NOT shop in the boutique--for god's sake, don't encourage them by spending your money there!  Find the hardware store that has been there since the beginning of time...you'll be able to recognize it when you see it. Get your hair cut at a shop with a red and white candy-striped pole outside, the one that doesn't turn anymore.  Play pool at the tavern, not at the fern bar.  Do NOT ride the trolley to find these places.  They are not on the tour.  Walk down the street three blocks over, but where ever, be sure to walk.  Have the folks you met at the pool hall show you the real cool places in town.  Laugh at their peculiar local humor, but not too loudly...they know you don't really get the punch line.

Finally: be gentle to the heritage tourists.  You are in control of your own town.  You are what you market.  You can sell them your town, or you can sell them GenAmerica in a slightly different wrapper.  They are a herd.  It is all they know.  Try to lure them off the beaten track.  You can do this...after all, _you_ are a subscriber to Bullamanka-Pinheads, where new paths are trampled each and every day.

There are some in Charlotte that want to become a second-rate Atlanta.  There are those in Raleigh that want to become a third-rate Charlotte.  My vote, and what I'm working for, is to be sure that we all have the opportunity to experience a first-rate Raleigh.
__________________________________________________
Dan Becker,  Executive Director      "Conformists die, but
Raleigh Historic                              heretics live on forever"
Districts Commission                             -- Elbert Hubbard

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