Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple Computer, would like very much to tear down his home - a beautiful 17,000 square foot Spanish colonial revival mansion designed by George Washington Smith (book) in Woodside, California. The house has been empty for five years, and is, according the the NY Times, run-down and decrepit. Jobs claims that the structure "was never really a very interesting house to start with" and that it was "pretty much a dump when I moved in." The local History Committee disagrees, and has a long tradition of debating and fighting noveau-riche dreams of I.M. Pei glass-and-steel cubes.
How has historic preservation helped or hindered the growth and integrity of your community? from metafilter
