I read this morning that a 104-year-old church building in the Dallas neighborhood of Oak Cliff will likely be demolished so that a school can be built on the site. I suppose I've been living in Seattle for too long because I found this pretty shocking.

But now that I look back through the news at the recent history of preservation in Dallas, I remember how poorly the city and community treat historic buildings. A couple years ago, an 85-year-old East Dallas YWCA building was demolished. And last year, preservationists were shocked as a 1950s office building was demolished without warning.

Yeah, now I remember, this is how Dallas does things - it's in the name of progress.

One of the problems in Dallas is that the inner-city has been so neglected that anything seems better than abandoned buildings. But when you demolish a historic building, you destroy history, which is something that you can't get back, and one of the attractions that can help to revive and enliven the inner-city. That's not progress.

By contrast, Seattle recognizes that history and progress aren't polar opposites. New buildings stand side-by-side with re-purposed old buildings and the contrast adds further to creating an interesting and livable city, moving towards the future but respectful towards the past.

Heck, in Seattle, preservationists got landmark status for a former Denny's restaurant. The building was eventually demolished, but it came very close to preservation and was a top news story, showing the importance of preservation here.

Unfortunately, Dallas doesn't yet seem to know how to make progress while preserving history and in the process fails at both.