ION - Waterloo Region's Light Rail Transit

[BuildingScout]

Also one of the reasons Besançon is so much nicer is because over the centuries they have never been afraid to take down their ugly buildings while defending the nicer ones.

"Cradled in a loop of the river Doubs, the ancient city of Besançon is one of the best preserved historic cities in France…

The whole of the old centre of Besançon - the central area of which is pedestrianised - is a delightful urban environment that has survived more or less intact against the onslaughts of modernism; the old streets are lined with houses and buildings from the Renaissance to the early twentieth century, built in the local two-coloured limestone…"

Which proves my point. A place that doesn't demolish at all (like Bruges) would have all the buildings from the same era. Besançon's on the other hand span five hundred years. How do you achieve that if not through judicious demolition?

And the fact that somehow they stopped in the early twentieth century is plain false. Here's one Besançon's better known buildings by Japanese architect Kengo Kuma:



But surely such a modern looking building would be out in the 'burbs right. Never allowed anywhere near the historical parts right? Keeping the old historical town intact, right? 

Wrong:






Of particular interest are the castle up on the hill and the medieval warehouse abutting it to its right.