West Ashley Identity is key

One of the first things that we must do for our community is to document and make available to our residents the wonderful history of this place that we call home. For the most part, residents of West Ashley are completely ignorant of its history. The fundamental problem with that fact is that people do not tend to take pride in things that mean nothing to them. Knowing our history will help us to do things like developing appropriate design guidelines for new construction that reflect who we are as a people and where we have come from as a community. Late Victorian and early 20th century wood frame farm buildings and railroad structures comprised much of our older built environment West of the Ashley. We should draw from those historic forms as we build up our community. It’s our identity and we need to reclaim it. Without our history being easily accessible to our people, the land between the Ashley and the Stono will never be fully appreciated and we will have no community identity.

Charlie 0