Paul,

I am not sure at all what you mean. Are you saying that rich people who own beautiful downtown houses should throw the towel in, and give in to the lure of easy money and pull down any beautiful house they might own?

The few people who are not doing that should surely be supported, no?

If I had just spent a fortune putting to rights some worthwhile old pile only to wake up next morning to find that some halfbrain in a hoodie has spewed an aerosol over it, I might just go along with you and wonder why should I bother? Surely beautiful buildings are not just to be appreciated by those who live in them. Surely they are a desperately needed visual lung for all who behold them, especially in a city like Athens.

The graffiti kids' doltish daubings do indeed have their place, but its on a soft canvass you can throw down a functional shiny porcelain bowl with a flush mechanism. Sadly, too, too many house walls are treated as pictorial latrines, leaving us with rows of buildings scarred by repeated sprayings of 'DAWG' or 'TAG' or some other jumped-up inanity purporting to be art, (whatever that is in any day and age). Do these really deserve any higher value than would be given to the widdlings of a know-no-better mongrel marking out its territory?

But maybe the supposed rich who might want to spruce up their houses should just call it a day and sell it off to let another featureless, ugly polikathikeia sprout up. Just buy the beachhouse and to hell with the city where half the country lives, eh?

Ed