Irvine’s Tenuous Grasp on the Future

A city that cannot afford to honor, respect and preserve its past has only the most tenuous grasp on its future.

The City Council’s decision on June 28 not to rescue the historic buildings on the Buffalo Ranch from certain relocation, if not ultimate destruction, by the Irvine Co. is a public tragedy. For the reasons ably articulated by members of the Irvine Historical Society, the Buffalo Ranch should be preserved for future generations to admire and ponder. The ranch was the place architect William Pereira selected to design the master planned city of Irvine some three decades ago. Even before Pereira selected the site for his master plan designing, herds of buffalo roamed the ranch, serving as a popular tourist attraction for anyone making their way down to the coast.

Some may think it ironic that the birthplace of Irvine’s master plan would ultimately be destroyed by the current caretakers of the plan. Not true. There’s no irony here, only the natural consequence of whom Irvine’s master plan is intended to serve, namely the Irvine Co. The company doesn’t want to preserve the buildings on site and what the company wants it normally gets.

The City Council’s decision would be ironic if Irvine’s master plan was intended to build an authentic community, for in such a community there would be a sensible and proactive commitment to preserving the past. For so many communities in our new nation, preservation of the past nurtures respect for the present and offers purpose to the future. The eminent historian Arthur J. Schlesinger Jr. makes the point far better than I in “The Disuniting of America” (1992): “History is to the nation rather as memory is to the individual. As an individual deprived of memory becomes disoriented and lost, not knowing where he has been or where he is going, so a nation denied a conception of its past will be disabled in dealing with its present and its future.”

Though it’s unfortunate that there’s little place for history in Irvine’s “master planned” community, it seems an inevitable exercise of raw power by the Irvine Co.--the inheritor of Pereira’s brilliance but certainly not guardians of it.

Someday when you’re waiting at a longstop light at the corner of Ford and MacArthur you can tell your child about the ranch, the buffalo, and maybe even William Pereira. Of course, they won’t believe you. “If the site was so important to the founding of Irvine, why would anyone have destroyed it?”

As you try to convince them otherwise with an old photograph you’ll come to envy the children of Gettysburg, Galena, Plymouth, Mt. Vernon, and Williamsburg. So may your children!

MARK P. PETRACCA

Irvine