Tyranny of Good Intentions

The New York Times reports about the unintended consequences of declaring a site to be a "World Heritage Site."

In order for everybody else to enjoy the cultural history of Djenne, the inhabitants are asked to live with the same mud floors and tiny rooms their ancestors had. They get to be the inmates of the zoo. Quelle surprise--they're not thrilled with this sort of "some animals are more equal than others" attitude.

Old World Wisconsin is staffed with volunteers who get to go home to clean beds at the end of the day. If you're going to make a place a "World Heritage Site" to be preserved for all time, maybe you'd better admit that it is going to be a museum. Nobody lives in a museum: face the problems of what the current inhabitants want to do, and how you're going to fund and staff the place. Don't just demand that the people unlucky enough to have a great heritage become serfs to the tourist business.

The story says that St. Louis in Senegal has a similar problem. I wonder which section that was.