by excito-are 16 Replies latest watchtower bible
K/Hall location is a local decision. Congregations and Circuit planners want a location that is accessible to where the people live, on a bus route, and above all CHEAP land
That is not going to be what is called in the US, "prime real estate"..Many older areas where halls were located and congs. grown up have gone down in status..
I am sure that there is no deliberate policy, as the original post suggested.
CHEAP is the operative word.Thats why you see them on the outskirts of towns when travelling through the countryside.
smiddy
I was quite surprised to see in a US town an area which the planners had dedicated to religious buildings and the KH was neighbouring with temples, churches, etc. It was a pretty residential area, about 30 years ago. I perceived it as a sign that the JW religion was fairly well integrated in the american society and not marginalized as it was, and still is to a large extent, in France.
Well you could say the same things about some churches why are they in deprived areas.
Well I live in Merseyside, England , near Liverpool. Often called a "deprived" area.
But the Kingdom Halls I have been in round here are not in what I would call "deprived" areas.
Most of them seem to be in areas you could term "middle class" there may a couple that are in a rundown area.
If there has been a new KH built you usually find that they "upgrade" to a better area.
Also you have to remember many of the socalled "deprived" areas where at one time, maybe when the KH was built.
A very good area to live in, but over the years the area has rundown.
For as long as I was an underage JW, we shared the hall of a nearby cong -- only about a ten minute drive away. My mother was a realtor and for years she was trying to get a more local hall. But quite apart from her efforts, the elders decided to go for a nice hall in a rural district far, far away -- now about a half hour drive away. It was ridiculous -- the commute added a whole extra hour to the meeting. Why have the hall in a totally different part of the island? Obviously because the property values where we lived were way too expensive, despite the deals that my mom made which were pretty good overall. They'd rather go "el cheapo" and add an hour's commute to the congregation. As I recall, we only went to the new hall just once. We never went back. We basically joined the other cong, going to their meetings as we always did when we wanted to do something at the meeting times of our own cong.
The KH that I first went to was a small prefabricated building in a central location. Then when the congregation grew and split into two congregations, we eventually had to build a new one. The site found was about 3 miles from were the old one was, in quite a good part of the town. But for some it meant a longer ride to get to it. We had the Regional Building Committee guiding us in the build. I must say that we did end up with a lovely KH that could seat getting on for 300. But now from what I have heard both congregations have a struggle to get a quarter of that number. The cost, which was 20 years ago, was £160,000. They recently had it valued for insurance at £1.5 million.
They say that Ray Kroc was in the property business, not the restaurant business....
Its not too much of a stretch to see the WTS taking financial control of the KH's - the value of the asset is 'locked' to local publishers anyway - perhaps some sort of sale and leaseback would create enough smoke and mirrors to effect the transaction without disturbing the sheeple...
BTW Gordy - is it true that middleclass in Meryseyside is a street without metal windows? just kidding :-)
