In my recent apartment search, I was drawn to several trendy new complexes packed around a growing town square in a suburb with walkable food and coffee options. As I drove the nearby streets familiarizing myself with the area, I noticed an older building at the edge this expanding urban sprawl, it’s my uncle’s old shop, a clean metal build that was the fruit of forty years of excellence in a dying craft.

As I looked at the still-unfinished urban apartments going in next door, I couldn’t help but contrast the old and the new. The prefabricated almost sterile look of the new apartments contrasted with the clean, but clearly-not-built-yesterday look of my uncle’s shop and all that it represents. My uncle is a craftsman, even though he has a masters degree in mathematics, he’s told me before that he’s never had a white collar job in his life, he’s worked with his hands and built a reputation of excellence with anyone who has been privileged enough to see the anything he has built. These apartment buildings aren’t even finished yet, but they have websites and are already advertising apartments for lease. My uncle doesn’t have a website, he doesn’t need one; anyone who has the eye to appreciate his work knows his name. You don’t build this reputation overnight.

But this will not last forever. My uncle is 75 and will retire soon, his legacy of excellence retiring with him; there is simply no one else with the knowledge or patience to do his work. When he retires, he will probably sell his land to a developer and his shop will be replaced with more quick-rising apartments.

This is the way of the world. The new replaces the old, prefabricated efficiency sweeping all before it, but in this moment, the old stands and the contrast could not be more stark.