Look before you leap. That is a piece of advice that my parents told myself, and parents around the globe have no doubt imparted upon their young charges, since time began.Did Windsor's city councillors receive that same advice while they were impressionable young people as well? With all the signs pointing to a drastic societal change roaring towards us, now would probably be the best time to start preparing the citizens who voted them into office for the new world ahead of them.
"...persistently high gas prices may mean that the next building boom will take place not at the edges of metropolitan areas but far closer to their cores. People are more willing to drive 20 miles each way to work every day, burning a couple of gallons of gas in the process, when gas costs less than milk. But as gas prices climb, long car commutes become a rising tax on exurban homeownership, and the price people are willing to pay for homes in remote areas will fall.So why is it our councillors are still adopting sprawl-inducing amendments to our official plan and regional transportation policies at the expense of strengthening Windsor's core? Have they not heard the news? Are they hoping that these high gas prices will just go away sometime in the near future?. Well, folks, according to The Washington Post, these are realities that the most successful municipalities must prepare for if they are to survive into the next decade.
"...sprawl was built on the twin pillars of low gas prices and a relentless demand for housing that, combined with the effects of restrictive zoning in existing suburbs, pushed new development outward toward cheap rural land. Middle-class Americans, not able to find housing they could afford in existing suburbs, kept driving farther out into the countryside until they did. Gridlock in the suburbs and the expense of providing municipal services to sparsely populated communities imposed their own limits on how far we could spread. As a result, the density of metropolitan areas, which fell steadily in the postwar years, had begun to creep back up in the 1990s.
It's bad enough that Windsorites are feeling the blow this early, as our local economy has been forever bound to the sales of big V-8 and V-10 engines powering huge trucks and vans. We are the canary in the coal mine as we are the first to feel the collective trend away from these vehicles. Let's not impose more misery on the folks who call Windsor/Essex their home and keep hoping and dreaming that this is a nightmare we are soon to wake up from.
It is your duty as leaders to ensure that the big changes looming on the horizon do not take us by surprise. Please take your heads out of the sand and begin to take these developing global trends seriously.
ED: I forgot to link to the Windsor Star article that made me want to post this piece in the first place: Oil And Gold Surge. With oil topping $100 a barrel for the first time ever, people MUST be starting to take notice of this barrage of events.
10 comments:
For the average person with average income or less (ie. the many on layoff, underemployed, unemployed, etc.) I think that article is dead on. But I don't think the price of gas impacts these "exurban" people as much as we think it does. After all, using Southwood Lakes as a good example, they live out there because they have the disposable income. They may not like the price of gas any more than you or me, but I don't believe it changes their living habits significantly. They just "suck it up" because they can afford it. If the price of gas bothered them that much, they would not be driving huge SUV's, F-150s, and other gas guzzling vehicles for personal transportation. If I had a nickel for every Lincoln Navigator (or the likes) I pulled up next to with nothing more than a lone gussied up blonde behind the wheel, I'd be rich. Who knows, maybe ten years from now we'll see these people humbled and living next door to us in the city and driving something that gets more than 8mpg but I wouldn't hold my breath waiting. I think they'll just keep building big and living big until mother earth implodes and takes us all with them.
In there here-and-now, John, I would agree with you. If only time stood still and we could catch up with everything that's been hapening around the globe our jobs would be so much easier.
However, we both know that drastic change is on the horizon and that action must be taken to prepare ourselves for it. I believe we are beyond mitigating those changes. Oil is a finite resource and rising prices are the direct result of us not adjusting our oil consumption in light of those dwindling reserves. The sub-prime lending catastrophe in the US is another result of keeping your heads in the sand while the rest of the world lumbers on. While not affecting us directly like it is in the states, we will feel it's ramifications as our economies are so intertwined we may as well be one-in-the-same.
My reason for posting this entry is the hope that we will begin to actually plan for a likely future, instead of just hoping that it passes us by. As far as I can tell, we have two options ahead of us - the status quo or preparing for the worst. We cannot actually control the external forces that are contributing to our problems. I think we can agree on that. What we can do is buy Windsor some insurance and begin to live and plan for a more local life and take the reigns of power back into our own hands.
What's the worst that can happen? We plan for the worst and the doomsayer's predictions ring false leaving us "stuck" with a healthier local economy and tight-knit neighbourhoods? Or keeping our heads in the sand and let others chart our futures for us? I can guarantee that in option "A", we would have Windsorites best outcome as our driving factor as opposed to those in option "B".
Chris, all the council has to do is read the report on Windsor's census to see that their sprawl induced utopia is really built on sand.
Case in point. Windsor's central areas (not just the downtown core) continued to see declines in population while subrub growth expanded at an increased rate. Heck, not even safe old Walkerville was immune to the negative changes.
What does this city do instead? It wants to increase lanes and build more big-box stores on the fringes of the city. Really, how many times does this city need to stick their hand in the fire to realize that it is going to get burned?
So why don't they do anything about it? Are they not listening or are we just not shouting loud enough?
I hope someone is getting on the delegation list for council on Monday to voice their opposition to these crazy, backwater plans of theirs.
Are the parties responsible for Scale Down Windsor advocating for better personal choices or government-forced options? The problems associated with the current price of oil and the "sub-prime" mortgage issue prove that consumers can't be trusted with cheap oil and inexpensive credit. To surmise that consumers have no control over external forces, i.e. the market system and central banks, is just plain lazy.
People are uncomfortable facing the unknown. We are coming to the end of a fantastic era of technological innovation and ever greater wealth and control over our environment. Normal for the last two generations has been relative world peace and a standard of living (in the OEDC – Organization of Economically Developed Countries) unknown to anyone ever before.
Basically, people don’t want to see or accept something that they aren’t experienced with if - they can help it. Ever read the Hitch Hikers Guide to the Galaxy books? There’s a bit in there where Arthur and Ford wind up in the middle of a soccer pitch sitting on a couch. No one seems to notice. Arthur can’t understand why and Ford explains that it is a phenomenon he calls SEP or Someone Else’s Problem. The idea of two men sitting on a couch suddenly appearing in the middle of a soccer game is so far form normal that the spectator’s and players brains simply cancel them out. Apparently this is why alien spaceships come and go from earth all the time and nobody sees them, because, people can’t deal with it so they decide in a fraction of an instant that a flying saucer or whatever must be someone else’s problem.
The apparent hegemonic bent of the United States, the impending collapse of the U.S. dollar and the world’s largest economy, shortages of gasoline and distillates (especially diesel fuel) and other crucial resources and possible world war are all things that persons living in OEDC nations have no personal point of reference to. These things are SEP’s. Therefore we deal with them in the same way as… two men sitting on a couch suddenly appearing in the middle of a soccer game. The government will deal with it. The free-market economies will balance everything out. Technology will save us. Therefore we may carry on doing all the stupid things that we have always done and eventually someone will sort us out, thank-you very much.
Where a blogsite like SDW can be most useful is to make people aware of these things and help them to understand the downside of our “current living arrangements” (a nod to Kunstler) and how best to affect change in our lives and help spread these concepts to others.
James
P.S. Mr. Scherer, the solution to many of this city’s problems and in fact the world’s problems need to come from both better personal choices and government’s facing up to these new challenges and making policy and passing laws to ensure the safety and well being of their citizens. The world financial system is endangered by the sub-prime mortgage fiasco because government regulators allowed it to happen or they were incapable of stopping the financial “industry” from creating this monster because they did not pass laws to prevent it. Our coming oil problems are a combination of geology and the free market system. As resources become harder to get they will become more expensive. As resources get more expensive those that can pay will still get to play, those that can’t pay or are unwilling to pay will have to leave the game or take the resources from someone else using military force or the threat of force.
That said, the only way for Joe Average to have any effect on World Finance or Global Oil Production is to be represented by responsible officials that have the best interests of firstly the individual citizens best interests and secondly the well-being of his/her city/province/state/nation. I’m not going to hold my breath waiting for my elected officials to clue in. SDW is here to raise people’s awareness’ and tell our city government that they are not meeting our needs and here are some suggestions for them to listen to.
Of course that’s just my opinion.
Wow. James, that is perhaps the longest blog comment I've ever seen :) How am I supposed to follow that?
Robert, I have been refocusing my efforts on Windsor-centric issues at the expense of the bigger-picture, and just assume that everyone knows that. Oops.
My point was that the microcosm that is Windsor is essentially powerless, in the grand scheme of things, to affect world oil prices. Even if each and every one of us in Windsor stopped driving today nobody outside of our little world would notice. We can, however, work on mitigating the effects of global oil gluttony when its results are imposed upon us.
You are absolutely correct in your observation that it is ultimately the consumer that decides whether those external forces have any effect whatsoever on our lives. I just don't really want to put Windsor's future into the hands of the rest of western society right now. I've pretty well lost any faith in the sleepwalking masses to wake up in time.
Our dependence on plastic is partly reflected in the current price of oil; many people overlook the connection.
I didn't articulate my point very well. I think populist politics have had a negative impact on elections and are preventing tough politicians from legislating essential laws/regulations. The "activist agenda" is kind of like the "self-esteem movement" in elementary/secondary schools.
Certain players in the financial industry should be regulated out of the mortgage/home equity/collateral debt obligations game; in other words, some banks/finance companies shouldn't be in the "sub-prime" mortgage business (shades of municipal corporations).
Regardless, central banks will continue to "invent" liquidity.
Ideally, inflation/stagnation will alter the spending habits of consumers...for a week or two.
You don't think that when you become a broken record after several explanations that it is not going to get frustrating. You've not even acknowledged anything I've said, so if we're talking about rude behaviour...
I've laid out a well thought out working plan that would allow our cities to bring in entertainment of the caliber of the other cities you have mentioned. All this while creating a buffer between the daytime and nighttime uses
Toronto is allowed to stay open during film festival and other special events. Not just open but serving alcohol. Nightclubs in Windsor have already demonstrated they can bring world class entertainment such as DJ Ritchie Hawtin who is live telecasted across Canada from Windsor on the CBC.
All the places you have mentioned have justifications for staying up all night on special occasions. I dont understand why Windsor should form policy in a bubble
sorry posted my comment to the wrong link. don't know how to erase it
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