A Thought on Communities and the Economy

When I was growing up, Alberta was in a recession. The destructive impact of the National Energy Program lasted well into the mid 90's.The community I was raised in, however, seemed to be much more integrated than it is now. I used to know almost every household within a four block radius of my house (especially the households with kids). There was a park on my street where all the kids in the community would meet after school. From there we would play street hockey, basketball, football, and other games of all sorts. We were always outside, year-round, rain or shine. Our parents were all friends and if we got into trouble or out of hand, they knew immediately. There was always some sort of community activity going on like a BBQ or dance.

Just before attending school in Vancouver Island, I spent a few months in my old community. 14 years later and I don't even recognize the place anymore. My parents only know a handful of people (mainly just the homes within the immediate vicinity) and they say that they haven't seen a street hockey game played in years.

In the last 10 years, Calgary has gone through a period of extreme growth. A huge migration of people from other areas of Canada and the world have decided to make Calgary their home. I believe that this has created a considerable disconnection between Calgarians and there communities.

It will be interesting to see what happens with this economic slowdown. Now that property values aren't doubling every six months, I have a suspicion that people will become more planted. With continued loss of jobs I can foresee individuals becoming more reliant on their communities for support.

Maybe community building peaks in hard economic times and weakens in good economic times.

Just a thought!!

Decentralize or centralize?

Recently, the provinces and municipalities made bids to the federal government for infrastructure funding. I watched a segment on the Victoria local news about how in the Greater Victoria Area, 14 municipalities had to make separate bids for funding to the federal government. Each of these municipalities were concerned that they weren't going to get their piece of the pie. Some of the mayors suggested that they should all think about almalgamating into one municipality so they only had to make one bid that represented them all. It was speculated that this would be a more effective approach.

I immediately thought of my Sustainable Community class and the discussion we had on decentralization. If decentralization is a more sustainable approach then why were these mayors suggesting to become more centralized? Was it because they were trying to be decentralized in a centralized system? My gut tells me that smaller, decentralized communities would be more sustainable but this scenario also leads me to believe that there are significant challenges to achieving that.

Unfortunately, I lack the knowledge of the inner-workings of government to make an insightful reccommendation for this problem and would appreciate any response from one who knows more.

Holiday Waste. Sick!!

After watching everyone open there Christmas presents this holiday season it was hard for me to ignore the amount of packaging waste that is created from consumerism. Not only did each present come wrapped in paper treated with metallic coatings, inks and dyes; the presents themselves were wrapped in a gross amount of crap. Cardboard boxes, Styrofoam, plastic bubble wrap and, of course, that extremely hard plastic packaging for small electronics that you need the "Jaws of Life" to open. It is truly disgusting!

I would like to find out how much extra waste is produced over the Christmas holidays. I bet it is astonishing. Of course, this behaviour continues throughout the year, but is intensified at Christmas by the obligations people feel they have to buy for others.

In my opinion, efforts to develop packaging solutions should be at the forefront of the environmental checklist. There has to be a more environmentally friendly way to transport goods. At least the goods, themselves, can usually be used for reasonable amount of time. I would estimate that nearly 80% of the packaging that these goods are shipped in is disposed of immediately. Yes, some of it would be recycled, but it was still produced to serve one purpose; getting it from point A to B. Not even close to a sustainable system!

An environmentally friendly packaging solution that lowers company expenses would be worth billions. I wonder sometimes how much unnecessary space some of these packages take up. I know that they are designed by engineers, but it seems like all that extra plastic was used just to hang those headphones on the wall of the store. I recently ordered a book from Amazon and was delivered in a box Four times the size of the book. The empty space was filled with bubble wrap. How can that make sense? Companies should be focusing on reducing the space consumption of packaging. Just look at Ikea! They have mastered the art of space utilization and it translates into extra dollars. There is less packaging and more units can be transported by one load. Makes sense to me so why doesn't it make sense to them?