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Here’s my wish list for Vancouver 2016. What’s yours?

January 2nd, 2016 · 68 Comments

This wasn’t a great year for Vancouver (the city, the region).

A transit plebiscite turned into an unproductive brawl that pitted drivers against transit users and then failed miserably.

The level of angst over the pace of change in the region and the increasingly incoherent real-estate market, with single-family houses and commercial properties trading for astronomical prices, produced another brawl, pitting various groups against each other.

Instead of coming to an agreement about feasible, practical measures to limit destructive types of real-estate investment and speculation, an agreement that could force governments into real action, people spent most of their time arguing about which group of buyers was responsible.

Mayor Gregor Robertson’s international travels and World Green Message notwithstanding, the city seems to be in a state of suspended animation right now, having lost (quit, fired) several top managers with no sense of who will be hired to do the tricky job of driving a strong agenda without provoking too much public backlash — the miracle job. The region is similarly adrift, with no transit plan, no sense of who’s in charge. There are a few bright spots of energy and innovation, but not enough to set a new course yet.

So my wish for the year (yes, impossibly idealistic, naive) is to see people come together to figure out the ways forward on these tough issues. Cities are going through revolutionary change.

Every city I visited this year that wasn’t Podunk, Middle of Nowhere, is struggling with housing prices that are escalating faster than local wages, struggles over how to provide transportation, increasing inequality, and a sense of unstoppable labour pains bringing forth a new kind of city. Some cities are going to do better at handling this change and finding a way forward; others will do worse.

I’d like to see Vancouver in the first category.

In spite of all the disagreements, I think most people want the same thing: a city and region that functions well for those who live here. Can people stop playing defence on their opinions, political strategies, long-held grudges, and so on to do that? I hope so.

BTW, down here in Seattle, where I happen to be today, the Seattle Times’ editorial for the new year was a series of headlines that its readers said they’d like to see printed in 2016. (Interestingly, among them was “Seattle is named most affordable city in U.S.”)

Feel free to express your wish list that way.

Categories: Uncategorized

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  • Chris Keam

    Hi again Taxpayer! It seems to be that your position is that it’s offside to ask you to clarify your position with regard to the specific section of an article to which you have provided a link and directed someone to read. Let me save you the dreaded scroll once more. Here’s your original remark:

    “So what do the women’s groups on the front lines have to say about this:”

    What do they say? Let’s look:

    “We therefore ask you…to join our call for the immediate establishment of protected premises (locked apartments or houses) for women and children who are travelling alone….”

    Let’s repeat. Your link. Your (somewhat rhetorical) question. And now you run away from it. No surprise. Your concept of on-topic seems to be roughly congruent to ‘Please don’t ask me to venture a real opinion on the very subjects I direct your attention to.’

    Motorcycle Lanes. The safety of female asylum seekers. You brought them both up. The slightest inquiry for clarification or validation of those ideas reveals you’ve given both concepts no thought whatsoever. End of story. Just own it already. Thanks for reminding me why I wasn’t bothering to engage with your paranoid, hate-filled remarks. cheers – CK

  • A Taxpayer

    “When the facts change, I change my mind”

    John Maynard Keynes

    “When the facts change, I change the subject”

    Chris Keam

  • Chris Keam

    Oh dear, that kindler gentler year has gone awry so quickly.

    Have you noticed I’m not whinging that you won’t address the specific information in the links I provided? That’s because grown-ups don’t believe they can compel people to offer an opinion on topics they aren’t interested in. Someone’s disinterest in engaging on a topic of interest to another isn’t debating in bad faith. We get to choose when and how we interact with others.

    However when someone brings something specific up and then refuses to elaborate on their position w/r/t same, that’s clearly avoiding the discussion. Have you noticed that I responded to your comments on two specific subjects you offered up, seeking clarification and expansion on your supposed position. Can you parse the difference?

    I’m happy to discuss open borders and how they might be implemented. I’m not interested in providing validity to fear-mongering and trafficking in hypothetical doom-saying. I’m sure you can find plenty of people who will accommodate you. If you can’t, that might be pause for thought.

  • A Taxpayer

    “I’m not interested in providing validity to fear-mongering and trafficking in hypothetical doom-saying.”

    The situation in Europe is hardly hypothetical and it is the height of stupidity not to examine what is going on there. And are you suggesting that Ujjal Dosanjh is fear-mongering?

  • Chris Keam

    The ‘situation in Europe’ is an outcome of wars and borders. Without the border controls that have doomed tens of thousands of Syrians (to name just one of the conflict zones in the world) to oppression and death at the hands of zealots, ISIS has no raw materials to tax and enslave. The irony that they do so with the materiel brought to the region by Western countries eager to prevent equal opportunities on a global scale is just the bitterest of jokes.

    In case you hadn’t noticed, people are fleeing a war zone. That this mass exodus provides welcome cover for terrorists is hardly a shock. The reality is that curtailing our current obsession with customs and immigrations checks in peaceful countries, for little more purpose than to ensure Grandma doesn’t come home from Maui with an undocumented pineapple, would free up a huge amount of resources to isolate and eliminate the impact of the ignorant, violent creatures at work in the world. This seems to escape you.

    Your bogeyman fears of Islam are an absolute insult to the millions of people of that faith who share the common human desire for peace and prosperity. That you dare invoke some future catastrophe that’s no more likely than a global conversion to Pastafarianism, while in the real world tens of thousands of people suffer every day — because they can’t escape the culmination of hundreds of years of using the Middle East as a pawn on an imperial chessboard is, without exaggeration, an obscenity. For shame sir, for shame.

    Tyranny needs jingoists such as yourself. Terrorism feeds on the xenophobic vitriol you traffic in. Educate yourself beyond the necessary skill level to play Settlers of Catan or some equally jejune simulcra of the real world and leave the messy business of justice, liberty, and the protection of innocent people’s rights and opportunities to those with the mettle to step beyond the 19th century. Thank you and have a nice day.

    “Tearing down Chesterton’s fence: the bigotry of border controls”

    http://openborders.info/blog/tearing-chestertons-fence-bigotry-border-controls/

  • A Taxpayer

    You didn’t read, didn’t understand or are simply choosing to distort the message of Ujjal Dosanjh which is pretty much covered in this quote:

    “The silencing of most good white men has provided an
    opportunity for the Trumps of the world to rise. That is what happens when we suffocate or silence rational debate. “

    You are the perfect example of what he is talking about where you want to stifle debate through raising the spectre of xenophobia or Islamophobia. This approach to multiculturalism is more dangerous than the Donald Trumps of the world as it has been successful in
    silencing the moderate voices who recognize there is an issue to discuss and leaves the field open to those extreme voices that will not be silenced. There is a real danger when you leave people with only two messages to choose from – accept that there is no problem and
    hope for the best or gravitate to those who acknowledge an issue but only offer extreme solutions.

    In an effort to support the unsupportable, open borders, you raise an absurd argument that the problem is border controls because they prevent people from fleeing Syria. How opening the borders to allow even more migrants into Europe would have prevented the current social problems in Europe is a leap in logic even for a progressive. You appear to have such self-loathing for
    western civilization and all it has accomplished that you are prepared to promote cultural suicide. Europe may
    just now be waking up to the threat but it remains to be seen if it is too little, too late.

  • Chris Keam

    I totally welcome the debate. It’s the unsupportable intimations of disaster being invoked that are too ridiculous to entertain. To suggest that upholding the central tenets of western civilization when fear mongers would abandon them to insularity equals ‘self-loathing’ demonstrates an illogic that is bizarre to witness. What has been achieved happened because people of conviction didn’t bow down to the very measures you’re calling for.

  • A Taxpayer

    “What has been achieved happened because people of conviction didn’t bow down to the very measures you’re calling for.”

    I really don’t know what measures you are referring to. I offered up Dosanjh’s blog post which you have studiously avoided commenting on. But what else could you do? You can’t attack Dosanjh, you can’t discredit what he is saying but you couldn’t possibly agree with him so your only option is to ignore him.

  • Chris Keam

    My remarks are in reference to your posts and position on the topic. More arguments for open borders, this time with the added bonus of referencing your position regarding the threat of a cultural flood.

    The Islamophobic Case for Open Borders

    “If Islamist agendas brought to the West by Muslim immigrants became a real, existential threat to the West’s heritage of freedom, I think Western elites would either rise to the challenge of defending it, or be removed and replaced with people willing to do so.”

    http://openborders.info/blog/islamophobic-case-open-borders/

    I’m not suggesting anything w/r/t Mr. Dosanjh’s viewpoint.

    Mr Dosanjh is welcome to his opinion, and it has received national print coverage (per your link) and I heard him talking about it on the radio as well. Given that, his position that the unpopular views of men of power and responsibility don’t get adequate press seems counter-intuitive. His argument, that good white men can’t speak up, belies the vast influence they have as a cohort in our society. And frankly, if a little controversy is the price of speaking their mind… and they are afraid to pay it, I find it hard to feel much empathy. Standing up for your beliefs can be a noisy business and it usually invites criticism. ‘Good white men’ aren’t being silenced. They’re being challenged. An unaccustomed position for many of these sterling fellows I’m sure.

  • Chris Keam

    “I really don’t know what measures you are referring to.”

    You don’t understand that some of the central tenets of Western culture are equality for all regardless of place of birth or station, freedom to move to make a better life, and acceptance and tolerance for people who don’t look or think like us? No wonder my comments baffle you. Your wish for a response regarding Mr. Dosanjh’s comments is a couple comments upthread.

  • A Taxpayer

    “You don’t understand that some of the central tenets of Western culture are equality for all regardless of place of birth or station, freedom to move to make a better life, and acceptance and tolerance for people who don’t look or think like us?”

    Your mistake is assuming that this is a central tenet of all cultures. It isn’t. Nor does arriving in Western cultures magically transform intolerance to tolerance. You assume that all people who migrate are attracted to the West so as to escape the cultural practices that are not acceptable in Western cultures. That is not the case and some bring those practices with them.

    Rejecting open borders does not mean closed borders but it does mean thoughtful immigration policies to ensure immigrants integrate into the cultural norms of Canada.

    Perhaps if you had the benefit of experiencing different cultures you might have a different perspective. In any event, the effect of ill conceived multiculturalism is evident in the experience of Europe. Where are your examples of the success of open borders?

  • Chris Keam

    “Where are your examples of the success of open borders?”

    Little blue marble, orbits a star called Sol, third one out. Its whole history is an example of cultures enriching one another and freedom of movement fostering tolerance and economic opportunity, when people are allowed to move freely across its surface. Check us out sometime. You’ll be welcomed.

  • A Taxpayer

    I’m not surprised that you could not cite a real life example. There aren’t any. All you’ve got is a fairy tale that bears no resemblance to the real world, now or in the past.

  • Chris Keam

    LOL

    “The free movement of persons is a fundamental right guaranteed by the EU to its citizens… The border-free Schengen Area guarantees free movement to more than 400 million EU citizens, as well as to many non-EU nationals, businessmen, tourists or other persons legally present on the EU territory.”

    http://ec.europa.eu/dgs/home-affairs/what-we-do/policies/borders-and-visas/schengen/index_en.htm

    Irony alert, this is a key aspect of the EU the right wingers who share your views on limiting immigration are trying to preserve.

  • A Taxpayer

    Nice try but no cigar.

    First, the Schengen Area covers 400 million people out of a total population of 7.3 billion. Any geopolitical grouping that excludes 95% of the world’s population can hardly be characterized as having open borders.

    Second, the Schengen Area allows for the movement within the contracting states but does not confer rights as to employment or social programs.

    Finally, the migrant crisis has caused cracks in the Schengen Agreement and there are questions whether it will survive.

    http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/refugee-crisis-six-countries-in-schengen-now-have-border-checks-in-place-a6796296.html

  • Chris Keam

    Yep, still a lot of work to do before all humans have equal access to opportunity and freedom.

  • Chris Keam

    In the past:

    1800s
    Movement of immigrants into Canada largely unrestricted, although a Chinese Head Tax was introduced in British Columbia in 1885 to restrict Chinese immigration (it would be the first of such measures, which lasted until the 1940s).

    http://www.canadiangeographic.ca/magazine/jf01/culture_acts.asp

  • A Taxpayer

    And then everyone lived happily ever after……..

    The End

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