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Post by Rick Shea on Jul 13, 2005 10:42:59 GMT -5
I'm one of those people who came here many, many years ago, have witnessed the deterioration of so many aspects of life in Kelowna, and who will gladly be moving on as soon as I can, unless we can somehow halt the progression toward chaos, and curtail the growth polluters.
Linda and I have already considered Nelson and parts of southern Nova Scotia, are actively looking in the rural areas in the south end of the valley, and have considered taking up one of the informal job offers that I've had in parts of the Caribbean, Peru, the Cook Islands, and elsewhere. I suspect that, if more people were fortunate enough to have those opportunities (and yes, I feel privileged to have them), we'd see a relatively large exodus from this area, so I suppose that that would solve some of our current problems.
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Post by John Zeger on Feb 6, 2006 19:27:45 GMT -5
I am posting some comments from Councillor Brent Jewell of Strathcona County which is just east of Edmonton and which contains the large suburban community of Sherwood Park. It's interesting that ideas such as Action for a Sustainable Kelowna (ASK) was espousing in the recent Kelowna civic election are being voiced in free-enterprise loving Alberta, but then Mr. Jewell probably didn't have the likes of John Harding, Kelowna's leading "chicken little," to contend with when he ran for election.
Strathcona County
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- County must control growth Published May 18, 2005 Over the past three and a half years on Council, I have received numerous calls concerning many issues including increased traffic volume, speeding, vandalism, noise and drug use, to mention a few. In my opinion, most of these problems relate back to uncontrolled residential growth. There are two ways of relating to residential growth. One is to direct and manage growth, which means to allow growth to happen at whatever rate the development community decides is correct. The second way is to control or limit growth to a percentage that is sustainable and leads to the least amount of negative effects on the current residents. For example, if we continue to allow the rate of residential growth to remain at three percent a year, in the year 2030 the county population would be in excess of 167,000 people. If we control growth, by limiting it to one percent a year, the county population would be slightly over 102,000 people in 2030. This would mean over fifty percent less traffic. The issue, by reasonable people, has never been no residential growth or directed and managed growth; it has been to control growth. The question seems to be how much are we willing to inconvenience and disrupt our existing residents to allow for growth. The more rapid the growth, the more inconvenience. Rapid growth leads to higher traffic numbers, increased demand for capital projects and more and more disruption for current residents. It is time for those with their “chicken little” attitude towards controlling residential growth to wake up and smell the coffee. We spend far too much time worrying about the future of people who may live in our community and too little time listening to the concerns of residents who are here now. Controlling residential growth is all about protecting the desirable quality of life for our existing residents and ensuring that our future residents will have that same quality of life. As no growth or directed and managed growth are not options, if we are truly interested in a sustainable community and retention of the enjoyable quality of life we now have, then we must start to control residential growth. On another topic, my colleague Councillor Peter Wlodarczak has raised the issue of a curfew for youth in the county. The overwhelming majority of calls and emails I have received have been in favor of the implementation of a curfew. This has encouraged me to support Peter in this matter. I would encourage residents to contact your local councillor and share your views on residential growth and the issue of a curfew. Brent Jewell Councillor, Ward 1 464-8005 jewellb@strathcona.ab.ca
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Post by John Zeger on Feb 11, 2006 20:50:47 GMT -5
B.C. Stats reported that the population of Kelowna increased by 3.4% in 2005 to well over 109,000. If the population continues to grow at this rate, then the population of the city will double to approximately 220,000 in 23 years by the year 2028. Recent increases in building permit approvals suggest that the growth rate will be even higher in future years. Given the impact that this growth will have on trafffic congestion, pollution, and crime, is this what residents really want?
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Post by John Zeger on Nov 30, 2006 12:49:40 GMT -5
Is bigger necessarily better? Not according to the research conducted by John Helliwell an economist at UBC. Helliwell found that the happiest Canadians reside not in bigger, wealthier cities but rather in poorer but socially tighter-knit communities in the Maritimes.
October 16, 2004, The Halifax Herald Happiness is living in Atlantic Canada By RALPH SURETTE
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HERE'S something that's no news at all, really, but is worth passing on: According to practitioners of a new discipline called "happiness economics," the happiest Canadians live in "poor" Atlantic Canada, while the unhappiest ones live in our wealthiest cities.
In fact, says John Helliwell, an economist at the University of British Columbia, if the life satisfaction of Atlantic Canadians is the best in the country, "then maybe equalization payments of a different sort should be heading in the other direction."
In other words, maybe we could give Ralph Klein his money's worth after all: some advice about chilling out. More seriously, there are implications here for policy-making. The great roar is always for more economic growth, more money, more jobs, with little thought for the other important things. Maybe we should take a moment sometime - maybe even on Sunday if it turns out that we're not shopping - and reflect on what we're wishing for.
Last Saturday, the Globe and Mail had a big spread on this, with the usual litany of burned-out, money-grubbing, big-city workaholics admitting that their frenzied pursuit of wealth and status turned out to be a treadmill to nowhere, a trail of divorce, alienated kids and friends, bad health, pill popping, alcoholism and whatever.
It also had testimony from Andrew Oswald, a British pioneer in this field of study, who said he had always assumed, as economists generally do, that money bought happiness. "I have had to revise that opinion," he said.
The real "news" here is that it took the emergence of a whole academic discipline to figure out the obvious: A neurotic quest for the tarnished baubles of wealth and fame doesn't make you content. In Atlantic Canada, what gives us the edge is our ground-level networks of friends and family. Along with having more friends and acquaintances, our sense of social support is greater, our level of trust of other people is higher (the crime rate is also the lowest in the country), the gap between rich and poor is less, and people are more readily accepted as human beings rather than as piles of money decked out in fancy clothes. This goes against the modern grain, which is towards more and more isolation: bigger homes, bigger cars, bigger egos, the competitive quest for status, and so on.
There are, of, course, a few twists to the scenario. In Atlantic Canada, you'll find the big-city attitudes creeping into the fancier suburbs of Halifax. I suspect that if the happiness economists applied their expertise more narrowly, they'd find rural Atlantic Canadians, on the whole, happier than urban ones.
I moved from Halifax to Yarmouth County a couple of years ago, where I built a house. The power corporation guy who hooked up my electricity told me he knew a couple of hundred families by name in the western counties just from hooking them up. "In Halifax, guys doing my job probably get to know maybe 15," he said. And, I added, in Toronto, where you're just a guy doing a job, probably none. I have conversations like this frequently.
Another kink is that the principle that money doesn't buy happiness is relative. If you're truly poor, or indebted, it does. If you already have enough, the researchers found, more money just makes you want more still in a never-ending quest to flaunt wealth and one-up the other guy. In response to one intriguing questionnaire, they found that most respondents would rather make $50,000 if others made half that, than make $100,000 if others made twice as much. Under yet another angle, they found that East Germans have become less happy after reunification, although their living standards have risen - because they're now comparing themselves to West Germans.
And the final twist is that Atlantic Canada is not "poor." That, too, is relative. The word only comes up because others are filthy rich. If we look at it in world terms, we are in fact mostly filthy rich ourselves. Figures from the World Bank indicate this: If you make $25,000 a year, you're in the top 10 per cent of wage earners on the face of the Earth.
And so, our relative contentment is not because of our "poverty," but because we're still resisting a key element of the North American way: coveting the lifestyle of the rich and famous.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Copyright © 2004 The Halifax Herald All Rights Reserved
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Post by John Zeger on Nov 30, 2006 13:17:29 GMT -5
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Post by John Zeger on Nov 30, 2006 14:03:47 GMT -5
Helliwell's study clearly showed that happiness and life satisfaction are higher outside of big cities but many in Kelowna in particular our political leaders want to turn Kelowna into a big city nonetheless. ucscoop.com/uploads/images/389/Halliwell_Slide_Show_from_AGM_2004.pdfSo does growth bring happiness? Not according to this article in The New Economist: Wednesday, January 18, 2006 Happiness: the hippies were right all along Warwick's Andrew Oswald writes in tomorrow's Financial Times that The hippies were right all along about happiness (subscribers only). Oswald maintains that happiness, not economic growth, "ought to be the next and more sensible target for the next and more sensible generation": Politicians mistakenly believe that economic growth makes a nation happier. “Britain is today experiencing the longest period of sustained economic growth since the year 1701 – and we are determined to maintain it,” began Gordon Brown, the chancellor of the exchequer, in his 2005 Budget speech. Western politicians think this way because they were taught to do so. But today there is much statistical and laboratory evidence in favour of a heresy: once a country has filled its larders there is no point in that nation becoming richer. The hippies, the Greens, the road protesters, the downshifters, the slow-food movement – all are having their quiet revenge. Routinely derided, the ideas of these down-to-earth philosophers are being confirmed by new statistical work by psychologists and economists. First, surveys show that the industrialised nations have not become happier over time. Random samples of UK citizens today report the same degree of psychological well-being and satisfaction with their lives as did their (poorer) parents and grandparents. In the US, happiness has fallen over time. White American females are markedly less happy than were their mothers. Second, using more formal measures of mental health, rates of depression in countries such as the UK have increased. Third, measured levels of stress at work have gone up. Fourth, suicide statistics paint a picture that is often consistent with such patterns. In the US, even though real income levels have risen sixfold, the per-capita suicide rate is the same as in the year 1900. In the UK, more encouragingly, the suicide rate has fallen in the last century, although among young men it is far greater than decades ago. Fifth, global warming means that growth has long-term consequences few could have imagined in their undergraduate tutorials. None of these points is immune from counter-argument. But most commentators who argue against such evidence appear to do so out of intellectual habit or an unshakeable faith in conventional thinking. Some of the world’s most innovative academics have come up with strong evidence about why growth does not work. One reason is that humans are creatures of comparison. Research last year showed that happiness levels depend inversely on the earnings levels of a person’s neighbours. Prosperity next door makes you dissatisfied. It is relative income that matters: when everyone in a society gets wealthier, average well-being stays the same. A further reason is habituation. Experiences wear off. ...Those who become disabled recover 80 per cent of their happiness by three years after an accident. Yet economics textbooks still ignore adaptation. A final reason is that human beings are bad at forecasting what will make them happy. In laboratory settings, people systematically choose the wrong things for themselves. Yet surely, it might be argued, what about power showers, televised football, titanium wristhingyches, car travel for all – are these not compelling evidence for the long arm of growth? Yes they are, but we need these because Mr and Mrs Jones have them, not because they make an intrinsic difference. Economists’ faith in the value of growth is diminishing. That is a good thing and will slowly make its way into the minds of tomorrow’s politicians. Led by the distinguished psychologist Edward Diener of the University of Illinois, a practical intellectual manifesto signed by many of the world’s researchers, entitled Guidelines for National Indicators of Subjective Well-Being and Ill-Being, has just begun to circulate on the internet. That document calls for national measures of separate facets of well-being and ill-being, including moods and emotions, perceived mental and physical health, satisfaction with particular activities and domains, and the subjective experience of time allocation and pressure. Happiness, not economic growth, ought to be the next and more sensible target for the next and more sensible generation. Wednesday, January 18, 2006 at 10:09 PM in Economic policy, Happiness, well-being, satisfaction, Social policy | Permalink
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Post by John Zeger on Dec 1, 2006 13:28:37 GMT -5
The Greek philosopher Aristotle ventured that the ideal city size is a moderate one enabling the production of "virtuous citizens." Back in Aristotle's time a moderate-size city would probably be smaller than what we consider to be moderate today. The reference to cities creating virtuous cities is very similar to the contemporary discussion of the importance of "social capital" to the health and well-being of residents.
What would be the characteristics of the best city we could imagine? First of all, we want the city to be the right size. Many people, Aristotle says, are confused about what this means. They assume that the bigger the city is, the better it will be. But this is wrong. It is certainly true that the city must be large enough to defend itself and to be self-sufficient, but "This too, at any rate, is evident from the facts: that it is difficult - perhaps impossible – for a city that is too populous to be well managed" (1326a26). So the right size for the city is a moderate one; it is the one that enables it to perform its function of creating virtuous citizens properly. "[T]he [city] that is made up of too few persons is not self-sufficient, though the city is a self-sufficient thing, while the one that is made up of too many persons is with respect to the necessary things self-sufficient like a nation, but is not a city; for it is not easy for a regime to be present" (1326b3). There is an additional problem in a regime that is too large: "With a view to judgment concerning the just things and with a view to distributing offices on the basis of merit, the citizens must necessarily be familiar with one another's qualities; where this does not happen to be the case, what is connected with the offices and with judging must necessarily be carried on poorly " -- Aristotle (The Politics)
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