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Old Posted Dec 21, 2008, 12:24 AM
acron acron is offline
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Join Date: Dec 2008
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Quote:
Originally Posted by ninipanini View Post
That was quite the rant acron… here’s my two cents: While I agree that there have been some bizare city planning decisions (and believe me I agree with you on that), I don’t quite understand the right wing rampage you just went on. Do you want a modern metropolis with interesting amenities and world class attractions or a concrete jungle? I can’t wrap my head around the constant comparisons to Calgary (and the rest of Alberta for that matter) that are always made... Calgary is a much bigger city with a lot more money largely due to the oil sands, but why is it that we are trying to emulate the soulless concrete jungle model that Calgary so perfectly demonstrates. Why don’t we strive to have a city more like Montreal (which by the way has plenty of “socialist” sentiment) which is a much more balanced, cultural and WORLD CLASS city. Say what you will, but people don’t travel from all over the world to go to placed like Calgary; they DO to go to places like Montreal.

I love Saskatoon, and I think it’s a great place to live but I’m sorry we are never going to be the “next Calgary” because there just aren’t the amenities here! And by amenities I don’t mean (just) NHL teams, big highways, skyscrapers…; I’m talking about the mountains and the other natural attractions. While I love Saskatoon, most people aren’t excited about moving to a place with a horizon like a ruler and no ocean!

Speaking of the natural amenities near Calgary being a major draw, do you really think that we should be going full steam ahead with oil sands development the same way that they are in Alberta? We are going to destroy the natural amenities that we do have. For instance where is all the water going to come from that is required to extract all this oil… we’re land locked here in case you haven’t noticed. And what about all the heavy metals associated with uranium tailings up north? Do you want to take a fishing vacation to a beautiful lake where the fish have so much selenium, cadmium and arsenic in them that you can’t eat them? I diverge…

My point is this: We are still a fairly small and young city. But we do have a lot of opportunities that, for better or worse will involve a lot of resource development (which will hopefully be well thought out unlike much of the civic planning!). Lets make sure that positive changes are made that actually make Saskatoon (and the rest of the province) a better place to live. All this right wing “full steam ahead with uranium and oil” nonsense is really short sited and not constructive. In the long run oil isn’t going to make Saskatoon a truly modern metropolis that people will travel to from anywhere, we need a little creativity and the ability to look beyond next door!

Hi guys, it appears I've stirred a little ire with my comment. I apologize if I stepped on some toes but that was kind of my goal -just to get people a little emotional. Further, I apologize to those who wish this page to be strickly construction related. In the future, I'll try to keep my posts related to the construction subject matter.

First, I want to confirm that people who look at this page are interested in "Saskatoon" and "construction." Having said that, I am under the assumption that people want to see MORE construction, rather than less (which ever shape or form that maybe).

And now I must state something that I don't intend to be rude, but I feel needs to be said... Wanting construction in this city, without an introspection as to why we haven't had as much as other places over the past 100 years is akin to wanting hard rock abs but refusing to go to the gym! The foregoing sentence is worth a second read, and a third and a forth... if you don't know where you're coming from you don't know where you are going.

Now another thought on politics. Politics is just a beautiful battleground of ideas. Some ideas are better than others. History is awash with examples of good ideas triumph over bad ideas. For example, slavery was a bad idea. Putting people in ovens in the 1940s was a bad idea. I would argue that the later part of the 20th century showed that socialism was a bad idea. China swallowed the hard pill in the late 1970s when they began to reform into a free market economy. Russia had to swallowed a really hard pill in the late 1980s and early 1990s and abandon socialism. I have been to both places in recent years and I can tell you that both countries are far better off now than they were in the 1980s. When I left eastern europe in the early 1990s the only thing that that ideology produced was long lines for toilet paper.
The average standard of living for someone in abosolute poverty in the west was BETTER than the standard of living of the middle class in the former socialist countries (and yes there was a definite class structure in those societies as well). This is difficult for me to admit, because I was once very much a socialist myself. I think the problem for many peole who identify as being left leaning, is the false view of success and the constant mental search for things that are bad. People falsly interpret someone's success as a direct threat to their own livelihood. This is wrong. Odds are if someone around you is successfull, you will benefit from it in one way or another. Finally, living in a constant world of cynics and people telling you can and can't do is an awful place to live. People who say they are cynical are just people who live in fear. Cynics are afraid to get their hopes up, because they fear of being dissapointed. And that fear keeps people from doing what they really want. Being dissapointed and let down, is not a bad thing! It should be viewed as a hidden treasure! It is an opportunity to sculpt your spirit! Nothing that was ever worth dreaming about came easy, it is through challanges and difficulties that people learned and became stronger and ended up doing really cool things like send a man into space, rid the world of slavery, create techonolgy that allows people to communicate instantly with eachother all over the world! Gahndi, a poor man from India, brought down the entire British Empire! He had no resources, no money, no political friends in high places. But his heart was in the right place and he had a spirit that could not be broken. Think abou that the next time you walk by his statue down town.

Saskatchewan, being a little bit isolated from the rest of the world, has been a little bit slower in coming to the same conclusion as Russia and China. But it is finally happening here and I am excited because I don't want to leave this place like all of my friends did over the previos decade, because of more jobs in other provinces. I want people to come here an this to be a vibrant place just like all of you.

But the real problem is not the political parties or royalty structures. It is the mindset of the people. Everything that has ever happened in this world is the product of the human mind. There was a time when people thought the sun revolved around the earth. You could have gotten burned at the stake for saying otherwise. But people like Capurnicus changed people's MINDS and disproved that fase idea that dominated the minds of the entire Roman Catholic Empire! Peoples' minds is the ultimate vehicle that drives change and innovation. The most successful people in history are those that did not accept the limits that other people tried to place in their minds. "You can't do this because... You can't do that because..." You can always find 100 things that stand in the way of your goals. You guys proved my point with all of your replies! You did a data dump to everyone of all the negative limits that stand in the way of this city from growing and expanding. If you accept those limits, then you will always be from a city that no one has heard of in Europe, and the rest of Canada scoffs at as a hickville (and I have travelled in Europe and agree that no one has ever heard of Saskatoon lol). But I encourage you guys not to accept those limitations in your minds. The possiblities for this city really are endless! Can you tell me what Edmonton or Winnipeg offer as far as a "focal view"? Nothing, they are prarie cities just like this place, yet they are more than 3 times the size...
Finally, I agree that its not about the biggest buildings. But its about being able to inspire people to move here and live here. It is will be a challange, and it will take time. But we must embrace new ideas and innovative solutions rather than dismiss everything as a pipe dream, and harass developers who want to make this city better just because they are from another province (Riverlanding project for example). We need to embrace foreign investment, as that is what will lift this city out of poverty and make it an attractive place to be. People will not stab or kill others if they have a good job and a way to dream about the future! I know this because I personally work with poverty stricken people in the Riversdale area and 20th street. our previous governments failed these people miserably! they did not to lift the poor communities out of poverty. all that happened was the rest of the province became just as poor ... I say embrace new ideas, challange your own views. Let people with bright ideas thrive rather than drive them out of town. In the big picture, that is the kind of thinking that will solve the world's problems. Think about it, in the early 1990s everyone was talking about the destruction of the rain forest in Brazil. You don't hear about that as much anymore.. Why? Because due to innovation and the rise of the internet and computers the global demand for paper has plummetted to the ground thereby avoiding the need to chop down the rain forest at the same mass rate. Information is now being transmitted through computers rather than books and letters! Look at what you are doing this very moment!! How is that for a free market solving a global challange! I would argue that the internet solution turned out to be a far better way than having a government forcing the people to stop what they are doing. This goes back to my earlier point.

Now as far as our the oil sands and other resources. Again, I'm not saying we should just adopt the Alberta model and go forward with destroying our north, but there is got to be a way to increase efficiency and make it an environmentally acceptable process. For example, you may not need all that water to extract the oil sands. Hot steam injection is just one method that Syncrude and Suncore adopted. We may not need to burn gas to heat the sands like in Alberta either. Here's a thought, why not use excess energy from the proposed nuclear reactor to extract the oil sands? No need to use all our clean water, no need to burn gas. The solutions are there if we look for them. FYI in the 1990s the oil sands developers in Alberta wanted to build a nuclear reactor near Fort Mac as a joint venture with the Saskatchewan. This could have been already done, but Saskpower and the governing party of the day shelved that idea. They felt it was better to burn dirty coal for the next 200 years, rather than embrace nuclear energy....
Anyway, that was just another example of Saskatchewan's past xenophobia toward new ideas, new solutions, and the outside world.

We are all going to be wearing space suits soon, I hope we get with the program.

Again, I appologize for the long rant unrelated to construction.... I hope I didn't offend people too much. I think at the end of the day we all want the same thing, to live in a vibrant cool city where we can grow old and be proud of. You guys have good ideas, and I enjoy reading your thoughts. Again, I look forward to visiting this page and reading your comments.


Take care and live with passion!

"... 10% of people are born to lose, 10% born to win, the other 80% can be swayed either way..." - anonymous
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