Great Canadian Skyline Thread II

[esquire]

That is a great view of Halifax, it's unusual in that it downplays the individual buildings that are typically front and centre in most Halifax skyline shots and really emphasizes the whole skyline including Dartmouth and the hills beyond to the west.

[giallo]

Originally Posted by kool maudit

I was just in Halifax, and had a very mixed reaction. On the one hand, Queen's Marque and a handful of other new developments are really of a new standard, and the city is growing up.

On the other, people sleep in tents on the Grand Parade and in Victoria Park. There was an open fire in the latter.

The latter is probably a bigger move to the downside than the former is to the upside.

If Halifax and Toronto are anything to go by, Canadian cities are a bit absurd right now.

The rapid rise in inequality happening in Canada is on another level. If you thought Halifax was bad, Vancouver would be a real somber experience.

I had a massive culture shock moment moving back to Vancouver from Seoul. I couldn't believe how much had changed since my last visit in 2019, and how dirty and sketchy it was compared to anywhere in East Asia. The streets seemed.....chaotic.

I'm not sure if it's gotten better or I'm just used to it now, but it shook me up when I arrived.

[esquire]

^ Every city I've been to in North America post-pandemic has been worse off in that regard. If anything, Halifax looked like it got off a little easier than other places. I agree that the west coast from Canada down to the US has been hammered particularly hard. Certainly my own city of Winnipeg has felt it.

Most Canadian cities look noticeably different now compared to 5 or 6 years ago.

[J.OT13]

ByWard Market in Ottawa is worse than it was. We're starting to see more outside the core as well, like around Blair Station in the east end. I think the train makes it easier for them to panhandle elsewhere where they have less competition.

None of it compares to Vancouver, even pre-pandemic.

[kool maudit]

Originally Posted by giallo

The rapid rise in inequality

This is a big part of it. I noticed what we might call expansions of latitude for the upper- and underclasses and restrictions on the middle.

In Rosedale, I heard a lot of really idealistic talk on this issue that kind of presupposed that any solution would require positive, root-level social changes that no country in the world can really yet be said to have achieved.

In Cabbagetown (east of Parliament), I still got the strong sense that this was the polite, approved view, but some of the local dads would mutter "lock 'em all up"-style things over alley beers. There were a lot of police patrols along Sumach and Sackville streets that really seemed designed to draw a line at Parliament; Riverdale Park has none of this while Moss Park and Allan Gardens are basically shantytowns.

It would be unthinkable to have tents in Mariatorget or Kungsträdgården. They would be cleared out instantly and even Södermalm media/culture types would look the other way. This really is a North American thing.

[someone123]

Originally Posted by kool maudit

It would be unthinkable to have tents in Mariatorget or Kungsträdgården. They would be cleared out instantly and even Södermalm media/culture types would look the other way. This really is a North American thing.

I think you are correct in pointing out the political angle. A lot of people comment on it as though tents in front of City Hall is direct consequence of rents going up when it is much more complicated. Some people just have a simple view but with others it feels tendentious. I have noticed an increase in this kind of cognitive dissonance over the past 3 years or so. I think it was worse around 2021 (when our society and media environment felt like it was on the verge of whatever the society-level equivalent of psychosis is) but didn't go back to 2019 norms and I am not sure we are going back. I would guess this feels a bit like living in a less stable time, like the late 1800's.

Personally, I believe it is possible to have a more functional private market, better public housing, mental health, and criminal justice, and maintain the ban on camping in public parks.

[kool maudit]

Originally Posted by giallo

If you thought Halifax was bad, Vancouver would be a real somber experience.

I didn't find Halifax that bad after Toronto, but the Grand Parade situation seemed symbolic, like a capitulation. It's an important place within that city.

[esquire]

Originally Posted by kool maudit

It would be unthinkable to have tents in Mariatorget or Kungsträdgården. They would be cleared out instantly and even Södermalm media/culture types would look the other way. This really is a North American thing.

I would add that it's a recent North American thing. 10-12 years ago, it would not have been seen as problematic to have police clear out homeless camps from parks, etc. It is now.

Interestingly, private companies are not encumbered by some of the sensitivities that police forces and local governments have to contend with. For instance, in Brandon, MB, some homeless folks who set up a camp near the railway tracks were cleared out by CPKC police (railways have their own police forces). I'm sure that came as a shock to them, as most municipal police forces have taken a much more deferential approach to this sort of thing because of the political blowback that a heavy hand causes... railways are obviously not concerned with such things.

[someone123]

Originally Posted by kool maudit

I didn't find Halifax that bad after Toronto, but the Grand Parade situation seemed symbolic, like a capitulation. It's an important place within that city.

It has no real impact on the overall housing or tenting options on a demographic level. The city could allow other places and probably has the capacity to keep that area clear. It is really about the political environment and whether municipal politicians feel that clearing out the tents fits the mood. Part of the "mood" may be politician vs. citizen aggressiveness.

[esquire]

Originally Posted by someone123

It has no real impact on the overall housing or tenting options on a demographic level. The city could allow other places and probably has the capacity to keep that area clear. It is really about the political environment and whether municipal politicians feel that clearing out the tents fits the mood.

This doesn't just apply to homeless people, of course...



For a while, we also had semi-permanent protest villages erected on the grounds of the Manitoba Legislature for various causes. Things like that would not have flown 20 years ago. Walking by them gave the impression of a society that wasn't quite as rock-solid stable as it used to be.

[giallo]

Originally Posted by kool maudit

In Cabbagetown (east of Parliament), I still got the strong sense that this was the polite, approved view, but some of the local dads would mutter "lock 'em all up"-style things over alley beers.

It's tough. I don't want to feel any sort of ill will towards the people that are suffering through severe addiction and homelessness, but it's hard not to mutter sometimes.

Tents have started to creep into my local park, and it's a bummer. It's not the actual tents or even the open drug use that concern me, it's the loads of trash, human feces and needles left behind when they move on to another location. Mounds of these soiled materials and fabrics dot the parks, sidewalks, alleys and off ramps of Vancouver these days.

[kool maudit]

Originally Posted by someone123

It has no real impact on the overall housing or tenting options on a demographic level. The city could allow other places and probably has the capacity to keep that area clear. It is really about the political environment and whether municipal politicians feel that clearing out the tents fits the mood.

I would guess that a move to clear the Grand Parade tents would be met with emotive remarks from non-profits that would be reported verbatim by the CBC and Chronicle-Herald.

I really think the only difference here is that a similar tent situation in Mariatorget would see the SVT and Aftonbladet go with one of the more technical aspects of the non-profit's statement (vs. the emotive lead) and balance it with some sort of negative experience from a sympathetic local resident and an assurance (likely untrue) from some politician that the tent people will end up somewhere OK.

Then the story would be dropped.

It really could be that fine of a balance.

[Nouvellecosse]

I don't think it's a matter of "there has to be tents in front of city hall" but more a matter of priorities. I think most would agree that tough love approaches are often good, but those entail doing things that fundamentally benefit the people being subjected to them. It's hard to explain how the homeless would benefit from being forcefully relocated from one location to another unless the new location was somehow better for them. It comes across as being in poor taste to have this big reaction when homelessness is in a highly visible location with the main priority to be efficiently sweeping it under the rug so that proper society doesn't have to see it.

In other words, it's tone deaf for a society that allows homelessness to complain about its effects on the housed rather than empathizing with the un-housed who experience much greater effects. So it's less about "there needs to be camps in X location" and more that if you allow so many people to be unhoused you don't get to dictate how it affects you instead of solving the problem.

[Nouvellecosse]

Originally Posted by someone123

It has no real impact on the overall housing or tenting options on a demographic level. The city could allow other places and probably has the capacity to keep that area clear. It is really about the political environment and whether municipal politicians feel that clearing out the tents fits the mood. Part of the "mood" may be politician vs. citizen aggressiveness.

I think allowing a problem to be hid away and made less visible can also make it easier for the mainstream to forget or at least consider it less important with the result meaning that there's less political urgency to address the underlying issues. So it may very well impact the overall housing options.

[someone123]

Originally Posted by Nouvellecosse

I don't think it's a matter of "there has to be tents in front of city hall" but more a matter of priorities. I think most would agree that tough love approaches are often good, but those entail doing things that fundamentally benefit the people being subjected to them. It's hard to explain how the homeless would be benefit from being forcefully relocated from one location to another unless the new location was somehow better for them. It comes across as being in poor taste to have this big reaction when homelessness is in a highly visible location with the main priority to be efficiently sweeping it under the rug so that proper society doesn't have to see it.

This doesn't actually work or scale at a city-sized level though. There is no way to tell if somebody is "really" homeless and so if you want your park to be usable by the citizens who pay for it you need a kind of unanimity from the population and anybody who wants to set up a tent there.

In Vancouver the tent-encampment area has expanded beyond the usual horror show areas. There were tents set up in front of a theatre which used to be a pretty busy venue. It's now closed down. At one point there was a propane tank explosion in one of the tents on the sidewalk that singed the facade of the building.

The trucker convoy scenario is sort of related in that the government intuitions around it were very passive or passive-aggressive and not entirely unrelated to what you see teenaged schoolgirls do. JT's toolkit was to smear the participants and then they froze some of their bank accounts, but they didn't focus on outlining rules and expectations or the physical mechanics of keeping the area secure or clearing it out after failing to keep it secure. Again I think this approach is just insufficient at the state level, even though it may seem friendlier or something.

[kool maudit]

Originally Posted by Nouvellecosse

I think allowing a problem to be hid away and made less visible can also make it easier for the mainstream to forget or at least consider it less important with the result meaning that there's less political urgency to address the underlying issues. So it may very well impact the overall housing options.

I noticed this a lot. There is a sense that it is honest or transparent to permit this situation.

A month before I was in Canada, I was in Tirana, Albania, where things are much poorer and less stable than anywhere in Canada, but where the presence of tents on Skanderbeg Square would be as unthinkable as the same in Stockholm.

I actually mentioned this at a cookout in Toronto, and the view seemed to be that the Albanian decision to not have its poverty situation represented in the capital's public squares is, as you say, tone-deaf or even authoritarian.

Which is a legible belief, but one that also contains a perverse incentive structure, as it implies that the presence of such circumstances reflects a virtuous tolerance while their absence hints at repression.

So shantytowns end up meaning you're a good guy.

[WhipperSnapper]

Cities don't have the resources to deal with the lack of housing spreading across the nation.

First and foremost, stop lying to people coming to Canada that they will find housing and multiple housing options.

[someone123]

Originally Posted by kool maudit

Which is a legible belief, but one that also contains a perverse incentive structure, as it implies that the presence of such circumstances reflects a virtuous tolerance while their absence hints at repression.

It creates perverse incentives for the people doing the camping and other things too, not only the observers. The nicer the camping is, the more people will want to camp.

[Nouvellecosse]

Originally Posted by someone123

This doesn't actually work or scale at a city-sized level though. There is no way to tell if somebody is "really" homeless and so if you want your park to be usable by the citizens who pay for it you need a kind of unanimity from the population and anybody who wants to set up a tent there.

In Vancouver the tent-encampment area has expanded beyond the usual horror show areas. There were tents set up in front of a theatre which used to be a pretty busy venue. It's now closed down. At one point there was a propane tank explosion in one of the tents on the sidewalk that singed the facade of the building.

The trucker convoy scenario is sort of related in that the government intuitions around it were very passive or passive-aggressive and not entirely unrelated to what you see teenaged schoolgirls do. JT's toolkit was to smear the participants and then they froze some of their bank accounts, but they didn't focus on outlining rules and expectations or the physical mechanics of keeping the area secure or clearing it out after failing to keep it secure. Again I think this approach is just insufficient at the state level, even though it may seem friendlier or something.

I think that's actually an interesting comparison in that having tents in highly visible locations like near city hall isn't just a matter of providing a sleeping place. It's also a sort of protest. It sends a message to the politicians and other powerful people that there are constituents whose basic needs are not being served so there are peaceful but inconvenient protests are a result. Although how peaceful the trucker protest was is a matter of debate considering how many local residents were denied the fundamental right to a nights sleep due to the noise.

[kool maudit]

I can see how tents at Nathan Philips Square might convey such a message. But this also implies a kind of earnest, political, engaged quality that reminds me of the idealism over CHAZ/CHOP in Seattle.

I walked through Allan Gardens. It was a violent, aggressive scene heavily centered on the drug trade. For women, it was the sort of thing whose options are restricted to protective concubinage, rape or prostitution. It didn't even have the vague anarchist theming of squats I have been to or the '00s squeegee thing. People were mostly either flipping out or nodding off.