Quote:
Originally Posted by alps
Threads like these are why I seldom visit this forum now. The piece makes two proposals:
- Inclusion of some ground-level retail to soften all the blank walls
- Less parking than is currently proposed. The piece is not arguing for no parking, as one might assume after seeing the reaction here.
If these suggestions are "radical" and "extreme" enough to prompt a chorus of rambling, ageist personal attacks then I have no hope for Nova Scotia.
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I don't understand how any of the discussion here would be seen as a personal attack. Can you explain?
I suppose I can see how it could be perceived as ageism, albeit loosely at most. I can't speak for others, but whether younger people realize it or not, age and experience gives you a perspective that you just don't have when you are 25... I know, because I've been there. In my mind, when I was 25 I was indestructible and capable of anything... however, in retrospect I realize that my thoughts as a 25 year old were somewhat naive and idealistic... the reality of life that I experienced subsequent to that revealed experiences and nuances that I could not have imagined at that age.
So, to say that somebody suggesting that we should turn the screws on people going to the hospital by reducing parking, and thus forcing them to take a bus or ride a bicycle, seems naive to me... i.e. somebody who hasn't experienced the need, due to illness or transporting an ill loved one, to take a simple car ride to a parkade, and a dry, ice-free walk or wheelchair ride through a pedway etc. to hospital reception. Hence the comment. If that's ageism, then sorry, but it's a fact that a 60 year old knows what it's like to be a 20 year old, but a 20 year old does not know what it's like to be a 60 year old. By the time you hit 60, then you have probably experienced the situation described above - if you haven't, consider yourself lucky.
Y'know? It actually seems a little strange to read the charge of ageism in this regard, as more often than not (mostly in the "Canada" section), you don't have to read long to come across "boomer" this and "boomer" that, or covid is no problem because it only affects old people, etc... yet nobody complains of ageism in those circumstances...
Regarding making the hospital more attractive and welcoming to the street? Yeah, I agree, but I think that using the hospital building for hospital purposes should be the first priority. I think governments walk a fine line because if they make it too pretty then people will complain that they are wasting tax dollars... if too austere then people complain that it's ugly and not inviting at the street level... damned if you do, damned if you don't.