Quote:
Originally Posted by Keith P.
Seriously? We have gone through decades of every proposed new development of any size at all being decried by various interest groups for being either "Too TALL!!" or too out of character or too big for the neighborhood or too much like Toronto. Proposals have been sawed off, made short and stubby, had features deleted to get under height limits, had finishes cheapened to make them financially viable at smaller sizes, delayed and delayed as they ground through a process seemingly designed to not allow anything different or new, you name it. All aided and abetted by a Council with exceedingly craven and inept members who get re-elected time and time again by citizens who are totally disengaged for the most part and vote based on name recognition alone, and by a lazy and none-too-bright local media who give the squeaky wheels like Cameron a disproportionately loud voice. The list of torpedoed developments is long and rather shameful.
Finally the pressure to build became too much and we are finally seeing some activity on that front at long last, but there remains an undercurrent that the media is only too happy to give voice to that this is bad. The Camerons and Ruffmans are still beating their drums despite aging out. The more scary thing is that from what I see on certain online spaces is that there is a new generation of loonies who have been molded by our education system to believe that govt owes them everything, from an inexpensive place to live to food and recreation and college degrees, all of which will be paid for by someone other than themselves since their prospects of gainful employment are slim to none. They become fertile ground for the same types of arguments made by the old anti-development types to grow and prosper, since clearly anyone proposing a development is evil in all ways, being "rich", probably a landlord, and hence an oppressor. It is sad.
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In my opinion, that's a bit of a stretch, Keith. It reads like a cool dystopian novel in the making (could even make it to the movie stage... maybe as a dark comedy), but I think you'd be hard pressed to find a direct link between Ms. Cameron and the Centre Plan, for example.
I agree with your assessment of the media, but they are mostly just repeating what's out there. Without some form of counterargument being in place (other than the developers' opinions, which would be viewed through the 'vested interest' looking glass), that's what you're going to read about in the media. It might sway some readers, but in my negative view of things I see most readers skimming the headlines, reading a sentence or two to get the flavour of it, and moving on... I get the feeling that not a lot of deep thought goes into it after that (as evidenced by the "comments" sections that most articles have at the end). Not much power over outcome yielded there.
IMHO, there are many knowledgeable posters on this board who could probably easily counter her arguments if they had the time to do it, but I completely understand the concept of life getting in the way of good intentions and higher ideals. It happens to most of us, actually.
However the 'squeaky wheel getting the grease' is not a new concept, so it wouldn't be surprising if somebody could present some evidence that 'friends of' groups actually cause change in direction. But as yet I have not seen such evidence, just a bunch of 'friends of' bluster, and a bunch of people who are annoyed about it, meanwhile the cranes are still working away and stuff is getting built.
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