Commentary
when do they remember paved paradise Do you want to set up a parking lot? If not, don’t worry. Smart Set in Canada, like everywhere else, is determined to cram people into canyons and caves of cement and asphalt, and the fact that they want a house with a lawn means they need a proper nudge. Prove it.
Even Aaron Udrick of the McDonald’s Laurier Institute just complained “Exclusion zoning, which sees large plots of major cities reserved exclusively for single-family homes, prevents overcrowding and allows the ‘Not My Backyard’ (NIMBY) activity to easily block proposed redevelopment.” increase. … [T]States should flip the script and weaken the veto power of the NIMBY crowd by passing laws limiting exclusive zoning and mandating “crowding by default” except in extenuating circumstances. ” terrible.
One of the strangest aspects of this frenzy is that we’re all environmentalists now. Yet we are determined that trees create novel urban environments. And this approach shares the desperate nature of much of Canada’s public policy today, from deficits to inflation.
“For forward-thinking local politicians, there is an opportunity to build more housing and help communities grow and thrive,” said Udrick. But this distorted vision of prosperity echoes the infamous WEF’s “you own nothing and you will be happy” and “you will be happy if you own more”. How about having nice things and being happy? If money could buy happiness, wouldn’t it?
When it comes to mass immigration, it’s designed to solve the population crisis without changing our ways. Because even the prolific immigrants who become Canadians will soon experience the same demographic transition and need even more newcomers to fund their social programs. What hope do you have for 300 million if you can’t make them ‘prosperous’?
As the son of an immigrant and three grandchildren, I welcome individuals from all over the world to this great land of opportunity and natural beauty. (Except for the minority who see Canada as organized crime, the unorganized kind, or the soft touch of terrorism. Malls, skyscrapers from the ocean to glistening tenements? Is that what immigrants want?
you know it’s not. Remember the tearful character in “It’s a Wonderful Life” who mysteriously proclaims, “I, Giuseppe Martini, I own my own house.” Complete with garden for children, goats and chickens. A dream for Americans and Canadians.
Perhaps goats and chickens are detrops. Or a wolf. But instead of a chemical monoculture lawn, consider allowing some native plants that attract pollinators and grass long enough for crickets and critters to nest. .
Oh wait. you can’t. We dug up the lawn and pushed three houses into the lot. What are plants?
By cramming the human unit into an ergonomic concrete box, “a healthy cycle of competition has begun, with other municipalities looking to join forces or build a future for their families in Canada.” You miss out on the attraction,” Wudrick hopes. But what kind of future? Who but Soviet citizens and people in refugee camps dream of own apartments with small balconies and trash cans in the corridors?
I doubt Densifier public transportation can handle the disastrous Galactic Metropole they envision. Riding a bike everywhere is unrealistic. Especially when it comes to our natural and demographic winter. And the housing price crisis caused by cramming people into cities won’t be solved by cramming more.
Even a crowd of 20-something condos partying above a sea of glittering glass and cement will one day find the social whirlpool restless and crave something more idyllic. If professors and planners like skyscrapers, they are free to live in them. But don’t force it on us.
Here I have to quote Chesterton again. Autonomy does not mean asking “ordinary citizens … many fanciful questions.” “He and his companions should, within reasonable human limits, be masters of their own lives. . . . But in modern England neither men nor women have any influence at all. In the main question, the shaping of the landscape, the creation of a way of life, people are utterly powerless.”
At least there was scenery back then. There are now sidewalks, roads, potholes, and a lunar landscape of stiff, unflattering walls, where the weary antihero of Mickey Spillane’s “My Gun Is Quick” said, “I called it home Headed north to my very own cave in a huge cliff’. Is it really a Canadian dream?
No, that’s why I say it proudly. Don’t you dare pave it and command me to smile.
Views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of The Epoch Times.
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John Robson is a documentary filmmaker, columnist for the National Post, contributing editor for the Dorchester Review, and Executive Director of Climate Discussion Nexus. His latest documentary is ‘The Environment: A True Story’.