This deserves a separate post
Sep. 21st, 2011 08:09 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sabotabbyVictory on the Port Lands development! Supporters of the Honourable Wife-Beater and Brother Doug are rapidly deserting in the face of overwhelming public pressure.
Which we need to keep up. I was remarking to a friend last night that what worries me about the Port Lands issue is that I think it's a distraction from the other cuts that the Fords want to make. It's like the Island bridge issue. Personally, I didn't give a fuck about the bridge; it was honestly never going to affect my life in any significant way. But the controversy around it got Miller into power. It was something that your cliché, latte liberal, educated urbanists could get behind. And we need those folks. I am one of those folks.* And if getting hot and bothered about the Port Lands kicks the Fords out of power, that's rad.
What I don't want to see is the issues that are invisible to the latte liberal, educated urbanists fall by the wayside. The Fords were never going to cut libraries. They'll cut subsidized housing and transit in a second, and those are the issues that are harder to get people to rally around. The people affected by them are generally too exhausted to rally.
Nevertheless, yay! There will not be a monorail!
* Well. I hardly ever drink lattes these days. Fun fact: I was teaching my kids about logos and marketing, and surveyed them on which coffee chain they thought I frequented. Two-thirds thought I preferred Tim Horton's to Starbucks. I mean, mostly I make my own freshly-ground coffee at home.
Which we need to keep up. I was remarking to a friend last night that what worries me about the Port Lands issue is that I think it's a distraction from the other cuts that the Fords want to make. It's like the Island bridge issue. Personally, I didn't give a fuck about the bridge; it was honestly never going to affect my life in any significant way. But the controversy around it got Miller into power. It was something that your cliché, latte liberal, educated urbanists could get behind. And we need those folks. I am one of those folks.* And if getting hot and bothered about the Port Lands kicks the Fords out of power, that's rad.
What I don't want to see is the issues that are invisible to the latte liberal, educated urbanists fall by the wayside. The Fords were never going to cut libraries. They'll cut subsidized housing and transit in a second, and those are the issues that are harder to get people to rally around. The people affected by them are generally too exhausted to rally.
Nevertheless, yay! There will not be a monorail!
* Well. I hardly ever drink lattes these days. Fun fact: I was teaching my kids about logos and marketing, and surveyed them on which coffee chain they thought I frequented. Two-thirds thought I preferred Tim Horton's to Starbucks. I mean, mostly I make my own freshly-ground coffee at home.
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no subject
Date: 2011-09-22 02:32 am (UTC)i didnt realize how used i was to shitty coffee.
no subject
Date: 2011-09-23 08:23 pm (UTC)- cuts to transit
- changes in the ways we do appointments to committees
- cuts to low-income housing
- privatization of public service
- and, even less tangibly but I think long-term every bit as damaging, widening the perceived gap between urban/suburban; homeowning/non-homeowning; drivers/non-drivers; taxpayer/citizen to the point where we can't even begin to talk to each other or find any shared ground (as though it were not already difficult enough).