Mr. Miller delights in recounting a fairytale about his vital role, (as Victoria’s “unelected mayor” for the past five decades), transforming a colonial island outpost once populated by “noble savages” into a world-class “Dreamland”…with rainbows and unlimited sugar plums for those with deep pockets.
Fascinated with ‘red, white and blue’ patriarchal symbols like refurbished castles with Union Jacks flying to lure gawking tourists, he also waves his ‘Father Knows Best’ stars and stripes banner while sharing his Manifest Destiny ethos—“I have tried to make Victoria a perfect human place.”
Likely his delusions of grandeur are fueled by a belief in the magic of Disney and “trickle-down economics”, including how to make money building ‘gentle density’ homes in Fairfield, and “missing middle” million-dollar townhouses throughout the city, (that won’t squeeze out any trees in the process.)
His adulation of Lisa Helps, and his financial contribution to her mayoralty campaigns, together with help from the booming real estate and development industry, may account for his view that “Helps is the best mayor the city has had in this half-century.”
In a world that worships growth and greed at any cost, it’s easy to ignore its victims. Destitute, defenseless individuals who live in tents—on streets or in parks. Displaced tenants: couch-surfing, living in vans, face soaring renovictions and demolition of their homes in gentrifying neighborhoods made more ‘vibrant’, ‘livable’ and ‘sustainable’—but not for those without means .
Victoria has survived one “gilded” era in the early 20th century – based on a resource boom that also left the scars of the Great Depression with its grinding poverty and deprivation. Today’s corporate rentiers and land speculators descend again on the city to capitalize on the promised prosperity of a new gilded era.
A tale of two cities, this gated paradise welcomes those with an annual household income of $200,000 needed to buy a single family home, townhouse, or condo. A tiny slice is left for those who want a one-bedroom rental, but you’ll need a minimum annual household income of $50,000.
Building more unaffordable homes won’t solve our local or global housing crisis.
Want to live in the “best of all possible worlds”? Love fairytales?
Victoria’s new Mayor and Council invite you to be ‘Queen-for-a-Day’ (ride in a horse-drawn carriage).
Or be Davey Crocket, ‘King of the Wild Frontier’, (ride a hobbyhorse into the sunset with Gene Miller.)
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Dreamland: Who’s next? What’s next?
in Commentary
Posted
Mr. Miller delights in recounting a fairytale about his vital role, (as Victoria’s “unelected mayor” for the past five decades), transforming a colonial island outpost once populated by “noble savages” into a world-class “Dreamland”…with rainbows and unlimited sugar plums for those with deep pockets.
Fascinated with ‘red, white and blue’ patriarchal symbols like refurbished castles with Union Jacks flying to lure gawking tourists, he also waves his ‘Father Knows Best’ stars and stripes banner while sharing his Manifest Destiny ethos—“I have tried to make Victoria a perfect human place.”
Likely his delusions of grandeur are fueled by a belief in the magic of Disney and “trickle-down economics”, including how to make money building ‘gentle density’ homes in Fairfield, and “missing middle” million-dollar townhouses throughout the city, (that won’t squeeze out any trees in the process.)
His adulation of Lisa Helps, and his financial contribution to her mayoralty campaigns, together with help from the booming real estate and development industry, may account for his view that “Helps is the best mayor the city has had in this half-century.”
In a world that worships growth and greed at any cost, it’s easy to ignore its victims. Destitute, defenseless individuals who live in tents—on streets or in parks. Displaced tenants: couch-surfing, living in vans, face soaring renovictions and demolition of their homes in gentrifying neighborhoods made more ‘vibrant’, ‘livable’ and ‘sustainable’—but not for those without means .
Victoria has survived one “gilded” era in the early 20th century – based on a resource boom that also left the scars of the Great Depression with its grinding poverty and deprivation. Today’s corporate rentiers and land speculators descend again on the city to capitalize on the promised prosperity of a new gilded era.
A tale of two cities, this gated paradise welcomes those with an annual household income of $200,000 needed to buy a single family home, townhouse, or condo. A tiny slice is left for those who want a one-bedroom rental, but you’ll need a minimum annual household income of $50,000.
Building more unaffordable homes won’t solve our local or global housing crisis.
Want to live in the “best of all possible worlds”? Love fairytales?
Victoria’s new Mayor and Council invite you to be ‘Queen-for-a-Day’ (ride in a horse-drawn carriage).
Or be Davey Crocket, ‘King of the Wild Frontier’, (ride a hobbyhorse into the sunset with Gene Miller.)