.jpg.bee6da21545b36ee147b8b8fe68bc87e.jpg)
Gene Miller
-
Posts
131 -
Joined
-
Last visited
Content Type
Focus Magazine Nov/Dec 2016
Sept/Oct 2016.2
Past Editions in PDF format
Advertorials
Focus Magazine July/August 2016
Focus Magazine Jan/Feb 2017
Focus Magazine March/April 2017
Passages
Local Lens
Focus Magazine May/June 2017
Focus Magazine July/August2017
Focus Magazine Sept/Oct 2017
Focus Magazine Nov/Dec 2017
Focus Magazine Jan/Feb 2018
Focus Magazine March/April 2018
Focus Magazine May/June 2018
Focus Magazine July/August 2018
Focus Magazine Sept/Oct 2018
Focus Magazine Nov/Dec 2018
Focus Magazine Jan/Feb 2019
Focus Magazine March/April 2019
Focus Magazine May/June 2019
Focus Magazine July/August 2019
Focus Magazine Sept/Oct 2019
Focus Magazine Nov/Dec 2019
Focus Magazine Jan/Feb 2020
Focus Magazine March-April 2020
COVID-19 Pandemic
Navigating through pandemonium
Informed Comment
Palette
Earthrise
Investigations
Reporting
Analysis
Commentary
Letters
Development and architecture
Books
Forests
Controversial developments
Gallery
Store
Forums
Downloads
Blogs
Events
Comment Comments posted by Gene Miller
-
-
Dave,
Thanks for reading my column and for taking the time to comment. So, let me check in with you. Where in the column do you find a line that opposes growth or housing? Short answer: nowhere. Where in the column do you find a viewpoint that Victoria should NOT be or become an "amazing city?" Again, nowhere. I wrote the column in an effort to make the point that "amazing" is achieved and sustained as the result of some careful choices, and that if you don't pay attention you wind up with just the results you didn't want.
I look forward to continuing the conversation, but please, respond to what I in fact write and not to the noise in your head.
Gene
Dreamland: Who’s next? What’s next?
in Commentary
Posted
Wow, I just try to have some fun, and throw a small parade for myself (I’m normally very self-effacing), and look what I earn: a temper tantrum from Victoria Adams! Oh, by the way, Victoria, can I help you carry all your protest placards? They make quite a stack.
Let’s see….
If I reference the US or quote from the New York Times (America’s last liberal journalistic hope), I’m Big Daddy or Davey Crocket.
If I reference the so-called “missing middle” housing initiative, or suggest I’m a fan of distributed density I’m at best aligned with evil developers or at worst, am one. (If I can borrow just a corner of one of your protest placards, I’ll jot down the realities of housing math for you.)
If I praise about-to-be-ex-Victoria mayor Lisa Helps and call her the best mayor I’ve seen in a half-century, that triggers your response that she’s failed to completely solve intractable social problems.
Maybe you just prefer a less hyperbolic style of journalistic commentary—something more finger wag-y and politically correct, something that leaves no question in the reader’s mind that the writer is on the side of the scolds. That’s Victoria, isn’t it? Not you Victoria, of course, but the city Victoria.
Helps, on the other hand, had political, ideological ends. Her entire methodology was directed at outcomes; that is, at making a difference. For God’s sake, just study the Grumpy Brontosaurs response to the sheer scale of her social vision: “Stick to your knitting.” “Fill the potholes.” That repudiation of social complexity: how marvelously conservative, how prudent, how yesteryear. The petty annoyance at having to accommodate bike lanes (which really means having to accommodate the future). The furore over the missing middle housing initiative which essentially rubbed Fairfield’s fur the wrong way. The social tragedy of the homeless camping on our streets and in our parks—why didn’t Helps solve that? How hard could it be? Even though Helps, returning from a BC mayors task force, reported that every city in BC (and Canada, and the US) is facing the same reality.
Of course I tried, over fifty years, to make this a perfect human place (you overlook my accomplishments in your little rant). What else are we put on this Earth for? I failed, or succeeded in only the tiniest of ways. It turns out that Victoria, if no worse than any other place, is no better. But I saw glimmers of hope, of possibility, in Lisa Helps (and, by extension, in the city that would choose her as its mayor). Maybe that was genuine, maybe it was just civic pretense—the better-seeming culture of the place and Victoria’s art form; but, ultimately, just like every other place. As I’ve noted elsewhere, when the going gets tough, well-intentioned Victoria holds a workshop.
Anyway, call me 250-514-2525 and we’ll go for coffee (my treat) and solve the world’s problems together. A coffee date should do it.