Growth
Sunday July 20, 2008
Knowing when enough is enough
My granddaughter is at a wonderful age. She has outgrown the terrible twos; she’s still a long way from the terrible teens. I almost wish I could keep her that perfect age forever.
But that would be a tragedy—a child who never grows up.
Conversely, adults have to stop growing physically, or die. Only cancer cells grow unstoppably.
Communities of adults face the same problem as individuals—when to grow, when to stop.
Kelowna is not a major metropolis—not yet. At slightly over 100,000 population, it would be barely a pimple on the sprawling bodies of Mexico City, Calcutta, or Beijing.
Even so, Kelowna is running out of space. So it’s going up, instead of out.
When we moved to the Okanagan, Kelowna’s tallest building towered a whole six stories. Today, a small forest of construction cranes brood over a dozen new buildings that will all exceed 20 stories.
Proponents of this development argue that high-density housing will revitalize the city’s downtown core. The arts will flourish. Theatres will be full; so will bars and restaurants.
By destroying the downtown that currently exists, downtown will be rejuvenated.
Opponents argue that people choose to live in Kelowna precisely because it is low key, small scale, with views of mountains and lake. If downtown Kelowna looks just like Manhattan, they ask, what attraction will the city have?
Same problem, smaller scale
We’re having the same debate in my home community of Okanagan Centre, on a still smaller scale. Officially, Okanagan Centre has about 1,000 homes, about 2,000 population. But the official boundaries don’t match residents’ perceptions. In reality, the community that thinks of itself as Okanagan Centre probably doesn’t exceed 500 people.
It’s a remarkably egalitarian community, with a broad range of occupations, incomes, and ages.
Our problem is Kelowna, the big city just over the hill. And Calgary, the much bigger city over a few more hills.
For three months of each year, Okanagan Centre’s quiet waterfront is overwhelmed with people bringing their boats, their dogs, their children, and their recreational vehicles to our relatively uncrowded beaches.
Affluent Albertans build luxury homes to occupy for a few weeks each year. They inflate the population statistics. They can vote in municipal elections, and can influence municipal policies. But they have no roots in the community, and don’t want any.
Unpalatable alternatives
All the alternatives feel equally unpalatable.
We can accept growth as inevitable. Unpretentious homes will be replaced by rows of townhouses. Parks will become parking lots, quiet roads will become speedways.
We can turn ourselves into a gated community, where only the right people are allowed in, if they agree to maintain certain social and architectural conditions.
Or we can try to deep-freeze the community as is. No new buildings, no renovations, no sewers, no road improvements. The whole community becomes a historical artifact, a museum piece.
It won’t work, municipal planners tell us. You’ll become a millionaires’ playground. As property values skyrocket, ordinary folk can’t afford to live there. You’ll destroy the very qualities of life that you hope to preserve.
How can we preserve what we value in Okanagan Centre, without embalming it? And without turning it into Coney Island or Niagara Falls?
Solve problem, lose soul
Other places have faced similar problems.
Sixty years ago, when I first saw the ruins of Glendelough, in Ireland’s Wicklow Mountains, the spirit of the place captured me. Compared to the Rockies, of course, Ireland doesn’t have mountains. But Glendelough’s picture-postcard-pretty lakes (“loughs”) nestled between brooding cliffs, come close.
The Celts speak of “thin places,” where spirit world and real world come close together. For me, Glendelough is such a place.
Others thought so too. From the 6th3”> to the 12th3”> centuries, throughout the Dark Ages, Glendelough’s monastery was a beacon of learning for western Europe.
As increasing herds of tourists—like me—came to be awed and inspired, the authorities chose one means of preserving the area. They widened and improved access roads. They expanded parking lots and built boardwalks through the marshes. Paved pathways replaced natural grass.
Souvenir shops and restaurants now line the highway.
And an interpretive centre helps visitors appreciate the valley’s history.
The improvements were all well-intentioned. They all hoped to reduce the damage that thousands of undisciplined visitors can inflict.
But Glendelough no longer moves my heart the way it used to. The “thin place” is not as thin any more.
Most cities have simply ignored the problem. New York went up. Los Angeles went out. Bombay squeezed in more people by using balconies and even doorways as accommodation.
Limits to growth
But there are limits to everything.
The federal government, which runs Banff National Park, has decreed that the town of Banff cannot grow any more. Period. The Parks Branch placed a cap on population, on houses, on commercial space.
You can only move into Banff if someone else moves out. You can only expand your store if someone else agrees to shrink.
The elected council of Banff is now struggling with how to allow change and improvement without growth.
Banff’s restrictions were imposed by an external source, the federal government. But they reflect the physical limitations of a small mountain valley.
Okanagan Centre, a ledge along the lakeshore, has similar physical limitations. A recent meeting of residents re-affirmed that there is simply no additional space available for parking, wider roads, or tourist facilities.
The residents strongly opposed destroying an existing community to accommodate the needs of temporary non-residents.
Kelowna too is ringed by mountains, fenced in by lake. The current building boom assumes that people will come, people who don’t live there yet.
In my opening analogy, I suggested that a child must grow physically, or die. But adults who never stop growing physically will also die.
Individual human bodies seem to know when enough is enough.
Collective human bodies find that lesson harder to learn.
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Copyright © 2007 by Jim Taylor. Non-profit use in congregations and study groups permitted; all other rights reserved.
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