So what have I been up to?

Two posts for the price of one today!  So inspired by my last post, I figured I might as well keep it going.

Prior to my post earlier today, I hadn't been around here since September.  Bad form, yes I know.  But it's not like I've been wasting away!  I've been actually quite productive for the past few months.  My wife and I moved to Kitchener, Ontario from Hamilton for my new job as Digital Media & Marketing Coordinator. I spearheaded a new website, kicked ass on the organization's twitter and facebook accounts, relaunched 3 new e-newsletters, started the organization's first-ever content creation committee and am generally having a lot of fun creating an engaging online experience for a brand that likes to do cool shit (as we say internally).  All in all, it's been a good transition.

We're still trying to figure out Kitchener/Waterloo.  Many think of Hamilton as a blight on the map of Canada, but it truly is an incredible place with a surprising mix of grassroots culture, industry, natural beauty, architecture, and a supportive community.  When I tell people in KW that I moved from Hamilton, they look at me as if I'm one of the lucky refugees who made it out of a war-torn country.  And when I try to explain that they just don't get Hamilton or express how great it is, they then look at me like I have Stockholm Syndrome or something.  I'm then told how much better it is here: more jobs & money, lots of stuff to do, lots of young ambitious types, great optimism about the future of the community, good culture, etc.  All seemingly true, but I can't shake this feeling of everything being extremely manufactured here.  Nothing seems quite real or organic - everything very plastic.

Before you jump all over me on this, at this point, this is just an overall impression.  I'm really not qualified at all to turn this into an opinion as I haven't gone out enough, explored enough, or lived here enough to make a proper judgement.  Hell, it took me 6 years of living in Hamilton (to be fair - 4 of them as a student of McMaster) before I felt like I "got" Steeltown and understood what a unique gem it was.  I'm not writing off KW in the least - I'm excited to be here and attempt to integrate myself within the cultural framework. (In case you didn't notice, that was my anti-flame paragraph)

Without a car, "going out" funds, and situating ourselves in the suburban wasteland of the Stanley Park Mall area, my wife and I haven't exactly set ourselves up for success.  I like to think that being an employee of a significant cultural institution will help to counteract this situation.  But living near every possible convenience doesn't help to quell my impression of this being the land of big-box stores and chains and franchises, squeezing the life out of independent retail and authentic ethnic food, all of this effectively crushing this community's cultural soul.  Where are the starving artists transforming formerly derelict areas into bohemian havens? Where is the music scene? Why is the closest bar to me at least a 30 minute walk away? Why are people excited about another franchise, a Firkin Pub, opening up? Why are Kitchener and Waterloo two different cities and why do people think they're so different from each other? And the one question that really puzzles me, WHY DO PEOPLE THINK KITCHENER IS SKETCHY? Have you ever been to another city before? Seriously, this deserves a whole post unto itself.  As my wife said, if you know the names of all the crack addicts, it's not a sketchy downtown. /rant.

Seriously though, I actually like it here so far.  I'm just still in the adjustment phase of moving. But after first living in Windsor and then Hamilton, there is something unnerving about living in a city with no poverty.  It's like I'm trying to find other things wrong with the place because it doesn't make any sense.  I'm looking forward to getting out of winter though, a time that makes every city seem boring.  I look to the summer with excitement and anticipation for a chance to truly explore and get to know our new home.

So this post really went from an update to a weird pseudo-rant.  Maybe as I begin to write more often again I'll have a bit more focus.

My Email to Pan Am Representatives in Support of West Harbour

In case you haven't been following, there has been a great war raging in Hamilton over the site of a proposed Pan American Games stadium that would also be the future home of the Hamilton TiCats CFL team.  Anyone who has been following my twitter feed will know that I'm a supporter of the West Harbour location, a progressive site in the age of Peak Oil, environmental awareness, and urban reorganization.  The TiCats have argued for a site in the suburbs of Hamilton stating that their fans want a "driveway to driveway" experience and that they will lose money at the West Harbour site.  The point of this post is not to argue one way or another.  You can see the differing opinions at the following two websites:

• Our City, Our Future (West Harbour - City's preferred site)
• Go East Mountain (East Mountain - TiCats preferred site)

The folks over at Our City, Our Future have done a tremendous job of running a grass roots campaign for the West Harbour and have amassed over 3,400 supporters to date.  They have asked for supporters to begin emailing our elected representatives at the provincial and federal levels as well as the members of the Pan Am Host Committee.  My email to these representatives is after the jump...

Right Size Me

I am a lover of cities - I need urban life. And I'm particularly fascinated by the challenges that "rust belt" cities face and the potential for real urban change that they can lead. I guess my fascination stems from growing up in Windsor, Ontario - the car manufacturing capital of Canada and right across the border from the car capital of the world in Detroit. I now live in Hamilton a steel giant down on its luck. Just like Windsor had its mirror image in Detroit, Hamilton sees itself in Pittsburgh. At least it hopes it does. Pretty much my whole life has been spent living with and rooting for the underdog, the ugly urban stepsister, the manufacturing giants that have been used and abused by more prosperous neighboring cities. Root root root for the home team, they say, and my home teams have 2 of the biggest down on their luck cities in Canada for the past few decades. But that's what makes them so interesting to live in.

Detroit is the ultimate curiosity. After living so close to this former great for most of my life, I kind of consider myself to be a cousin-like citizen of the Motor City. I've been regularly following the great Times Magazine blog on the site called (quite creatively) The Detroit Blog. The writers there have done a great job of capturing the absolute devastation that has occurred but also the hope that the people cling to. David Okrent:

If Detroit had been savaged by a hurricane and submerged by a ravenous flood, we'd know a lot more about it. If drought and carelessness had spread brush fires across the city, we'd see it on the evening news every night. Earthquake, tornadoes, you name it — if natural disaster had devastated the city that was once the living proof of American prosperity, the rest of the country might take notice.

The stats continue to blow my mind away:

• 100,000 foreclosed homes, 30% of the city's total homes
• Population has decreased from 2 million people to 800,000 today, losing 1,200 citizens per month
• Median home prices dropping from $59,700 in 2005 to $8,000 in 2009
• 28.9% unemployment - let me repeat - 28.9% unemployment! Post-Katrina New Orleans reached a peak of 11% unemployment.

Detroit once was the future city, where new technology was developed and featured and represented the American dream to its fullest extent. I pass it off to David Okrent again:

If what was once the most prosperous manufacturing city in the nation has been brought to its knees, what does that say about our recent past? And if it can't find a way to get up, what does that say about our future?

To some, the answer to the problem Detroit faces is what folks are calling "rightsizing". Detroit is a sprawling city built for 2 million people but only housing 800,000. 4o square miles of land has been left vacant as the mass exodus continues - enough land area to hold 2 Manhattan islands. Many neighborhoods have only a handful of inhabited homes - the rest have been abandoned. Some are calling for city officials to mandate the leveling and uprooting of whole neighborhoods and redistributing the population in an effort to redistribute essential city services in an economically viable way. Even for a citizen of a manufacturing giant in decline like myself, these measures seem inconceivable. But the opportunity to basically start a city from scratch is overwhelmingly intriguing. Imagine the possibilities. Well, I already have begun by developing a film idea that we've been pitching around on this very topic called "Right Size Me: The Shrinking of Detroit". Check out the treatment here. Pretty mind-blowing things going on in Motown.