Dear Editor,
It is a depressing fact in relation to politics and governance that the people who would be the most qualified to make vitally important and fully informed decisions regarding residential, commercial, and parks and recreation development in our community are those who are not the least bit interested in running for public office. One can only imagine how different our residential and commercial neighbourhoods might look if our city council included people with formal educations and extensive backgrounds in professions such as urban planning, architecture, engineering, ecology, or even sociology and anthropology. It is quite likely that such people would have a distinctly different perspective than our current council about how our community’s growth and development should have been managed up to now, and how it should be guided in the future.
But these are professional planners, architects, etc., not ‘professional’ politicians like so many that are elected to public office are or become, and we only have to assess the evolution of the design of our community to understand the penalty that we pay because these eminently knowledgeable and experienced people are not inclined to be interested in politics and public service.
Given how critically important informed urban planning is to both the long-term welfare and survival of a community and determining the character and quality of life experienced by its citizens, It would be somewhat comforting to know that the members of the current council had at least made some effort to research theories and practices related to urban/community planning and gained some perspective about how vitally important it is to learn from and avoid the mistakes made by other communities.
I can’t help but wonder, for example, how many have read any of the essential primers on urban planning, such as Jane Jacob’s landmark book The Death and Life of Great American Cities, Gary Hack’s Local Planning: Contemporary Principles and Practice, or Kevin Lynch’s Good City Form or, The Image of the City. But, as I evaluate the changes occurring in my neighbourhood (more than 60 per cent unoccupied mega houses) and look at the binge building of more and more condo towers (equal rates of non-occupancy) that are beginning to spread further and further out from the city core, I can only surmise that such publications, and the lessons they provide, have never been on our council members’ reading lists — and probably never will be.
So, all we can do is lament the fact that the people who should be making the most important decisions related to the design of our community are not sitting on our city council. And just take a drive around Richmond and objectively assess what you see before you think about dismissing this claim out of hand.
Ray Arnold
Richmond
