Raise the Hammer

Adrian, I was there too. While I found Ken Greenberg's presentation, as well as the comments from the panel, interesting, I couldn't help but feel disheartened by the context of the whole thing.

Sitting in a building soon to be flattened because of short-term, shining new object myopia on the part of too many so-called leaders; a standing-room-only crowd of converts; no politicians in sight; lamenting our inner city highway system; making way too big points out of way too small examples of progress (James North revitalization, etc.). All of these made me feel that time is slipping away and we are not implementing the kind of significant changes many people can see need to be implemented.

I'm happy to be a booster. I'm happy to feed the hype machine for a national newspaper story, or a travel journalist, or a potential out-of-town investor, but really, when will we make really significant progress? When will we stop relying solely on the efforts of like-minded individuals? I love change from the grassroots, but at some point you need to look to your leaders to build on the efforts of individuals. Two way street conversion is an obvious one, not only to the experts like Ken Greenberg who visit Hamilton, but also to many resident urbanists. It's implications are gigantic. City altering.

Like many others, I will continue to make my contribution, such as it is, no matter what happens at other levels of government, but I really want to see some true leadership at the top. I'm getting pessimistic as I get older. I don't like that fact. I try to think and believe in thoughts of the greater good and in thoughts of making the good greater. But boy oh boy, it really is tough sometimes. Like it is right now. Colour me a temporary pessimist.

Comment edited by H+H on 2012-05-07 06:19:51