Last Class

Tear, our last class was yesterday, any almost everybody showed up!! GO CLASS!
We were talking about City Development, and why they aren't sustainable. Basically, municipalities are "locked -in". They have a huge investment in current infrastructure, and it would cost too much money to change. When most suburbs were being developed in the 50's, they did not have a plan. Everything is connected: houses, roads, power lines, pipes, parks, sewers, EVERYTHING. To change one component would require changing them all, and this is simply too expensive, and would take forever.
People know this now, so they are coming up with new ideas and investing in sustainable infrastructure. A 100 year plan is necessary for ecological, social and economic well being. We should no loner be centered around cars.
Canada had come up with the Federal Gas Tax. The revenue is used by municipalities to fund sustainable infrastructure and planning capacity building ideas. However, the funds are only accessed through an integrated sustainability planning process. The plan needs to be realistic, and there are steps involved. First, community engagement is necessary. We could all do this very well based on all the useful knowledge Chris has taught us in class :) You need to understand the place you are to develop and then, create a plan, implement it and continually monitor the progress.
The problem with this is that there is usually not enough time to fully implement the idea. This means that small, non glamorous things may be put on the back burner in order to complete the politically urgent portions of the plan.
I found this lecture really interesting and we always hear about this "sustainable communities" and all the fancy things they are doing, but in reality the ideas may not be functioning.
It was also interesting to discover that the biggest drug problems occur in smaller, out of the way areas where children have nothing to do. I always thought it was a bigger problem in large cities, where drugs are easier to obtain. I didn't agree with the fact that mixed housing communities produce the less crime. In my hometown, there is a mixed housing area labelled "Smurf Village" because it consists of tall blue apartments, smaller blue houses, and larger family homes. The people who live in those apartments are low lifes, honestly, and so much crime is happening in there that the larger, richer families are vacating the area. Granted, a lot of crime for Riverview, NB is a couple of car break ins over 6 years yet there is a lot of domestic violence and drug use originating from the apartments.
On a lighter note, no body infiltrated my blue bin this week!