Oh the outrage!! So many people are just whipped into a frenzy about the new Money Magazine article which places Kelowna 98th in all of Canada for liveability. According to the survey, discretionary income in this city was $23,000, with an unemployment rate of 4.5 per cent. Housing prices topped $515,000.
Well liveability includes being able to pay for food, shelter and medical care somewhere in the definition. The cost of everything is being pushed up because of the “desireability” factor here. The blank check written for the Mission Pool Complex will mean a 12% raise in taxes over the next few years, perhaps more. The new golden towers in the sky downtown will also spin off into a bill on the homeowners’ taxes for infrastructure costs.
I frequently think of various types of investment in Kelowna. There is the investment in a quick pick up property that will be rented out when the situation is not optimum. The weather is too gray, what if the water has become polluted to the point where nobody goes swimming or Ogopogo is crawling around on a scrabble of rocks, the air becomes polluted, the season is not long enough… so sublet the place and forget it.
The other type of investment is the person who buys an older home, asks for heritage assessment and refurbishes the place to become a jewel. Yet another investment is emotional. The neighbour who goes out onto the street to see why there was a crashing noise, why the child is crying, why the dog is howling. The neighbour who mows, shovels, picks up blowing newspapers… just helps out without thinking about it. Emotional investment is the one that the city gets the most long-term return on. It doesn’t cost the city… it saves the city money. If we can keep our young people with their skills and vision , if we can keep our vigilant seniors in place then we truly have a community.
Without that, without affordability we are on our way to an uninspired or uninteresting place to live… and we will move further down the economic ladder because vision, education, environment are all part of the energy of an urban setting that is healthy and consequently wealthy.
On line I just recently read the article, “Miami, Crime and Urban Design,” by Alfredo Triff.
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What is interesting about the article is that he first examines architectural analysis of what is effective Urban Design in the construction of a safe, integrated space.
In an architect’s,” analysis of the relationship between design and crime in public housing, [Architect] Newman came up with three crucial factors: territoriality, natural surveillance, and image/milieu. Territoriality assumes that people need to mark out and defend their territories. Good design encourages people to express these urges: They would defend their space against intrusion by outsiders. For example, a well-designed housing project would make clear which spaces belonged to whom — that is, some would be completely private, some could be shared with permission from the owner..” Triff goes on to say that perhaps it is even a greater structure that is faulty when there is high crime or a feeling of being unsafe in a city… the design of the government itself.
“Let’s stop seeing crime solely as a subjective and isolated matter. Our civic leaders and planners need to understand that a factor in our crisis is this: We don’t see ourselves as part of a greater community with commonly held aspirations. If we did, the general distribution of crime would substantially decrease. People don’t pilfer when they believe they have an ownership interest.”
So in summation, architects and urban designers have stated that no more than four stories should interact with the street life in order to encourage a sense of connectedness and vitality. A step down encourages people to step out.
Sorry to get all worked up about going up but Kelowna has to wake up to the idea that affordability is a major, crucial issue in terms of the “life” of the city.