5views.com

Crosscut.com has an article about the unintended consequences of urban planning. Based on statistics released by Canada, the article contrasts the surveys of livability and the satisfaction of residents. The results aren’t really surprising for me.

“Cities that rank high in international surveys of livability, such as Vancouver and Victoria and Toronto, score poorly with their local residents, when ranked forsatisfication among residents.”

The reason it’s not surprising is that the ‘livability’ of a city is measured by things that outsiders look at, while satisfaction is measured by the people who actually live there.

“…they are also trying to compete in the international livability sweepstakes, where wealth, job-churn, and other transitory factors work against local satisfaction. These cities make the national magazines and attract investment, tourists, and part-time residents, but they likely don’t produce a lot of highly satisfied residents.”

With the people who control our tax dollars and city planning, it seems that they tend to look at what will attract outsiders to come in (and bring their businesses and money with them). But what the existing residents care about isn’t what will attract others, but what will make their lives, and their children’s lives, better.

“Neighbourhoods that work, in the sense of producing trusting neighbours, are ones where they spend a lot of time with each other, thinking about each other, and doing things with each other. In places where that’s natural or easier to achieve, it happens more readily.”

So, in short, we elect them and pay them to look out for our needs, and instead they’re looking out for the needs of others.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, January 2nd, 2008 at 2:56 pm and is filed under Tacoma Economy. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.