.
Transportation is land use is
climate action is
social justice is
economic development is
better city-building.
. #SystemsThinking #OrganizedComplexity
.

— NanaimoCommons (@NanaimoCommons) April 30, 2019

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City builder term of the day : Public Realm : An area that is publicly-accessible, including streets, squares, parks and open spaces, which enables the public's interaction and connection with each other and their city. @EvergreenCanada pic.twitter.com/PP1gJrB768

— NanaimoCommons (@NanaimoCommons) April 29, 2019

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City Builder term of the day : Placemaking : The process of working together to shape and create public spaces. Placemaking brings together diverse people to plan, design, manage and program shared-use spaces. @EvergreenCanada https://t.co/n7f3vu5sMa…/city-builder-glossary/ pic.twitter.com/FFdQA11UW0

— NanaimoCommons (@NanaimoCommons) April 26, 2019

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City builder term of the day : Urban Resilience : The capacity of a city, its businesses, institutions, residents and communities, to survive, adapt and grow despite whatever stresses and shocks they experience. @EvergreenCanada pic.twitter.com/JUScXUFdUW

— NanaimoCommons (@NanaimoCommons) April 26, 2019

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Four years ago this week #Nanaimo citizen activism saved a downtown waterfront park.

Four years ago this week citizen activism saved a downtown waterfront park from being leased to a commercial developer. This was recommended by staff (!) and passed by the council of the day. The proponent with better sense that either staff or council could muster withdrew the request to take over the park after general public opposition and a well-attended public hearing. Council bullied it through passing at the public hearing but the proponent knew it would never be accepted by the public and withdrew the request.

On Apr 21, 2015 I wrote : #Nanaimo take a minute and congratulate yourself for continuing to stand up for our parks and all shared public spaces. The last Council’s approval of a lease to a local developer of a portion of a waterfront park — a lease plan which should never have been brought forward by Staff in the first place — was rescinded by the new Council last night.

There is now of course a stampede at City Hall to take credit and I say let them have it. Fact is once again Nanaimo citizens showed more common sense than has been coming from our City Hall. An enormously important precedent has been set: entertain the idea of integrating a private project with one of our parks and you better have a plan that clearly benefits the park more than the commercial enterprise. Or Nanaimo won’t allow it. Good on ya Nanaimo.

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City Builder Glossary : Healthy housing ecosystem : #CityGlossary : @EvergreenCanada https://t.co/aCBUxBvTPh pic.twitter.com/we4eB9f4LX

— NanaimoCommons (@NanaimoCommons) March 24, 2019

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City Builder Glossary : Urban intervention : #CityGlossary : @EvergreenCanada pic.twitter.com/GMCQNkDmsS

— NanaimoCommons (@NanaimoCommons) March 24, 2019

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City Builder Glossary : Mid-Sized Cities : These cities have the potential to become leaders of sustainable and inclusive city-building initiatives across Canada. @EvergreenCanada https://t.co/RC4uj2sIeM pic.twitter.com/GHPu3cj8PF

— NanaimoCommons (@NanaimoCommons) April 22, 2019

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Great urban neighbourhoods have many delightful ways to get around without needing or wanting a car, & generous amenities that make life livable & lovable at every stage of life. #Vancouver #DensityDoneWell pic.twitter.com/VW4iGuKigU

— Brent Toderian (@BrentToderian) April 22, 2019

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Breaking the chain of multi-generational poverty

Subject: Terminal Ave
Date: April 12, 2019
To: Mayor&Council@nanaimo.ca

It’s said “the well-defined problem is half solved.” The origins of the problems that have landed in numbers at the Terminal Ave temporary housing are not of your making but your citizens, I’m sure you’ve noticed, are howling for you to solve them.

To use your municipal resources to solve the problems and to know how to leverage resources of the senior levels of government (where it starts to get closer to the origins of the problems) requires solid reliable data on the nature of the problems you’re asked to solve. I’m assuming you’re not currently in possession of this comprehensive analysis, parts of it perhaps.

Whether sourced from Island Crisis Care, VIHA, Cindy Blackstock, your own social planning dept or other sources, among the perhaps two dozen questions I’d want to see examined by this analysis : How many of the residents of the temporary housing were “aged out” of foster care at 19, after a childhood of upheaval to find their own way in the world without resources? Is the failure to seize that opportunity to break the chain of multi-generational poverty among the core problems you and we face?

Other resources : The Vancouver Foundation’s initiatives Fostering Change and First Call, BC Child and Youth Advocacy Coalition. I recommend Dr Gabor Maté’s book In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts on childhood trauma and addiction.

Best of luck to do what you can. We have to do better than trying to fence these problems out.

Frank Murphy

Opportunities in Transition : An Economic Analysis of Investing in Youth Aging out of Foster Care by SFU economist Marvin Shaffer and Family Policy Researcher, Lynell Anderson.