CBC's The National is running a series called "Red, White, and the Economic Blues" this week. Monday's segment is called "Detroit Blues." You can view it here.
Only 800 000 people live in Detroit. The city used to be home to 2 million. But then the cycle of deindustrialization, white flight, discrimination, and building dereliction Mike Davis alludes to in "Dead Cities: A Natural History" began, leaving as much as 40% of Detroit's downtown abandoned. 120 square kilometres of what was once prime real estate in a booming city have been abandoned. That's an area bigger than Vancouver.
Today, one man survives by trapping raccoons. In the inner districts of a major American city. He lives off and sells their meat. Coyotes and packs of feral dogs roam empty streets, and pheasants hide in the fields where Eastern European immigrants used to rent houses.
Across from an all-but-abandoned power plant, a beaver has set up shop, felling trees and rerouting waterways. A beaver in the city: this was cause for excitement in Detroit. It was the first sighting of a beaver in the Motor City in 75 years. A sign of renewal, if not of the economic sort that would bring prosperity back.
It's heartening, from an ecological perspective, that nature can overcome the flattening, paving, and whitewashing we do when we build a city. Perhaps in fifty or a hundred years Detroit..ians (?) will be happy to have so much reclaimed parkland. In the mean time, I can't imagine what it's like to have such a huge chunk of your city dying away. It would be like every house in Mill Woods standing derelict. It would be like all Mill Woods and Clareview lying fallow.
I've known about the ghettoization of Detroit for a long time, but I never tried to picture it. Thinking about the extent of the decay makes me wonder how things could have gotten so bad in Detroit. It makes me think about how easy it would be for Edmonton to become urban prairie. Lose the oil sands. Watch the price of gasoline skyrocket. Reopen the Muni. Watch the Ghermezian brothers haul WEM to Calgary. Reduce tax transfers to municipalities. All it takes is a little citizen apathy, some economic misfortune, and some malevolent governments turning a blind eye. (Payback for voting Liberal, probably.)
Scary for people in the short term. In the long run, maybe an opportunity to re-vision the city. And I think we can all agree that's not a bad thing.
Wednesday, April 1, 2009
Thursday, March 26, 2009
Progress
The view from the front doors of the Westin Hotel on a warm winter day is bleak. On all sides unrelieved concrete blocks crouch under an overcast sky. Rotten snow rings the bases of torpid trees and encrusts abandoned concrete flower boxes. The brown sludgey street vomits dirty slush onto the sidewalk with every passing car. Having managed the Westin’s valet services for thirty years, Ken knows this view intimately. He’s seen it every winter since 1979, back when the hotel was new and the downtown was nearly finished its last great growth spurt.
“Tourists always comment on how modern a city Edmonton is,” Ken says, pulling open the door for a guest. “And it is. Partly it’s because there was barely anybody living here even a hundred years ago. A hundred years ago the fur trade was just finishing up. And partly it’s because for a long time nobody thought there was anything here worth saving. In the sixties and seventies, if it wasn’t modern, we didn’t want it. It wasn’t until the eighties that we started valuing our past. But by then it was too late for a lot of buildings. Like the post office. The only thing that’s left of it is the clock over there.”
In the Westin’s front yard, a quartet of rusting metal posts rise out of the cement to a negligible height. Balanced atop them, encased in the same brown metal, clock faces display the time to the four compass points. Below, the clock’s internal workings rest motionless in a Plexiglas box a few feet above the ground. A plaque proclaims this contraption of metal poles and caged iron parts a clock tower, the clock the last remnant of the old post office. Visions of the Peace Tower and Big Ben dancing in my head, I can’t imagine anything looking less like a clock tower. But then I can’t imagine anyone tearing down one of Edmonton’s first great landmarks to build a hotel either.
I grew up in this town and work just a block away, but until I talked to Ken the only old post office I knew of was on Whyte Ave and had an okay bar in the basement. I’d never heard of anything like that downtown. Ken shows me to the plaque beside the clock tower. It’s only partly legible; at some point water crept through the Plexiglas window and stained the paper below. The picture is still clear, though, and I see a stately white stone building topped by a cupola tower on its northwest corner. Ken tells me that clock tower dominated the city skyline for years. When it opened in 1910, the daily Bulletin called the post office “majestic” and “palatial.” It’s hard to equate those words with the minimalist structure before me.
A few nights after my visit with Ken, I exit the city archives and head back downtown. A wintry night is a good time to explore downtown Edmonton. The temperature has dipped again. It’s eight o’clock, and I am the only soul in Churchill Square. The odd car prowls the perimeter as I trek across the concave concrete surface of the square, and the LRT doors occasionally disgorge a pedestrian or two.
I head south on 100 Street, past the Stanley Milner Library and across 101 A Street. The clock tower stands at the corner; I sighted its neon light from the square. Beyond the clock stands the Westin, its brown brick façade and rounded corners conspicuous among neighbouring concrete towers. A taxi pulls up and a doorman pulls open the door. From the other side of the drive I glimpse rich carpet and lush woods before the door swings closed.
Tonight I read a 1942 editorial arguing, even then, for the preservation of Edmonton’s old buildings. “One of our faults is living too much in the past: another is not living sufficiently in the past,” it read. Twenty years later, Edmonton’s mayors dismissed that warning. They proclaimed the old post office a "monstrosity" that had “no great value.” One official said when the traditional is not compatible with the modern, the traditional must go.
I had asked Ken if he thought the city should have preserved the old post office. He laughed and said if it did he’d be out of a job. But as he turns to help a guest, I imagine the clock ensconced at the top of a cupola tower, displaying the time for all the city to see.
“Tourists always comment on how modern a city Edmonton is,” Ken says, pulling open the door for a guest. “And it is. Partly it’s because there was barely anybody living here even a hundred years ago. A hundred years ago the fur trade was just finishing up. And partly it’s because for a long time nobody thought there was anything here worth saving. In the sixties and seventies, if it wasn’t modern, we didn’t want it. It wasn’t until the eighties that we started valuing our past. But by then it was too late for a lot of buildings. Like the post office. The only thing that’s left of it is the clock over there.”
In the Westin’s front yard, a quartet of rusting metal posts rise out of the cement to a negligible height. Balanced atop them, encased in the same brown metal, clock faces display the time to the four compass points. Below, the clock’s internal workings rest motionless in a Plexiglas box a few feet above the ground. A plaque proclaims this contraption of metal poles and caged iron parts a clock tower, the clock the last remnant of the old post office. Visions of the Peace Tower and Big Ben dancing in my head, I can’t imagine anything looking less like a clock tower. But then I can’t imagine anyone tearing down one of Edmonton’s first great landmarks to build a hotel either.
I grew up in this town and work just a block away, but until I talked to Ken the only old post office I knew of was on Whyte Ave and had an okay bar in the basement. I’d never heard of anything like that downtown. Ken shows me to the plaque beside the clock tower. It’s only partly legible; at some point water crept through the Plexiglas window and stained the paper below. The picture is still clear, though, and I see a stately white stone building topped by a cupola tower on its northwest corner. Ken tells me that clock tower dominated the city skyline for years. When it opened in 1910, the daily Bulletin called the post office “majestic” and “palatial.” It’s hard to equate those words with the minimalist structure before me.
A few nights after my visit with Ken, I exit the city archives and head back downtown. A wintry night is a good time to explore downtown Edmonton. The temperature has dipped again. It’s eight o’clock, and I am the only soul in Churchill Square. The odd car prowls the perimeter as I trek across the concave concrete surface of the square, and the LRT doors occasionally disgorge a pedestrian or two.
I head south on 100 Street, past the Stanley Milner Library and across 101 A Street. The clock tower stands at the corner; I sighted its neon light from the square. Beyond the clock stands the Westin, its brown brick façade and rounded corners conspicuous among neighbouring concrete towers. A taxi pulls up and a doorman pulls open the door. From the other side of the drive I glimpse rich carpet and lush woods before the door swings closed.
Tonight I read a 1942 editorial arguing, even then, for the preservation of Edmonton’s old buildings. “One of our faults is living too much in the past: another is not living sufficiently in the past,” it read. Twenty years later, Edmonton’s mayors dismissed that warning. They proclaimed the old post office a "monstrosity" that had “no great value.” One official said when the traditional is not compatible with the modern, the traditional must go.
I had asked Ken if he thought the city should have preserved the old post office. He laughed and said if it did he’d be out of a job. But as he turns to help a guest, I imagine the clock ensconced at the top of a cupola tower, displaying the time for all the city to see.
Wednesday, March 11, 2009
Reading my local
I put A Tourist's Guide to Glengarry on my list of books to read before I die a number of years ago. I thoroughly enjoyed reading about my home turf, as it were. Or close enough. Two of my siblings went to "O'Connor" High School, I played soccer within that track on my community league and high school teams, and fished soccer balls out the front yards of those row houses.
What does it mean to have a local literature? The comments Neil's teacher left on his essay address this concern. "Your choice of topic and treatment show a lack of seriousness. Hopefully, you will one day find a theme worthy of your talent." Writing the local, especially when that local is Edmonton, is worthless. Good writing tackles great ideas and great cities.
Fruit, by Brian Francis, is a book also described as being about small ideas. Here's a synopsis: "It’s 1984 in Sarnia, Ontario, and 13-year-old Peter Paddington is mortified. He’s overweight, has few friends and a crazy family and, to top things off, he’s just sprouted a pair of talking nipples." Despite its unusual topic, Fruit was the runner up in the 2009 CBC Radio's Canada Reads. It beat out novels by David Michael Adams, Michel Tremblay, and Gil Adamson, and was beaten in the end by Lawrence Hill's The Book of Negroes. These other books were for the most part about big ideas, but Fruit held its own and nearly won the contest.
A worthwhile topic doesn't need to win awards. A well-written book about ice fishing on Lesser Slave Lake might appeal to only a small population of readers, but if it provides for them a sense of their own connectedness to their community, it's done good work. And if it's written as well as McGillis's book is, all the better.
Despite the best efforts of certain Russian novelists to the contrary, a worthwhile book is not determined by how big it is, inside or out. A worthwhile city isn't either.
What does it mean to have a local literature? The comments Neil's teacher left on his essay address this concern. "Your choice of topic and treatment show a lack of seriousness. Hopefully, you will one day find a theme worthy of your talent." Writing the local, especially when that local is Edmonton, is worthless. Good writing tackles great ideas and great cities.
Fruit, by Brian Francis, is a book also described as being about small ideas. Here's a synopsis: "It’s 1984 in Sarnia, Ontario, and 13-year-old Peter Paddington is mortified. He’s overweight, has few friends and a crazy family and, to top things off, he’s just sprouted a pair of talking nipples." Despite its unusual topic, Fruit was the runner up in the 2009 CBC Radio's Canada Reads. It beat out novels by David Michael Adams, Michel Tremblay, and Gil Adamson, and was beaten in the end by Lawrence Hill's The Book of Negroes. These other books were for the most part about big ideas, but Fruit held its own and nearly won the contest.
A worthwhile topic doesn't need to win awards. A well-written book about ice fishing on Lesser Slave Lake might appeal to only a small population of readers, but if it provides for them a sense of their own connectedness to their community, it's done good work. And if it's written as well as McGillis's book is, all the better.
Despite the best efforts of certain Russian novelists to the contrary, a worthwhile book is not determined by how big it is, inside or out. A worthwhile city isn't either.
Thursday, March 5, 2009
What's your story, Calgary?
If you ever listen to 630 CHED on a weekday morning, you will hear a noticeable change in tone between 8:50 and 9:10. One minute you're being extolled to buy tickets to the Full House Lottery or advised to avoid Groat Road southbound, and then the top-0f-the-hour news clicks on. In the time it takes to learn about the latest gang troubles, Afghanistan updates, and city hall shindigs, the station transforms from Edmonton's source for news, sports, and weather together to a rurally-oriented Conservative kumbaya singalong. Why the 1 million citizens of Edmonton are entreated to shop at UFA and buy crop insurance is beyond me.
Actually it's not. Between 9 and 11 the program is beamed in from the Corus Radio station in Calgary, complete with commercials. (Why the 1 million citizens of Calgary are entreated to shop at UFA and buy crop insurance is open to question too.) The show's host is so completely entrenched in Alberta conservativism he denies the human contributions to global warming and has a signed poster of Stephen Harper tacked to the ceiling above his bed. I don't make this stuff up. (Actually I do.) Maybe all you folks who come from rural areas can tell me if the ultra-conservative (to me) sentiments frequently displayed on this show are well-received in rural Alberta and Calgary.
Goyette points out that the rivalry between Edmonton and Calgary and the cities' divergent politics are neither recent phenomena nor artificially constructed. She says it started with the trains running through Calgary and got an update when the capital and the university went to Edmonton. I've always thought it had to do with more Americans living in southern Alberta as well as natural jealousy on the part of Calgarians for Edmonton's supremely excellent hockey tradition.
I realize my understanding of the Edmonton-Calgary dynamic is shaped very much by a "history of events" and not a "history of people," as I think Sylvia put it today. After having read Edmonton In Our Own Words, I feel I have a much more nuanced understanding of Edmonton's history, traditions, politics, and people. This is Edmonton telling itself what kind of place it is, and what kind of people have peopled it. I now feel it's only fair for Calgary to have its own say. Does Calgary have a book that fills the same function? Is there a tome that can tell me what shaped Calgary into the conservative-voting, cowboy boot-wearing, head office-luring city it appears to be? Is there a record of what Edmonton's southern sister looks like under all the makeup and paint of stereotype?
Calgary, what's your story?
Actually it's not. Between 9 and 11 the program is beamed in from the Corus Radio station in Calgary, complete with commercials. (Why the 1 million citizens of Calgary are entreated to shop at UFA and buy crop insurance is open to question too.) The show's host is so completely entrenched in Alberta conservativism he denies the human contributions to global warming and has a signed poster of Stephen Harper tacked to the ceiling above his bed. I don't make this stuff up. (Actually I do.) Maybe all you folks who come from rural areas can tell me if the ultra-conservative (to me) sentiments frequently displayed on this show are well-received in rural Alberta and Calgary.
Goyette points out that the rivalry between Edmonton and Calgary and the cities' divergent politics are neither recent phenomena nor artificially constructed. She says it started with the trains running through Calgary and got an update when the capital and the university went to Edmonton. I've always thought it had to do with more Americans living in southern Alberta as well as natural jealousy on the part of Calgarians for Edmonton's supremely excellent hockey tradition.
I realize my understanding of the Edmonton-Calgary dynamic is shaped very much by a "history of events" and not a "history of people," as I think Sylvia put it today. After having read Edmonton In Our Own Words, I feel I have a much more nuanced understanding of Edmonton's history, traditions, politics, and people. This is Edmonton telling itself what kind of place it is, and what kind of people have peopled it. I now feel it's only fair for Calgary to have its own say. Does Calgary have a book that fills the same function? Is there a tome that can tell me what shaped Calgary into the conservative-voting, cowboy boot-wearing, head office-luring city it appears to be? Is there a record of what Edmonton's southern sister looks like under all the makeup and paint of stereotype?
Calgary, what's your story?
Thursday, February 26, 2009
Old World cities' origin myths
It struck me that this faulty method of understanding North American history (or New World history in general) is that the reason we question it is because the people it displaces are around to complain about it -- or for "us" to feel guilty about. Romans displaced previous cultures, but Rome's origin myth is not subjected to scrutiny. Had fragments of those cultures and peoples survived, I'm sure talk of Rome having been the founded by twin sons of Mars that were suckled by a she-wolf would be challenged.
I'm going to explain what I mean by this in my next post, but the next five hours of my life will be sacrificed to last-minute paper writing. My apologies and check back soon for the full version of my comment.
I'm going to explain what I mean by this in my next post, but the next five hours of my life will be sacrificed to last-minute paper writing. My apologies and check back soon for the full version of my comment.
Thursday, February 12, 2009
Breathing life into LitCrit
Further to our discussion in class today, I too disliked "How to Breathe Again." I disliked it because I'm bored by stories about drug culture, and because the dialogue technique left me confused more than once. But more than that, I disliked it because I didn't feel it said anything new or specific about Edmonton. Given that it's in an anthology about Edmonton, it should have told me something new about the city. All it told me was that there's drug addicts here. Quel surprise. Take out the place names and you could situate this story in any other city.
Another thing. I think in English we get really caught up with "the text." We reify it; we act as if it could exist without an author, without a reader, without paper or ink. Why and how the author wrote it, who reads it and how and why they read it, and what it looks/feels/smells/tastes/sounds like are usually overlooked, but I think they are just as important as asking "does it work," as if "it" exists in isolation from these other things.
If the writer really doesn't matter in discussions about "the text," why have Darrin Hagen come speak to the class? I don't think the answer is "because he's a drag queen, and we want to know more about that scene." Well, it's not the whole answer. If it were, we could have had any queen talking to us and it wouldn't have made a difference. Most people would say having had Hagen in added to the depth of their understanding of the book, I think.
I recognize that none of these are new ideas, but I think it's too bad we English-types don't consider them more often.
Another thing. I think in English we get really caught up with "the text." We reify it; we act as if it could exist without an author, without a reader, without paper or ink. Why and how the author wrote it, who reads it and how and why they read it, and what it looks/feels/smells/tastes/sounds like are usually overlooked, but I think they are just as important as asking "does it work," as if "it" exists in isolation from these other things.
If the writer really doesn't matter in discussions about "the text," why have Darrin Hagen come speak to the class? I don't think the answer is "because he's a drag queen, and we want to know more about that scene." Well, it's not the whole answer. If it were, we could have had any queen talking to us and it wouldn't have made a difference. Most people would say having had Hagen in added to the depth of their understanding of the book, I think.
I recognize that none of these are new ideas, but I think it's too bad we English-types don't consider them more often.
Tuesday, February 10, 2009
Downtown Deadmonton
Having grown up in Edmonton, I knew about downtown's bad reputation. It was dead after 4:30, they said. There were lots of bums, they complained. Eaton Centre and Edmonton Centre sucked the life out of the streets, they ranted. Mostly I had ignored these comments. Downtown was very far away from my neighbourhood, so why should I care?
When I started working downtown in 2002 I didn't much consider these issues. My office tower seemed hermetically sealed; all I could ever need between 8:15 and 4:30 was within its confines, from convenience store and dry cleaner to bakery and shoe repair. But one day as I sat in my beige-walled cubicle, staring at my 15 inch CRT monitor while the florescent lights flickered overhead, I decided I wanted a bagel. And not just any bagel: no, I wanted a whole wheat and honey bagel, toasted with strawberry cream cheese. That's right, a Tim Horton's bagel.
I leaned back in my ergonomic chair and reviewed my mental map of downtown for the nearest Timmies, but after a few minutes of searching came up empty. I expanded the search parametres and tried again. With a sinking stomach I stared up incredulously at the greying ceiling tiles. Could it be? The nearest Timmies was in Oliver Square? This was downtown. I thought everybody drank coffee downtown. Why on earth didn't Tim Horton's, that one business in Canada that was ensured of instant franchise success, have a location in the heart of the city?
In that moment of incredulity, I finally understood the concern Edmontonians had for our downtown. In that moment, I was transported from my cubicle down to the middle of a dead-empty Jasper Avenue to witness a tumbleweed roll down the street as a vulture circled overhead and old West music played out of nowhere. If Tim Horton's didn't think it could survive in our downtown, things were a lot worse than I thought.
Seven years later there are three Tim Horton's within a seven-block radius of my old office tower. The Bay building is no longer empty, and Jasper West has experienced a revival. Still, Front Page News closed last fall and a ridiculously big club opened down the road. (I shudder internally any time I open the door to Audrey's, hoping nobody peed on it the night before.) Two steps forward, one step back.
The place isn't perfect, but she's got good bones. And when the soul-sucking cubicle walls close in, a soothing cup of steeped tea is only a block away.
When I started working downtown in 2002 I didn't much consider these issues. My office tower seemed hermetically sealed; all I could ever need between 8:15 and 4:30 was within its confines, from convenience store and dry cleaner to bakery and shoe repair. But one day as I sat in my beige-walled cubicle, staring at my 15 inch CRT monitor while the florescent lights flickered overhead, I decided I wanted a bagel. And not just any bagel: no, I wanted a whole wheat and honey bagel, toasted with strawberry cream cheese. That's right, a Tim Horton's bagel.
I leaned back in my ergonomic chair and reviewed my mental map of downtown for the nearest Timmies, but after a few minutes of searching came up empty. I expanded the search parametres and tried again. With a sinking stomach I stared up incredulously at the greying ceiling tiles. Could it be? The nearest Timmies was in Oliver Square? This was downtown. I thought everybody drank coffee downtown. Why on earth didn't Tim Horton's, that one business in Canada that was ensured of instant franchise success, have a location in the heart of the city?
In that moment of incredulity, I finally understood the concern Edmontonians had for our downtown. In that moment, I was transported from my cubicle down to the middle of a dead-empty Jasper Avenue to witness a tumbleweed roll down the street as a vulture circled overhead and old West music played out of nowhere. If Tim Horton's didn't think it could survive in our downtown, things were a lot worse than I thought.
Seven years later there are three Tim Horton's within a seven-block radius of my old office tower. The Bay building is no longer empty, and Jasper West has experienced a revival. Still, Front Page News closed last fall and a ridiculously big club opened down the road. (I shudder internally any time I open the door to Audrey's, hoping nobody peed on it the night before.) Two steps forward, one step back.
The place isn't perfect, but she's got good bones. And when the soul-sucking cubicle walls close in, a soothing cup of steeped tea is only a block away.
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