ward3brighton.ca

I submitted the following comment on Tim Banks’ blog. The comment is still awaiting moderation so I thought I better post it here also, for the record:

Tim… thanks for the kind words. There’s just one thing I’d like to clarify. When I ran for council I made a firm commitment to my employer that company time is company time. I wouldn’t want my boss to think I’m taking liberties, or my colleagues to get the impression I’m treated any differently. I am generally regarded as the councillor who is most difficult to schedule for meetings because I need to live up to that commitment I made. I can count on one hand the numbers of times that I’ve attended to city duties outside of my lunch hour, or before 4:30 [update: okay, maybe I'd need two hands]. I’ve occasionally used vacation time where necessary to avoid mixing company time with city time.
No comment on the rest of your post!
Thanks again,
Rob

Larry Beasley designs cities. Modern Vancouver is his baby and he is very well respected in his field. Last Monday night, almost two hundred people attended a lecture by Mr. Beasley at McDougall Hall on the UPEI campus. He was invited by the Friends of the Farm as a way to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the Charlottetown Experimental Farm.

I was happy to see so many City staff people there, but also representatives of the business community, developers, and regular citizens. I think we all gained a better understanding and respect for the importance of good urban planning; how it affects our quality of life and drives economic development.

I recorded the lecture using my phone, and although the audio quality is perfectly acceptable and Mr. Beasley’s words speak powerfully enough themselves, the real advantage of actually being there was his photo essay that seemed to sync perfectly and effortlessly with his speech. Visuals of spectacular urban vistas, public spaces and residential developments — mostly from Vancouver but mixed with his own excellent perspectives on Charlottetown — flashed across the screen and seemed to be impossibly timed to emphasize his points.

You can download my recording here (mp3, 40 mb), or read Mr. Beasley’s lecture here (pdf).

Here are just a few memorable and relevant quotes, among many:

“Every city has to have a design. A city without a design does not know where it is going, does not know how to grow.”

“You cannot leave the design of these building to chance, or you can get some pretty unpleasant results. So we carefully regulate the designs…”

“Schools are actually being closed… these kind of counter-intuitive decisions are happening, that do not help you achieve a re-populated city”

“There are simply not enough young singles, or older empty nesters to create a vibrant city … and families are flooding back downtown [Vancouver] in record numbers … And there is a spinoff benefit that we discovered: If you design a city that works well for children, it seems to work well for everyone else.”