hanspetermeyer


Thrivability, Sustainability, Comox Valley = #CV2050 = Lottsa fun!
September 1, 2009, 7:34 am
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags:

by hans peter meyer

OK. Turn back the dial about… 15 years? Who’s at the table? @meaghancursons, DCS (doesn’t have a twitter handle yet, poor guy), @hanspetermeyer. Not the same table as today, but with similar kinds of energy.

Dial into 2009. DCS isn’t doing youth work anymore. MC isn’t just fresh from running the youngest most impressive Green campaign any of us have ever seen and about to become hpm’s fave-ever employee/collaborator. hpm isn’t being Mr. Small Town & Rural Communities BC. But we’re all still talking about the same things: how much we love the Comox Valley, how excited we are to be engaged in making stuff happen here. Very good.

Except, now DCS is doing cool work with local governments, NGOs, and high-profile consultants on “sustainability” and “conservation” – BIG topic, important stuff. MC is Queen of the funnest festival around, and has just been handed a great job doing what she does so absolutely well: creating partnerships and connecting the dots. Hank, well, he’s not sure what he’s doing, but he’s having a good time doing it (actually, I do know what I’m doing: mostly it’s dancing, playing with food and beverages, and exercising various other social media skills – online and behind the bar at Hank’s Bar & Grill on Avenida Willemar).

This afternoon and evening saw the MC-DCS-hpm trio encamped in the kitchen and then the garden, eventually with glasses of very nice 2004 Z3 from Hainle Vineyards (thanks to a great little wine-pairing evening at Martine’s Bistro way back in ‘05). What were we doing? Talking about social media, sustainability, thrivability, the Comox Valley, Imagine Nanaimo, Valley Vision, the past, the future, how to animate convos, how to create energy that lasts beyond policy planning strategic exercises, etc etc. Lottsa fun.

You’ll probably see a little of this floating around. Search for things tagged #CV2050 on twitter and Facebook and YouTube – here, and here – and elsewhere. You might even see references to old things like the “Land Use Café” revived as something else – “Thrivability Café?” Hmmm… Also, check out what going to be happening on google maps. In the not too distant future you’ll see things tagged there with #CV2050 as well.

We three have imagined amazing things in the past. It was muy cool to be imagining together again. Watch this – and other – spaces. Lottsa fun! ;-)

Reblog this post [with Zemanta]



reBlog from citinforesource.tumblr.com: Communities in Transition Information Resource
August 26, 2009, 5:19 am
Filed under: Uncategorized

Thanks to Gordon Price at SFU’s City Program for this… ;-)

Hans Peter Meyer at the Real Estate Foundation is putting out a blog (and the tweets to go with it) on Communities in Transition.   He was reporting on last month’s B.C. Land Summit, including interviews with the Foundation’s past executive director Tim Pringle.citinforesource.tumblr.com, Communities in Transition Information Resource, Jul 2009

You should read the whole article.



Part 3 – Tango y Milonga en Buenos Aires: Un Proyecto Personal… Navigation
August 25, 2009, 11:28 pm
Filed under: Uncategorized

by hans peter meyer

I am reminded of my time in Buenos Aires in the oddest places. Almost always, in the 2nd posture, in my yoga class I think of the tight cluster of streets in Bario Norte near Ecela, my Spanish language school. No idea what the connection is, but almost immediately as I am stretching up “to touch the ceiling, bending over in perfect form as if [my] hips and shoulders are between two panes of glass…” I am navigating pedestrian traffic, muchos taxis, and dog-walkers.

Dancers on the streets of Buenos Aires

Dancers on the streets of Buenos Aires

Navigation of tight streets and sidewalks is not unlike what happens on a crowded dance floor, where dancers are (supposed to be) following a line of dance. What’s this “line of dance” thing? you ask. It’s the counter-clockwise flow ’round the dance floor that we do (or, we’re supposed to do) when we waltz, foxtrot, quick-step, milonga, or tango. For leads, that means we hae to consider “navigation” as well as keeping time with the music, moving her in a way that is graceful, creative, and allows her to blossom into the beautiful dance creature she is. Quite a handful of things to look after. And, lots of times other dancers aren’t “flowing” ’round the line of dance. They’re moving slower, faster, doing fancy moves, or even just standing there. All of which makes navigation a big (and eventually, exciting) part of being a decent lead.

But back to Buenos Aires (which is why I’m writing about the place these days: I’m trying to generate the energy and online presence that’ll have me back in that town for a few weeks in the next year or two, learning more dance and putting together some of the pieces for a foto + text project on the city and the dance scene there). I made a month-long visit in May 2007. My intention for that trip: to learn to dance some tango, to learn to speak some Spanish. Mission accomplished, I came home and have continued my learning about tango thanks to Kirra and the crew at vancouverislandtango.com. Whatever Spanish I picked up lingers, barely.

One of the amazing things about being in Buenos Aires, however, was experiencing a milonga. What’s a milonga? It’s confusing, really. It means two related things. One, it’s a gathering of folks who dance the various tango-based forms (tango proper, milonga, and vals). Por ejemplo, you don’t say, “Hey, lets go to the dance at the hall.” Instead, you say, “¡Hola chica, lets go to the milonga at Salon Canning!” Two, it’s also a bona fide tango-based form in itself (faster, akin to polka). In this case you might say, once you’re already at the milonga, “¿Querida, want to dance a milonga?” Yup, not a little confusing. But I don’t worry about these words anymore. I just try to get to as many milongas as possible, so I can dance as many milongas as possible, with as many muchachas as possible ;-) Life can be so sweet.

The Tango Lesson
Image via Wikipedia

All of this was news to me when I ventured south in ‘07. I’d gone down because I thought tango was Buenos Aires was great. I met warm and affectionate people. I learned a few words and phrases in Spanish, and could carry on rudimentary convos with the guy who shined my shoes on Avenida Puerydon every Friday. I enjoyed my tango lessons. The purpose of being there, however, was not just to take lessons; it was to venture out and into the milongas where milongas and tangos were practiced real-time.

This is a big city. Nevertheless, it’s stunning to consider the roster of weekly milongas in Buenos Aires. Not quite 24/7, but it was possible to be on my feet, in my new tango boots (muy cool, de fattomano.com.ar ), from noon until 7am every day of the week. That’s 19 hours of tango y milonga. If I chose. I never chose; one of the reasons I want to go back, to see how much of the 19 hours I can actually do.

It was suggested that, for me as a novice, the milonga at the Armenian Community Centre (cruce Armenia y Jose Antonio Carbrera) in barrio Palermo, blocks from where I was staying) was a good bet. So I went. On my own. Into a muy crowded hall. It was challenging. I’ll write more about that experience later. Here I just want to say that navigation was a major challenge. I was new to the dance.  I hardly spoke a word of Spanish – and almost nobody I met in BsAs spoke English. And the floor was tight, thick with bodies moving knowingly, confidently around the line of dance.

What remains in my mind isn’t the amazing display of beautiful dancing that passes for everyday tango in these milongas, it’s the image of a young man and woman dancing milonga. Buenos Aires has a rep as both a beautiful city and a city of beautiful people – particularly beautiful women. Here was one of these beautiful women, dressed simply but elegantly. Her partner, on the other hand…he could have easily stepped out of the Waverley on a Thurday from an afterwork beer, with his dirty, loose-fitting jeans and white sleeveless t-shirt. But when they moved… in my heart I determined that this was how I wanted to move with a woman, holding her close and dancing the milonga with style, grace, and speed. I was transfixed.

Cut to last night, August 24 ‘09 in the Comox Valley. Downtown Courtenay. The Zocalo Café on “Milonga Monday.” As I with a novice to tango y milonga, I remembered this image of the young couple at the Armenian hall, and realized just how much it has lain behind what I do and try to do in our little milongas here in the Comox Valley. At the Zocalo Café we don’t have much room. Besides other dancers, there are café patrons winding their way around and through the dance floor. And we continue to circulate (most of us), around the line of dance. Thanks to Kirra, I get a good crack at dancing milonga, which I am now enjoying more than tango proper. And thanks to a couple of relatively new dancers I’m feeling some of the kind dance connection that transfixed me that late, late night in barrio Palermo.

And that, ultimately, is what this dance – and all the forms that come out of tango proper – means to me: connection, a wordless creative intimacy that folds and unfolds as we move around the floor, shifting with the rhythms of the music, with the flow of the dancers, around and back when confronted with couples who aren’t moving, always and endlessly weaving and reweaving our own version of what our bodies and the music is telling us is the story of this 3 or 4 minute song. One of my favourite things to do.

… and I can hardly wait to get back to a place where I can practice this for 19 hours a day, if I choose. ;-)

If you have ideas or information about tango y milonga in Buenos Aires, please let me know.

– 30 –

Reblog this post [with Zemanta]


Tango y Buenos Aires: Un Proyecto Personal… (Pt 2)

¡Buen dia muchachos!

… A little more on the tango /Buenos Aires project I started a few days ago.

I’m going to be posting materi

tango feet, tango ankles - details make for el...Image by hanspetermeyer.ca via Flickr

als here that speak to me about my passion for this dance, and my interest in getting back there to continue to learn to dance, to speak Spanish, to enjoy the warmth of Porteño culture. That’s one of the foci for me in the coming year: deepen the tango connection, write about it, make some fotos and videos about it, connect with resources and people in Buenos Aires, get myself there to blog, foto, film, dance, speak Spanish, visit with friends over food and wine and convos.

About the dance itself: I found this link some time ago: The Milonguera and Her Body. One of the best things I’ve read on the subject. The related article, for the man, The Milonguera [sic] and His Body, is also very good.

There’s also excellent material here by Miguel Angle Pla at the VancouverIslandTango.com site. I particularly like the way he talks about the ethic of dancing with many partners, how we cultivate and support each other and our dance community by following the tradition, in Argentine tango, of dancing a tanda (group of 2-4 songs) with one partner, breaking at the cortina (a change in music from tango to something decidedly not tango) to connect with a new partner.

It’s something we could practice in many social dance situations. As much dance is a ritual form or courtship (and there is a need – I think – for this ritualized way of connecting with a potential lover or mate), there is also a generalized (and generally glorious) responsibility for those of us who are not in this situation, who are dancing for the sheer love of dance, to share that around.

Right now I’m going through a bit of a tango/milonga withdrawl. Vancouver has lots

tango feet, tango ankles - details make for el...Image by hanspetermeyer.ca via Flickr

of tango going on, relatively speaking, but my schedule isn’t going to admit of any dancing this week. I just found out that the beautiful “Tango in the Park” event in my home town is rescheduled for this weekend. A good thing for me, as I was missing it. Now, perhaps, I’ll be back in town to enjoy it! Until then, I’ll have to hope that the DJ for my birthday dance party this weekend slips in the milongas I asked for, particularly the new side by Montevideo’s Bajofondo Tango Club, Borges y Paraguay. This video clip from YouTube here isn’t milonga, but it’s a pretty cool interpretation of this piece of music (which serendipitously also refers to a pretty cool corner of Buenos Aires that was just down the street from where I spent most of a month in 2007).

Question: Can anyone recommend a great little B&B/tango studio, or even just a B&B or homestay in the Palermo or San Telmo barrios in Buenos Aires?

¡Chau!

Reblog this post [with Zemanta]


hpm’s Buenos Aires / Argentine Tango Project: Primero Paso…

OK, primero paso, first step… my first time out of the gate, being public about what I want to do viz my interest in Buenos Aires, Argentine tango, the food, wine, and culture of this amazing

En las calles de Buenos Aires, Mayo 2007Image by hanspetermeyer.ca via Flickr

city.

Here goes: I’m a writer/photographer/social media guy – and a passionate dancer. While I love to dance many kinds of dance, my “desert island” dance is Argentine tango. Why?

Let’s just say it’s the most “connected” of the dances I’ve had the pleasure to dance so far. The deeper I get into it, the deeper it gets. It’s like a bottomless pool. And the more I swim in it, the more I love it (did I mention that I love getting wet?)

This isn’t about “sex,” though most people associate tango, and A-tango particularly, with being sexual. I must say there’s a sexual energy about this dance when I connect with someone. But it’s not about you and me and let’s have sex. It’s more like, you and me and we’re creative, sensual energies and this dance creates a space and time for mutual creativity that isn’t about sex so much as it is about creative, body-centred dialogue.

Does that make sense? Hmmmm….

En las calles de Buenos Aires, Mayo 2007Image by hanspetermeyer.ca via Flickr

In any event, I went to Buenos Aires a couple of years ago. (I wrote a little about it in this blog about why I love to dance.) Spent a month there doing a kind of self-imposed “Argentine tango boot camp”(muchos horas en las classes, muchos bailes con muchos mujers), and came back to my little town to discover and enjoy ongoing A-tango and milongas courtesy of Kirra G (@tangocorazon) and the dedication of folks like Tom and Jeanette (many thanks to you, and to all the others who make up our A-tango community). Check out www.vancouverislandtango.com for more info on this part of the story.

I can dance at home now. Which is cool. But as a photo guy and writer, I’m inspired to go back to BsAs. This is where the dance originated, yes. But it’s also where it’s growing, changing, where thousands of folks dance in many, many halls from noon to 7am every day – that’s 19 hours of opportunity to dance, every single day of the week!

more tango ankles, tango feet - the elegance i...Image by hanspetermeyer.ca via Flickr

I want to explore the changing and emerging world of this dance as it is evolving. I want to describe, in words and images, the passion, but also the simple, respectful dialogue that happens within the 3-4 minutes of a song, the 2-4 dances that a couple will dance in a tanda. I want to somehow generate a dynamic, thoughtful, but expressive sense of what it means to be inside this dance, and in this strange and beautiful place so far from home.

Here’s the vision this morning: I’ll find a B&B or apartment in BsAs that’ll host me, preferably associated with a tango school or a language school (I’m also keen to add to the bit of Spanish I picked up whilst there last time). I’ll be sponsored by a tango or language school to take some classes. I’ll re-connect with the friends I made in BsAs, and we’ll tour the various tango bars and milongas. With the help of friens, I’ll put together a dynamic “story” (words, images, social media, video) about this place, this time.

Putting this out here now is a way for me to say, “Hey, I’m making this first step. Hold me to the path folks!”

Thanks Kris Krüg (@kk) for making the obvious clear to me.

– 30 –

Reblog this post [with Zemanta]


Mike Littrell asks about twitter, Iran, formative ‘narratives’
June 22, 2009, 5:12 pm
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: , , , ,

…by the way, have you noticed any common narrative/story in
the “tweets” from Iran?    I don’t mean exposition, rather, something deeper, more poetry than prose.  If so, I was wondering if there was a way of enhancing the amazing energy that’s already there, e.g. viewing the disparate tweets as “words”, and their collections, as “phrases” that collectively describe the broken places in their Iranian story, one with which we’re unfamiliar. 
 
If there was…{just a random neuron firing}…then we could view such formative “narratives” as “complex adaptive systems”,  creating {emergent-order} out of chaos, right before our eyes.

Mike Littrell to hpm (June 17, 2009)

Blogged with the Flock Browser


A bad day for Coastal Communities; A stupid day for TimberWest/Couverdon
June 11, 2009, 2:58 am
Filed under: Uncategorized

by hans peter meyer

One of the things I love about twitter is how quickly important news travels. Or, how quickly news that’s important to me travels directly to me. Today’s tidbit: TimberWest, which owns thousands of acres of primo Douglas Fir forest land on Vancouver Island, just launched a lawsuit against several local governments over the issue of local taxes. Read about it here.

Some people might think that twitter is another excuse for those of us with distractability issues. Maybe. But, if I’m careful, I can avoid the firehose of info that’s aimed me and select only those twitter feeds I want to follow. For example, I’m interested in forest industry issues in Canada. So I follow the only Canadian twitter feed on forest industrial issues (@ForestTalk). Depending on what’s cooking in the Canadian forest industry, I and get daily or hourly updates on things like mill closures, government policy, what our trading partners are doing, etc. Most of the news is from the east, and this makes me think we need a similar resource in BC. But BC topics do get coverage. Like today.

With the help of twitter I now know that the folks who run TimberWest really are struggling. OK, I knew this already. I know it not because of twitter, but because I live in a town that still depends on forest industry dollars for its well-being (golfers and retirees and tourists still haven’t supplanted our one true source of real wealth: our forests). I live in a region that is hugely dependent on the industry. Places like Campbell River up the road, Powell River across the water, Port Alberni just across the mountains, and the Cowichan Valley south of us are all places built on the rich Douglas Fir forests that persist in growing here (even after being laid flat a couple or three times through logging and fire and clearing for farming). Living here, in towns that are dominated by a very small handful of licensees (TimberWest, Western Forest, Interfor) means being aware that things are not going well in the woods. Decisions made at government level and in private sector board rooms have not boded well for the industry. It’s been even worse at a community level.

Today’s news tells me things are worse than I thought because TimberWest isn’t even doing what’s in the best interest of short-term shareholders. Over the past couple of decades they’ve worked hard to accumlate a huge chunk of the large private holdings on Vancouver Island. This is number one Douglas Fir ground. It’s also number one real estate development ground. Shareholders are anxious about dividends, which makes boards anxious about their salaries. The idea to turn the unique forest wealth of the region into real estate is a no-brainer. Really. A no-brainer: that anyone would sacrifice long-term economic (not to mention social and ecological) well-being for short-term profit at a time when the world is crying for long-term thinking… a no-brainer.

But it gets even better (or worse): Now the industrial giant is suing the very folks they need to ask favours from. Couverdon, the real estate arm of TimberWest, can’t do much with its real estate dreams unless local governments – like those in North Cowichan, Port Alberni, and Campbell River (or sister municipalities who may not take kindly to their neighbours getting bullied) – rezone or otherwise make “developable” these huge chunks of forest land. I’ve shaken my head on this forest land for real estate issue before. I’m shaking it again. Truly amazed.

It’s a worst case scenario for everyone. Citizens in small, stressed coastal communities (stressed because of bad decisions by government and industry) will now get to pay more taxes to simply deal with these lawsuits. TimberWest, which could be doing some very creative things with its forest lands besides liquidating them, is thinking like a 1980s short-term corporation and losing goodwill and investor confidence (who would want to invest in a company that is consistenly behaving so badly? consistently coming up with new dumb ideas?).

Thanks to twitter I know about, and I can “tweet” about it – and have. June 10, 2009. A stupid day for the folks making decisions at TimberWest. A bad day for the folks in Campbell River, Port Alberni, Powell River, and North Cowichan. A bad day for shareholders in TimberWest. A bad marketing day for the folks at Couverdon.

– 30 –

(cc) hanspetermeyer.ca


––––––––––––––––––––––
hans peter meyer
sustainability communications
tel: 250-897-1408 / cell: 250-792-1408
www.hanspetermeyer.ca
follow me at ….



Development Issues: June 2009 – First Thoughts on: Social Media, Virtual Community, and Real-time/Real-space Conversation
May 31, 2009, 9:03 pm
Filed under: Uncategorized
by hans peter meyer
Facebook recently announced the next social medium:
face to face, real-time/real-space conversation.
(from a posting on Twitter)
I usually write about real-space community and the things that make it tick: land and any or all of the many things related to how we use and/or conserve land, the relationships that are built through our various place-based involvements, how we strengthen (or weaken) the experience of this desirable but vague notion of “community.” A recent conference, however, is pulling my thinking in a seemingly unrelated direction: the tension between narratives from real-time/real-space, and those emerging in virtual space.
In May of this year, “media makers” gathered for the 10th annual Media that Matters (#mtm09) conference at the Hollyhock Leadership Institute on Cortes Island. About 55 of us were there. A productive tension broke out early in conference: a faceoff between “old media” folks (most participants are documentary film-makers) and “new media” people. The latter were digital to the bone. Irreverent. Making it up as they go. The film-making crew: crafters of story, used to tightly connected collaborations, focussed on a unifying goal: a story that hangs together. When faced with the seeming ADD-driven cacaphony that the new media generates, they asked, “Whither the narrative?”
A lot of what happens today in real-time, feet-on-the-dirt small towns looks a bit like this faceoff: We have an attachment to a story of who and how we are in “our” place that is being shaken by the kinds of things happening around it. Rapid growth or the death of a primary industry: these change the texture of rural and small town living. A 15 minute wait to cross a bridge becomes a sure sign that we’re on our way to the hell of big city living, and many scramble for old-mode fixes (like a big shiny new bridge or highway) as if it’ll resuscitate a story of place that isn’t doing so well anymore.
That was one of the keys to Mike Littrell’s presentation at #mtm09: What is your story? Where is breaking, not working anymore? What can you learn from the broken place, to become stronger?
In our small places, the locales that are near and dear to our hearts, we need to “tend to the story.” Specifically, we need to be aware of where it’s not working anymore, and we need to open up to new stories and new ways of telling the story that will sustain the deeper meaning of who and how we are in place by mending the broken place. Ironically, in the crazy-quilt ADD world of new media I’m finding ways of story-telling and connecting that are, in some real-spaces, mending the narrative and creating shared meaning between folks who live on the same street, not just at on the same Facebook group.
#mtm09 was rich with these examples. Here’s a handful: Rebecca Moore’s work through the Google Earth Outreach program: supporting “nonprofits, communities and indigenous peoples around the world in applying Google’s mapping tools to the world’s pressing problems…” Another example of “virtual space meets real-space” the stuff Irwin Oostindie is doing through W2 in Vancouver’s downtown eastside: “breaking the digital divide in the inner-city.” Mike Sheehan is engaging youth in real-space/real-time about “diversity, inclusion and solutions for healthy living” using place, rap music, video, etc. Kevin W. Kelley is integrating a wide range of media to connect with real-time/real-space: “where we came from, where we are and where we might go.”
Does this sound too far “out there?” If you’re under 25, maybe not? If you’ve got kids younger than that, and you’re paying any attention to the way they’re connecting and creating relationships, you know you’ve got an inside track. If you’re not paying attention to your kids and how they’re constructing their reality – PAY ATTENTION NOW. Take advantage of what they can teach you. And, engage in the real-time/real-space conversation. This, as the Facebook announcement indicates, is where real meaning in this life starts.
My experience with social media gets closer and closer to how I experience and understand my life. Yes, it’s cacaphonous. But I’m seeing the patterns, the story-lines emerging. Yes, I miss the days when my story was fairly simple: work, marriage, family. None of these stories is what I thought it was going to be. There are several “broken places.” Each of which has given me the opportunity to get deeper, to really notice the juice that flows through me and through my relationships with others and the world I live in. There’s no question of reviving the old stories; there is only the question of whether I can connect with the juice, learn something, connect with others, and keep creating.
Most of my story unfolds, breaks, and mends in the particular real-time/real-space of the Comox Valley. It’s been home for most of my almost-50 years. At times my family, the dearest thing in my life, has been dispersed. Kids in Vancouver, Fort McMurray, Victoria, even just down the road. My Mom in Kamloops. Texting, Facebook, “bookmarking” through Stumbleupon and Delicious, photos on Flickr, Youtube videos – these allow me to maintain real-time connection with my family. Through myriad “small pieces, loosely joined,” they tell the story of my family. It’s a cumulative, mosaical approach to narrative. It’s only when I stand back, when a week or a year have gone by, that I can see it.
And here’s where old school meets new school: we have the wisdom of experience, of knowing that no story ever runs they way we think it should. Whatever your story, it will be broken. If you are mindful, it can become richer through being broken. This is our gift. What we, with patience, can bring to the fragmented, willy-nillyness of today’s frenetic storytelling.
How our communities are changing or how our communications media (and hence, our kids and our families) are changing is frightening. Most of us have enjoyed a fairly smooth story. But the bumpy, broken story is more “normal” for us as humans. War, famine, disease, industrialization, education, economic opportunity/colonialism, marriage, children – these have always changed how we live, where we live, who we see ourselves to be. The new media don’t change this. Nor does clear-cutting the community forest. What matters is what we do with these changes or threats of change. Ultimately, we are left with the starting point of all change, all social media: the real-time/real-space conversations between you and me out of which all “community” and meaning is born.
In the meantime, jump into the change. Play with it. Imagine the conversations and the communities you want to have. And, keep your ears and eyes open for new ways that others are re-animating the conversations about community in and around you. Me, I’ve got a little project that may use some of the things I heard Rebecca and Irwin and the two Mike’s talking about at #mtm09. Watch this space… (And thanks to: Sarah and Naomi at #mtm09 for prompting me to keep thinking and writing on this; and to Kris Krüg, Leif Utne, Darren Barefoot, and Julie Szabo for their insights into social media 101.)
– 30 —
A few references:

––––––––––––––––––––––
hans peter meyer
www.hanspetermeyer.ca
follow me at ….



BC Land Summit Interviews #2: Preparing to Thrive – in Conversation with Mark Holland #bclandsummit (May 21/09)
May 26, 2009, 4:11 pm
Filed under: Uncategorized

by hans peter meyer

Over the course of the May 20-22 BC Land Summit I interviewed several participants and speakers. One of these was Mark Holland, a principal and co-founder of HBLanarc Consultants, and proponent of the “8 Pillars of Sustainability ” as a community planning tool.  
hpm: Tell me a bit about what you’re doing at the BC Land Summit.
MH: A good number of the projects we’ve been working on [at HBLanarc] caught the attention of conference planners and a number of our staff, including myself, are presenting. Primarily we’re presenting on 3-4 different areas. One is on environmental protection of the foreshore. Harriet Ruggeberg, one of our environmental planners, is here talking about a development rating system she led called Green Shores. This establishes a number of different guidelines and rating systems and priorities for how to develop in sensitive riparian areas. This is very exciting.
We’ve also got several teams talking about climate change. Some are talking about climate change in general terms, but quite a bit of the focus right now is on transportation or more “active” transportation. In particular, they’re talking about developing strategies and unfolding the model for communities in BC that have to include green house gas emissions (GHGs) targets in all their official community plans going forward. 
We’re also doing work on urban food systems and the future of the agricultural land reserve, and strategies for preserving our food production capacities. This is especially important as there is increasing pressure on our agricultural land. We’re looking at some alternative strategies and agendas for something we call “agricultural urbanism.” This is about how to design and structure communities so that not only are they highly productive in terms of food, but they celebrate food, educate people about food, and actually endow the overall food system, through transfers of profit from some of the development into food education, among other possible areas. 
The final topic we’re talking about relates to some theories we’ve been working on with others around urban vitality. We think that diversifying urban society with many different types of people is a positive thing if there is common ground, and that where these differences can find common ground and build community, new friends, and new social capital – these are actually predicated on sharing activities. Communities that have a lot of shared activities are the most vital and the most interesting. So some of what we’re doing here is developing the theories around this. What we’re presenting on is what we call “subcultural precincts” – parts of the city that can be really exciting as locations for these kinds of shared activities. 
That’s a pretty wide range of things that we’re presenting on, and I’m sure I’ve forgotten a few things. The Summit is a really good opportunity to get all the professions that deal with land together, and have a conversation about what’s new.
hpm: Were you at the 2004 BC Land Summit?
MH: Yes, I was. It’s hard to compare them. There’s a new kind of energy or pressure today. Some things, like climate change and the forces bearing down on cities are generating a new sense of creativity and – dare I say? – ‘urgency.’ 
With this Summit I’m seeing the next generation of land use professionals coming forward. A lot of the people who were just beginning their careers 5 years ago are now moving into leadership positions in their organizations. We’re getting a lot of new energy, a wave of new thinking coming forward. It’s really exciting.
hpm: What are some of this year’s highlights so far?
MH: That’s hard to say. I’ve actually been presenting more than observing. But there were a couple of things that came out today that I think are very interesting. 
In one of the sessions we heard from a pollster named Angus McAllister. He was talking about the idea of activity and how we understand the people who live in cities. He brought forward the new models that pollsters are using for demographic work right now. Most of this data right now is used – with the exception of government stats – to drive marketing, to drive sales of things to different groups of people. He started to notice that amongst all the different demographic groups, and all the differences that pollsters and marketing people are trying to identify – he started to think that it was actually more interesting to notice what all these different groups have in common. And that maybe we need to start building our cities and communities about places and things we have in common, rather than focusing on how we are different.
Another presentation I really liked came from David Zirnheldt. He’s a former BC cabinet minister, and he’s a farmer in Beaver Valley near Williams Lake. His farm has been in the family for 5 generations. He was wearing a suit jacket, but his hands were those of a working farmer. And the way he spoke, it was an eloquent presentation about the dynamic challenge we are beginning to face around the social contract to do with our food systems. He spoke with real power about the social contract we have with farmers. Very, very thoughtful and wise call for all of us to look ahead and re-invigorate what has become an entirely market commodity system, with a new sense of morality, one that isn’t part of a market commodity system, but one that is rooted in the future of our province. 
Those were just two examples. There were a number of others that I found quite exciting as well.
hpm: What’s coming up in the conference that you’re looking forward to?
MH: Tonight’s presentation by Robert Kennedy Jr. will be good. We’re going to get a ‘big picture’ leadership view from someone with very strong vision on the role of government and elected leaders in moving toward sustainability. I think this is going to be quite interesting.
There are a couple of other people I’m quite interested to hear from. One is Brent Toderian, the next generation director of planning at the City of Vancouver, and a very strong advocate of interesting things. Another is Sherry Wagner, from the Deep South of the US. Her thoughts on “livability” and “what makes the city a great place?” are important. We’re all arguing for denser cities, for more people to live in less space, for good reasons. The question is, once we get everyone there, what makes that place a profoundly exciting place to live, what makes it more than a dormitory? What makes it into a really dynamic place? Some really interesting things there.
There’s also going to be more on the Olympic Village. This is going to be one of the leading residential developments in BC when it’s done. It’s building on years of work that Whistler’s been doing on climate change. So we’ve got a few really top folks here – Brent Harley, Mike Vance, Joe Redman – really sharp people who have a lot of years of experience and commitment to Whistler. It’s been a big effort to bring this class of event to Whistler  and it should be exciting to hear from them. 
hpm: Is the BC Land Summit important? 
MH: This question came up in a presentation – it was asked by one of the professors from the University of Northern BC. He asked this during a session on planning for food. He said, "The planning and design professions have left food behind: We’ve foregone some of our responsibility." 
As the conversation went on it became apparent that there are a lot of things going on right now that require a different kind of leadership on the part of professionals – leadership that will step forward to engage the public debate. 40-50 years ago, planners and architects made some very big mistakes about urban renewal. People, and even the professions themselves, got very concerned about leaving experts in charge. So we’ve moved entirely away from an expert-driven agenda. 
In some ways this is very good. However, as we move into this next chapter, the next 50 years, but particularly the next 15-20 as we basically decide whether we keep the earth’s temperature rise to within 2 degrees or whether we let it run away to at least 4 degrees, and the huge implications that this has for us, – we have a lot of knowledge that we need to learn and share. I think we’re going to move into an environment where architects and planners are leaders. Not just fulfilling our transactional responsibilities and roles, but actually having to step forward as some of the leaders and scouts for society at large, on how we do things. 
This has not really been the role we’ve taken with today’s highly consultative planning. I’m not saying that we need to set aside the consultative planning. But we’re going to need to develop ways of doing this that are more more relevant, highly educative, and more strategic. 
What’s important about this Summit is that it is the venue for the joint AGMs or conferences of the provincial architecture institute, the society of landscape architects, the professional engineers association, and the planning institute. These are the four fundamental professions that essentially work together, and research, and know, and work with the complex issues of where and how we build, and how we maintain that. To get them all together for a few days, in a great place that helps create an open frame of mind – when you get them all together to share on a number of related complex ideas, it allows a non-prejudicial discussion. Many of us work together on different projects. But we play different roles. We’re not really allowed, due to client relations or responsibilities, to explore these complexities. This conference allows us to share some of the most current things we’re thinking in a non-prejudicial and open way. 
We need more of these, not less, if we’re seriously going to grapple with the ingenuity challenges and strategic solutions that are required for BC’s towns and communities to not only prepare for, but to prepare to thrive, prepare to prosper over the course of the next 50-100 years. 
End note:
The 2009 BC Land Summit was a gathering of over 800 land use practitioners from across the province. The Summit took place over May 20-22 in Whistler, and was hosted by 
• The British Columbia Association of the Appraisal Institute of Canada 
• The British Columbia Institute of Agrologists 
• The British Columbia Society of Landscape Architects 
• The Land Trust Alliance of British Columbia 
• The Planning Institute of British Columbia 
• The Real Estate Institute of British Columbia 
The Real Estate Foundation of BC was a major funder of the event in 2004 and again in 2009.

– 30 – 
©hanspetermeyer.ca / 2009
http://www.development-issues.blogspot.com
http://www.hanspetermeyer.ca  

follow me at ….
www.twitter.com/hanspetermeyer
http://hanspetermeyer.tumblr.com
www.hanspetermeyer.blogspot.com
<b



Media That Matters 2009 / Hollyhock Live
May 18, 2009, 2:43 am
Filed under: Uncategorized

What happens when 50+ multi-faceted media creatives gather on Cortes Island for 4-5 days?

First, the ‘firehose’ of information and ideas threatens to wash away any sense of time/place/order.

Second, confusion and eagerness to learn begin to tame the firehose effect.

Third, much animated and application /action – oriented conversation (remember: face to face is still our most persuasive and authentic medium; we are humans, we love to talk and to listen and to hang out together and generate new things – ideas, projects, things to hold in our hands, things to hold in our minds and hearts).

Finally, we dance and sing and laugh and get too little sleep and go back out into the world.

Thanks to the 50+, but especially the Media that Matters team!