During the COVID-19 nightmare, I started following the writing of a professor who calls himself Eugyppius and who has recently retired in Germany. He has turned his sharp wit on what passes for informed governance in that country.The relentless and highly concentrated stupidity of our rulers is a very great weight to bear. Every day they devise some fantastic new and heretofore inconceivable retardation. Now that is next-level sarcastic humour!I read his comment after filling out a City of Calgary questionnaire regarding plans to remove LRT parking and replace it with high rise apartments. Densification is the way to go, doncha know? Is this too an example of "inconceivable retardation."In the questionnaire, I was asked what I like about my older vintage neighbourhood with mature trees, and mostly single-family dwellings. In response, I responded that I liked, …the wide variety of home ownership options ... The area is mature and not "cookie cutter", which is a good description of newer neighbourhoods that, for reasons of ideology and avarice, suffer from a boring sameness ... of a physical landscape of row upon row of Stalinesque, ugly apartment buildings.So I like living in an area untouched by the fascist ideologies of the City of Calgary. Fascist, in this context, of course, in reference to the obvious linkage between the city regulators and the city developers otherwise known as "regulatory capture." I was then asked to offer my views about what might make my neighbourhood even better to which I replied, I would remove my community from the oversight of the City of Calgary for the reasons previously discussed. Look. You ask if there is more or less parking in my area even as the point of the development in question is to monomaniacally reduce parking for transit users and replace it with high density housing of "ticky-tacky" if you are familiar with the old song. I have friends in the property management business, and they assure me that apartments and condos are increasingly difficult to fill/rent because of overbuilding with an imbalance in the types of housing offered. People want detached houses with yards. Stop with the ideological rush to "densification", do a better job of pretending to listen to ratepayers, and leave things alone... use the "light touch" of public interest determination.The questionnaire then bravely asked for my final thoughts. Being on a roll, I offered some,When all the counsellors and mayor and all senior management at the City of Calgary opt to live in 600 square foot apartments "close to public transit in densified neighbourhoods", you will receive a formal apology from me for misunderstanding your motives. Until then, please stop with the progressive, Marxist drive to impress on us an ideology that few of you want to live under. I dug a bit deeper into the nature of the questionnaire and discovered that it did not come from the city, but from a wholly owned subsidiary of the city known as the Calgary Municipal Land Corporation (CMLC). Maybe I am misreading the purpose of this organization, but it seems like a CIA cut-out! Other than to deflect criticism from the council for its ideological and concentrated stupidity, why does it exist? Why are my tax dollars being used to redevelop the city? Are we short of private sector developers? Sarcastically, did I miss the tens of thousands of letters from area residents demanding an immediate end to parking so that hundreds of tiny apartments can be built?At one point, the questionnaire asked whether my neighbourhood was suitably “diverse and inclusive." This woke formulation, it seems to me, is designed to split people apart rather than create a neighbourhood. Is the city asking me to assay my neighbours to determine whether we are suitably diverse? What should we do if we are not? Many of us have lived together in the neighbourhood for thirty years so is that suitably inclusive? Given that the executive leadership of the CMLC is anything but diverse and inclusive it seems a bit Orwellian that they are concerned about the status of my neighbourhood.October is coming and changes are desperately required.
