A community that I am involved in is my neighborhood, the signal hill community. It is a very good neighborhood with many great people. The neighborhood has many walking path areas, a lot of facilities, such as a recreation center, soccer fields, hockey rinks, baseball diamonds, parks, and schools. It is middle to high economic status neighborhood as fairly high finances are required in order to own a home in this neighborhood. This is typically a good thing because it means all of the neighbors are hardworking peoples and contributing members of society. This is important in a community in order to have similar goals for community development. Since most people within the neighborhood have similar concerns this will direct community development in a mutually satisfying direction.
Currently there is an opportunity to enhance the quality of life within the community. There is a road running through the neighborhood connecting the shopping center to the east of my neighborhood with the main road and neighborhoods west of my community. This means that thousands of cars pass through that area, making life very inconvenient for people who live on that road as it is very noisy for long hours, and it is also very difficult for them to get out of their own driveways.
I personally do not live specifically on that road, but very close to it and so I consider that area to be part of my community. So obviously to enhance the quality of life in this community something must be done about this road. I have attended several community meetings where members of the community come to offer reasonable opinions on ways this could be fixed. Several ideas offered by the community are to seal the west access to the neighborhoods so that those people are forced to use alternate routes to get home. Another is to install gates and passes so that only certain people (the people who live in signal hill community) are able to use the road. There were a few other ideas, but they were kind of unreasonable. The environment was very positive, helpful, and open minded which helped lots of opinions to be shared. In the end, the board (which for my neighborhood is the city of Calgary and the alderman) took all ideas into consideration, but no concluding solution was made. Now it has been about 8 months and still no word on solutions or decisions.
This is a very involved community but has yet to be empowered since the community has no power on its own to shut down a road, or show any sign on influencing the city board to do so. This can have negative effects on a community when it sees that its efforts have little or no effects, people get discouraged and contribute less to future efforts in community development. It is great to have an involved community, but without empowerment no development will take place.
Good blog man. Signal Hill seems like a cool place; kind of a small town in a big city. I see your concerns with the heavy traffic that could be passing through there, but like you said it is kind of tough to find an alternative route around it. I hope everything works out.
ReplyDeleteIt is nice to hear how even though you don't live on that road that you are trying to make a difference for the benefit of your community. If there is one thing about Calgary that I have noticed since I have moved here is the fact the road systems here are terrible. It is good that a young guy like yourself is passionate about your community - it exemplifies that you want and will make a difference and that's awesome. Great post and good luck dude.
ReplyDeleteI'm from a small town so this is my first experience with city traffic, but I can imagine the frustration certain people in your community have to endure. Having difficulty leaving your own driveway would make me angry enough to complain and attempt to change things for the better. I agree with the mention of people with similar socioeconomic status' having similar concerns. Yes, there is always exceptions, but people with the same problems and daily constraints related to their community will most likely have similar goals to improve their quality of life. Good stuff Matt.
ReplyDeleteYour post shows your concerns and passion for your community. from what your said, there seems to be a lot that needs to be done before the problem gets solved, but I believe if people with the same concern can be work together and set their priorities on the goal, things would be improved when actions are taken step by step.
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