Zero expectations for predictable weather

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As I write this it’s -50ºC in Yakutsk, Siberia. And that’s without any wind chill. In case you don’t know, Yakutsk is the only dot on the map for several hundred-thousand square miles in the far northeast of the Asian continent—where the temperature is the coldest on the planet.

Here at home we’ve had what can only be called chronic rain for several months. In fact, over the last four months the rain days have exactly equaled the rain-free days. This, of course, went over the top with the rain-induced flash flooding mid-month, which was so bad on December 13th that Environment Canada couldn’t collect the day’s precipitation stats.

It seems impossible to form a clear pattern of our weather, this, despite all the modern satellite technology we throw at tracking it. Call it the unpredictability factor. And that unpredictability messes up our ability to take issues like climate change or global warming seriously. We just can’t get a sense of the big picture on a personal level.

I get the same feeling looking back over the past year. While the real economy seems to be flatlining, the stock markets have risen dramatically, almost doubling from the crash two years ago. The big banks and investment houses are paying out huge bonuses, and the wealthy are getting wealthier, even though ordinary people in the States are still losing their homes to foreclosures and the unemployment rate has plateaued at near record levels.

Then there’s politics. On one hand Barack Obama has escalated the war in Afghanistan, while on the other he managed to get the START nuclear arms reduction treaty with Russia through the Senate in a major peacekeeping move.

Fouling up the big picture even more is the Julian Assange–WikiLeaks controversy, which may have been the biggest news story of the year. In a classic twist of the news, the story morphed into the Assange story rather than the actual leaks, which most people don’t seem to remember or even particularly care about. They do, however, seem to care about Mr. Assange’s use of condoms, or whether he’s a responsible journalist. (To be clear, he’s not a responsible journalist; in fact, he’s not a journalist at all. He’s an information technology activist. He admirably leaves the journalism to journalists.)

And then, of course, there’s the local scene. But what to say? That the Liberals crashed and burned and the Conservatives took over? Or that the Atlanticade motorcycle event came and went in one year?

Well kudos to the Conservatives. And the Atlanticade experience is not unique. Victoria, BC, just dropped its hugely popular Tall Ships Festival that attracted more than 32,000 paying visitors this year. The event apparently generated between $6- and $8-million for city businesses but the organizers just couldn’t come up with the $1.2-million cost needed to host the event in 2011. C’est la vie.

On the personal front, my experience with all the characters involved with Ministers Island tourism attraction was most entertaining, though decidedly unproductive. This project, like everything else this year, was a bit unbalanced and unsettled. Unfortunately, getting everyone on the same page with the same mission was impossible.

It all comes down to how things fit together—or not. A book I’m reading came to the rescue in terms of personal fit. The author talks about great economies and great places to live and mentions U of T professor, Richard Florida, who theorizes that the healthiest communities are the ones with the most accommodating environment for “creatives.” He includes Boulder, Austin, San Francisco, Madison, Wisconsin and few others in this category, most of them university towns with vibrant after-hours entertainment.

What you learn is that these cities have been engineered for success. Take, for example, Kalamazoo, Michigan. Like most cities in the U.S. Rust Belt, it experienced a rapid economic decline as industrial jobs were shipped overseas. But Kalamazoo’s civic leaders took action to attract new young families. Thanks to a number of wealthy local donors, they put together a huge endowment fund to pay the full Michigan university tuition for any student who attends K through 12 in Kalamazoo. Well, guess what? It’s working. The first 860 students have just graduated from university this year. And Kalamazoo is the envy of struggling towns everywhere.

Since arriving on the East Coast, I’ve been suggesting that we build these kinds of creative-minded, forward-thinking towns. This blog started out as, and still is, development-focused with that goal in mind. But I don’t quite think it’s worked. Perhaps that's what comes from trying to be overly innovative in conservative small town cultures. So as the New Year arrives, I think I’ll revise my resolutions—and my expectations. In 2011 maybe I’ll try to…

1. Accept the unpredictable.
2. Stop offering advice.
3. Avoid taking the lead.
4. Experience life.
5. Enjoy all kinds of weather.
6. Find more creative friends.
7. Talk to my kids.
8. Do stuff I love.

Because, as the cliché goes: life is short. The world is a very wonderful place, filled with opportunity and hope, and we should all aim to make the most of it, to explore as much of it as we can.

And there I go offering advice again. Damn. Well, I still have a few days left until the New Year…