Contradictory Calgarians

By: Drew Anderson

Originally publihsed in FFWD, October 4th, in City.

According to two recent reports looking into the state of affairs in our city, Calgarians are a contradictory people. We are concerned about the environment, but do little to reduce our impact, we are concerned over traffic, but continue to drive. We are concerned about crime but feel safe in our neighbourhoods. We are considered conservative but have priorities and concerns more in line with a socialist.
The Calgary Foundation released Vital Signs, which asked participants to grade the city in various areas of concern, including the environment, while the Canada West Foundation, in its report Looking West 2007, examined citizens views on their city, with research in all major western cities and Toronto. Both studies asked respondents to rate priorities and asked for their perception of the city.
The results can be confounding. Despite ranking crime as the fifth priority out of 13 in Looking West, 81 per cent of us feel very or somewhat safe in our neighbourhoods after dark, the highest rating in the country.
Traffic and roads were rated priorities number one and two respectively, and in Vital Signs, our livable/walkable city grade was C-. However, individual citizens continue to drive. 78 per cent of us drive our own vehicle to work instead of taking transit according to Vital Signs.
Loleen Berdahl, the lead researcher on Looking West, says Calgarians want change, they just don’t necessarily want to pay for it. Although transportation was rated a top priority, later in the study respondents shunned almost all methods of funding the necessary improvements.
“I think that’s human nature. I’d love everything for free too, but it’s a big problem. I think the electorate needs to realize that if they want the city that they claim to want, they’re going to need to make some choices with that and there’s going to be some costs to be paid. Not only in terms of actual tax dollars or user fees, but also costs to be paid in terms of…some policy options that restrict types of growth or that provide incentives for certain types of growth or things like that,” she says.
Others see the need for the municipal government to step in and do a better job of addressing Calgarian’s concerns.
“People have aspirations of how they want our city to be, but a lot of it hinges on our government taking action,” said Noel Keough, a senior researcher with Sustainable Calgary who helped research indicators for Vital Signs. “It’s got to do with how we build the city, it’s not an individual’s choice really.”
With a municipal election scheduled for October 15th, the timing of the two reports is fortuitous; revealing the priorities, concerns and perceptions of ordinary Calgarians. It is hoped that the reports will spur discussion on the issues.
“It’s a citizens engagement exercise - the report, and the issues that citizens identified - the election will be over October 15th, but these issues will all be with us for much longer,” says Eva Friessen, President and CEO of The Calgary Foundation.
The reports, however, both highlight another significant issue with the contradictory nature of the municipal citizen, our political apathy despite the realization that the civic government affects our lives deeply.
According to Looking West, 48.7 per cent of us think that of the three levels of government, the municipal variety has the greatest impact on our lives. Yet in the last election only 19 per cent of us voted; one of the lowest turnouts in the country and earning us an overall grade of C in the leadership and belonging section of Vital Signs.
“Who knows how to interpret it,” said Keough, “but you might interpret it as people have not seen a local government that is effective in dealing with these issues, so why vote. That’s a bed set of decisions to make, but perhaps that’s what people are seeing.”
Dr. Keith Brownsey, a political scientist at Mount Royal College isn’t surprised by the apathy and doesn’t see these reports changing anything soon.
“We have very little interest, although people understand that civic politics affects their lives every day,” he says.
“They (citizens) couldn’t care less, the water comes. They only get upset when taxes go up, I mean gosh there’s a tax revolt if your property tax goes up by three dollars a year…I mean that’s where people get animated.”
Yet despite this, Calgarians appear more socially progressive than normally portrayed, and rated property taxes 11th out of the 13 priorities in Looking West, far behind affordable housing and homelessness.
“Every time we do priorities (in a study), lowering taxes ends up in the middle, never the top,” said Berdahl.
“I wasn’t surprised to see Calgary sitting very similar to the other cities, I actually think that despite its national reputation, Calgary is, in many ways, very progressive on a lot of issues.”