Fighting for progress verbally
Another minor skirmish in the city council insult games. The “commercial street” near my office is not expanding. Normal for one side, a crisis for the other. Let’s be clear; there isn’t a lot of available land in the area for new residents or commerces, unless the historically vast “domaines” held by religious communities for the last four centuries are auctioned off.
The line in the sane (or better, in the forested tracts) lies between those who want parklands and those who want condos, as far as the eye can see. Not that the condo developers want to see anyone else. The whole point is to have something unique. Privilege. Aif those condos are ever built, the fortunes of the shops on the street will be made.
It doesn’t matter that in the building by my bus stop, the last two shops to open sell, respectively, tea and bejeweled dog sweaters. The point is to be exclusive. And the current wake up call came from the closure of the only variety store on the street, last Saturday. No place to buy bad coffee, bad muffins, plastic sandwiches and plastic gum.
The mayor has blamed the other side with conservatism. The opposition has blamed him with ageism. Are we far enough apart, do you think? My own feeling is that things are fine. Yes, you have to tear down a half-million dollar cottage to build your new million dollar brick palace, but that’s just the cost of doing business in a unique part of town. Seriously, two years ago we saw a house valued at half a million torn down, to get the land. Then, the new owner built a brick palace valued at one million. Tax roles are fascinating places to find out how the other half lives.
