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A message to the Cranbrook citizens of 2039
Perceptions by Gerry Warner
Hey Cranbrook. Listen up! A tremendous opportunity is occurring and virtually every Cranbrookian can participate.
The Sam Steele Society is dedicating a Time Capsule June 19, the first day of the Sam Steele Festival, and it will not be opened until 2039. That’s 25 years from now. What in the world will our fair city be like then? We know what our city is like now and we’re being invited to share what we know by making a contribution to the Time Capsule.
You have until May 23 to make a contribution and you can get the details by calling 426-4161. Write a letter to a future citizen, submit a picture, a memento or any item that means Cranbrook to you. It’s easy, and just to show how easy it is, I’m making my contribution here and now – an essay on the legacy we’re passing down to the Cranbrook citizens of 2039.
Yo Cranbrook Citizen of 2039 here’s a day in the life of Cranbrook in 2014.
Got up this morning for my morning run near Kinsmen Park and you should have seen the sun hitting the Steeples. Through the fresh morning air, the pink alpen glow on the peaks framed the city like a stained-glass window. How lucky I am to live in a city like this. Then I put my foot in a pothole and almost bit the pavement. We may be a City on a Hill in 2014, but we’re not perfect. Still we keep trying! And man would I like to see the roads of Cranbrook in 2039 when you’re all scooting around in your electric vehicles or whatever.
Jogged past Joseph Creek, our funky, little, urban stream that almost flooded us out after a quick thaw last winter. Now Elizabeth Lake is on the rise. We’ve done quite a good job of developing that water body which used to be referred to derisively as “the Slough.” Now it’s flooding properties on the southwest end of the lake and threatening to do the same downstream if water isn’t pumped through by the city. This is being done, but some people think it’s the wrong approach and condemning the city for doing it. As you may have figured out Cranbrook Citizen of 2039, I’m a City Councillor myself and I can tell you there are days when you’d just like to stick to jogging. Hope Elizabeth Lake is there for you and all its critters to enjoy in 2039.
No doubt there will be politics in the Cranbrook of 2039 as there is now. How nice it would be if politics are a little less divisive then. One can always dream. As for now, in my opinion and not speaking for current City Council, I see two main forces driving the political train down the tracks towards 2039 – growth and quality of civic life. I’ve lived in and around Cranbrook for 17 years and the city has grown little in that time; around 18,000 when I arrived and around 20,000 now. That’s not much growth for close to 20 years. There was a brief boom just before the Great Recession of 2009, but we’ve stabilized since then and there are few signs of another growth spurt in the near future.
But is that necessarily bad? It can be argued both ways. Growth brings jobs, business and new residents, all to the good. But if growth comes too quickly it can overwhelm the city’s infrastructure, services and the like and that’s bad. And dear Citizen of 2039 that’s largely the position Cranbrook finds itself in 2014.
Our roads are in terrible condition and we don’t have the money to fix them anytime soon and that’s a legacy we’re probably going to hand down to you unless some kind of miracle happens. Sorry about that. As I said earlier, we’re not perfect. And the rest of our infrastructure – water, sewer, sidewalks and the like – isn’t in great shape either. Maybe technology will have progressed beyond electric vehicles and you’ll be flying around in jet packs by 2030 and taking a pill instead of drawing water from a tap. Who knows?
But let’s get real. Despite our problems, Cranbrook is still a pretty damn good place to live in 2014 when you look around at the rest of the world and see the slums of Calcutta, the abandoned streets of Detroit, the crime in Miami or real estate prices in Vancouver.
So dear Cranbrookians of 2039 I hope we don’t make too much a mess of it and you find yourself, as we do, living in one of the most beautiful cities in the province nestled at the base of the Rockies with clean air to breathe and purified water to drink.
And don’t forget to go jogging in the morning and watch the sun come up over Mt. Fisher and the Steeples. That’s possibly the greatest legacy we have living here.
– Gerry Warner is a retired journalist and Cranbrook City Councillor. His opinions are his own and he doubts he’ll be around for 2039. But you never know.
