Mission Statement

 

LOCAL DEMOCRACY ROUNDTABLES – 2024 – James Taylor Chair in Landscape and Liveable Environments

PURPOSE OF THIS INITIATIVE

To unpack the relationship between local democracy and four crucial issues:

1. What is the role of local democracy in the age of the internet. 

2. To what extent does local democracy have a role in guiding global capital flows.

3. To what extent is it within both the capability and the responsibility of local democracy to insure a secure and affordable life for its citizens/residents. 

4. To what extent does local democracy have a role in the sustainable growth of local economies.

EVENT CHOREOGRAPHY

There will be four public sessions, held at UBC Robson and four charrette sessions with stakeholder panel, location TBA.

For each of four public sessions there will be:

1. A white paper written by project staff.

2. Recorded panel session with invited member qualified to speak on the issue - responding to the white paper mentioned above.

3. Final report including all the above plus recommendations written by staff.

4. Each session provides choreography and partial script for inclusion in a future video series.

 

STAKEHOLDER PANEL CHOREOGRAPHY

Intentions: Approving event choreography, reviewing and revising outcomes – all achieved through use of a modified Charrette methodology.

For each of the stakeholder charrette sessions there will be:

1.  A review of whitepaper and amendments to same.

2. A facilitated conversation about the impact of the previous public session.

2. Key amendments on the issue and potential instructions for a new text entirely.

SUBJECT AREAS AND MISSION STATEMENTS .

SESSION 1

Title: Local Democracy and Housing Equity, Can They be Reconciled?

Traditionally local decision makers have controlled the nuts and bolts of housing production, mostly because the local level is, by and large, responsible for the public infrastructure that ties all of this housing together (in the elaborate network we call "the city"). Recently much conflict has arisen - globally - over how these responsibilities are to be exercised. Policy has shifted dramatically in recent years, with many arguing passionately that people cannot afford housing because of the inequitable way that cities exercise these powers. If this is so how should these powers be redistributed? To the interests of capital? To higher levels of government that might be more demonstrably equipped to prevent this social dysfunction?

 

SESSION TWO

The "global village" and Local Democracy, Can They be Reconciled.

Does the internet destroy or enhance local democracy. Does democracy, as Jefferson and others proposed two centuries ago, require a devolution of powers down as close to the local level as possible with public, open exchange by legally equal citizens imagined as the crucible of civic progress and stability? - all on the assumption that the local level is the true home of the light of demos?  How much of this holds true now that we are all linked in a "global village" by the internet? What, in the end, has changed with regards to the collective decision-making power of local citizens with regards to modern issues: global capital flows, the changing nature of work, the climate emergency?

 

SESSION THREE

Title: Is there such a thing as equitable local scale economic development?

Ideally a city provides two things. 1. An affordable quality of life and, 2. a job that pays for number 1 above.  But, at least since the 80s, the ability of the average wage earner to afford the cost of a quality life has been compromised. Wages have stayed stubbornly flat while costs, and most dramatically housing costs, have skyrocketed. Are these forces beyond the control of local democracy? If the answer is no what would improvement look like and how might it be accomplished. If, on the other hand, the answer is yes, is local democracy a sham that can happily be ignored?

 

SESSION FOUR

TBA,