The main reason the I live in the Country. Photo taken at a private beach along Mara Lake.

So, as some of you know, I currently live and grew up in a really small town and have never really lived in a city larger than Williams Lake, and even then I lived 5 minutes outside of town. Perhaps due to this reason, I still live in a small town with my 100lb dog Buster. My drive is just over an hour each way to school so if I have class at 9:30 in the morning, I have to leave by 8:00. It is also much more expensive in the long run as I pay rent in Enderby plus I generally put around 800km on my car every week.

My childhood backyard (where my mom still lives) with my mom and I and our dogs last
winter 🙂

To many of you this sounds crazy, but for me it just seems to make sense. The city honestly scares me. It is busy and crowded. I get stressed out just entering the city sometimes, to be completely honest, I get stressed just going to Walmart as there are so many people there and all in a hurry. The funny thing about this is that a lot of my friends from home feel the same way and those that have moved to cities said that it took them a long time to adjust.

Small towns in my opinion have so much going for them, especially if larger centers are easily accessible for shopping and cultural activities. There is a wealth of community feeling in small towns. I know most of my neighbors and even many strangers in the grocery store smile and say hi.

A while ago in class (September 27^th) we talked about the Crisis of the 19^th century and the reason for planning movements that attempted to ameliorate the conditions of the cities by introducing elements of the country. At that time the London slums were becoming a worry to the middle class. They were afraid that the poor members of these slums would rise up in revolution so they attempted to make living conditions better. Georg Simmel believed that the city caused over-stimulation and thus nervous exhaustion. There is also an idea of an intensification of urban stimuli where noise leads to feelings of indifference not caring about anything.

Although in some ways the city has gotten so much better, it has also gotten worse in some ways. Cities have grown far larger than the cities of the 19^th century and thus they have different sets of problems, including my personal nemesis, traffic! Planners of the 20^th century have tried to address the sets of problems that stem from the sheer magnitude of cities, but to a person who has lived only in small towns; cities are still scary, loud, busy places that as Simmel says create nervous over-stimulation and exhaustion.

I know that there is a completely different viewpoint to this, and that life in a really small town is unthinkable to many who grew up exclusively in a city, or have grown accustomed to the society and culture that the city encompasses.

The Enderby cliffs. Photo taken this summer from the top. There is so much to do in the country especially if you are active.

I take any chance I can to colour but tell myself that I’m “doing homework”…

While I was creating my perfect utopian world, I began to see similarities between three cities that I have lived in, and combined the best elements from Kelowna, Edmonton, and Vancouver (in my opinion) while eliminating all of the problem areas that I have encountered in each city. For this reason, it would be called Vanmontonowna.

 My utopia contains all new and modern-looking buildings that are aesthetically pleasing, while still being functional. There would be an equal ratio of apartment buildings and houses to meet every need of the citizens that live there. In addition to the plentiful parks and green spaces that are found throughout the city, each house would have a front and back yard, and every apartment building would have a rooftop garden/patio, and the city would have fields of crops and agriculture in its immediate hinterland. On one extreme side of the city would be an ocean that is bordered by a sea wall for running, biking and roller-blading. The ocean and the fields would provide a sustainable and well-balanced source of food for the city. The city would be bisected by a river that would help to irrigate the immense amount of green space, as would the surrounding lakes that are used for their beautiful beaches, fishing and exercising opportunities. Along the length of the river would be walking trails, and on every road in the city there would be a bike path to create a pollution-free option of transportation and exercise. On the opposite sides of the city from the ocean, Vanmontonowna would be surrounded by a mountain range. The forested mountains would be excellent for hiking, skiing and snowboarding, and hunting for an additional food source.

 At the center of Vanmontonowna would be a pedestrian market square, that would have endless possibilities for shopping, including an open-air farmers market in the summers. Besides the roads and bike paths, there would also be an excellent transit that is easily accessible, fast, and affordable. It would cover all areas of the city and hinterland. Health care would be free, as would education (of all ages). If a person wants to learn, they have as equal an opportunity as anyone else, as long as they are willing to work for it. In university the cost of books would remain, but tuition would be free. Courses would still be very challenging, and obtaining a degree would be recognized as valuable and would improve your salary.

 I also really liked Zach’s idea of a reformative government to reduce prison capacities, as well as teaching the accused to suffer consequences for their actions while improving society. Prisons would still exist for utmost crimes, such as murder and rape. There would be no death penalty. I feel like there would have to be a centralized government, because without it people would not know what to do with themselves. Society has gotten extremely lazy, but there would be rewards (such as higher pay) for people who work hard. For example, farmers and fishermen would make a moderately-high salary, because they help the city to continue going.

 That’s all, let me know what you think!

This semester I decided that I wanted to minor in history. Taking such a variety of history classes has been extremely interesting and beneficial to my overall degree of wanting to be a teacher. The topic that I have been most intrigued by so far is the concept of each city’s hinterland.

Why are they so beneficial?

Before this class I never thought about the outskirts of a city and how beneficial they can truly be in regards to the concept of imports and exports. The hinterland is such a necessity to the city that it is surrounding because it has the ability to attract mass amounts of buyers to that city. The large amount of interest in the products that the city has, makes a big profit and benefits the area as a whole. Also, a city’s hinterland can attract many tourists from surrounding cities. For example, the wineries beautiful that surround Kelowna attract people from all over to vacation in Kelowna and taste the wine, which in turn makes money for the city. At the same time, the liquor stores within the city are supported by those same wineries to stock their stores. Coming from a large city like Vancouver, I never considered the power that the surrounding, much smaller, cities had on Vancouver’s city center. For example, a lot of the fruit that is purchased within the greater Vancouver area is in fact from the Okanagan. I fully agree with Max Weber’s belief that a Hinterland is detrimental to a city and that without the aid of a hinterland, the city would struggle immensely in terms of buying imports and selling exports.

I envision Utopia as the unification of natural landscapes with a dispersed urban form. A pristine natural landscape would be dotted only by dense clusters of housing, industry, and multipurpose centres, sewn together by interurban rail lines that would pass through a hinterland preserved under the principle of a public commons.  The city would take on a regional scale with 1 million inhabitants living in dense clusters of 100,000 that would be be dispersed  across the landscape (along with industrial and multipurpose centres) 15 kilometres apart and connected by a dense interurban network.

The housing of utopia would be made up of sleek glass towers that operate under a ccooperative principal that include a wide variety of housing to suit all income levels and eliminate the problems of income segregation.  As relatively large centres the housing clusters could support day to day amenities such as markets, primary and secondary education, and recreational facilities (including surrounding parklands).  Within the housing cluster life would be centred upon the interurban station and no structure would be further than a 15 minute stroll.

Businesses and industry of Utopia that could not be integrated into the residential centres would operate within designated clusters linked to the interurban network that would find ample land and be free of the problems associated with industrial enterprises in the urban context (such as noise and unsightliness complaints).  In addition, the clusters would foster creativity and innovation by grouping like-minded individuals together.

Cultural, recreational, and governmental facilities that required a larger base than 100,000 people would also be grouped into multipurpose designated districts that would be centred upon interurban stations and have plenty of land available for future development. As well as built facilities, the interstitial multi-use facility of the public commons between the clusters would support agriculture, recreation, and nature.

Champs Élysées from the Arc de Triomphe

In the past few years I have travelled extensively throughout Europe and have enjoyed a great number of experiences that have shaped me into the person that I am. However one of the most memorable was travelling through Paris and experiencing the many aspects of the city that make it so unique. Through this course I have learned that the majority of these unique aspects came from the mind of Georges-Eugene Haussmann. Looking back I can vividly remember the wide, straight boulevards that emanated from a single location. One of the most distinct is the Champs-Elysées that emanates from the Arc de Triomphe. This boulevard emanating from a central location highlights every aspect of Haussmann’s modernization. It is quite wide with tall buildings lining the street that have almost identical facades. Also the street has many café’s and shops that made it seem very busy and not as historical as some areas of Paris. I was quite struck by this because before travelling to Paris I was staying just outside of Paris in a small community named Enghien Les-Bains where all the modernization of Paris was absent. In this town there were no wide boulevards, and instead there were narrow winding streets that made it very difficult to make your way around this relatively small town. I was amazed at how the efforts by Haussmann to modernize Paris had made such a significant impact on the character of the city. Instead of the jumbled narrow streets of small towns outside of Paris there were wide easily distinguishable roads that made navigating this massive city quite easy.

The bridge into Kelowna, British Columbia

In our group discussions we were addressing Max Weber’s “The Nature of the City,” in particular, we were debating about the question “Does Kelowna satisfy Weber’s definition of what a city is.”

At first glance, Kelowna satisfies most of Weber’s major attributes of a city; it has a court and partially autonomous law, and it is partially self-governing due to municipal elections. Kelowna also has a much larger connection to its hinterland than most modern cities because it is based on the tourism of its lakes, mountains and wineries. Kelowna has all of the properties that Weber mentions with the exception that Kelowna does not have a fortress or garrison. Kelowna has no surrounding walls, no great military base and no other major defense system to speak of. With this in mind, according to Weber, is Kelowna still not considered a city because it is lacking fortification?

In our group we delved into this topic and realized that Kelowna does indeed have a defense system in place, just not in the way that one might expect. While Kelowna may not have physical walls surrounding the city, the natural environment provides its own defense structure. If Kelowna were under attack, the city needs only to cut off access to the roads in and out of the city. By shutting down the bridge and blocking off the road to Vernon, there is virtually no direct access to Kelowna, except from boat or plane. Kelowna is also built into a natural valley; the mountains and lake surrounding the city form a natural defense against enemies. There is no protection from an aerial attack, but even with city walls that would be next to impossible to prevent.

In this respect, our group decided that Kelowna can, and should, have city-status.