A buzzing sound can mean many things. When I was a kid growing up on an Iowa farm, a buzzing sound usually meant bees were near by...typically a scary thing since I was pretty sure they had me in their tiny stinger sights. Ah, but there are buzzing sounds that are not at all scary and indicate good things are happening. I heard one just like that last week in Buffalo, New York.
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What would happen if we blended community development with public policy? Would we be better off if local governments took a community development approach to municipal administration? Vibrant communities are built when citizens and local government work together to make change. The best way to determine the answers to these questions is to study the work of municipal government advisory committees.
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On Friday March 4th a group of twelve neighbours from the Avenues in Peterborough, ON gathered together for an après work beverage at a new establishment located in the neighbourhood to discuss what is awesome about where we live and how we can make it even better.
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There is a great deal of caring, conserving, creating, innovating, entrepreneuring, protecting, advocating for all life on earth (human, plant and animal) that is done by so-called ordinary people. A quick scan of my friends and neighbours reveals C. who has been growing organic lettuce and greens for 15 years; P. a young mom of two who is leading a campaign to stop dirty coal-bearing trains from entering Canada; J. who is a sole source of support for a friend who may never recover from a debilitating stroke; W. who stopped the trees on our local dyke from being cut down; V. who is caring for her ageing mother; T. and his neighbours who cleaned up a local stream making it possible for salmon to return and D. who is part of a network of support for a friend with cancer.
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The living wage movement is growing across Canada. The private, public, and non-profit sectors are seeing a rapid uptake of employers commited to paying employees a livable wage. Now, municipal governments are considering how the living wage and other income security initiatives are able to reduce poverty for residents and build healthier communities and economies.
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Now is no time to think of what you do not have.
Think of what you can do with what there is.
-Ernest Hemingway
Coming out of the Poverty Reduction Summit in Ottawa in May, 2015, one of the ideas that Paul Born from Tamarack and Brock Carleton from the Federation of Canadian Municipalities had was to develop a paper that explored the increasing interest and involvement of municipalities in poverty reduction work across Canada.
The result is 10 – A Guide for Cities Reducing Poverty that will be presented at the upcoming Cities Reducing Poverty: When Mayors Lead summit in Edmonton 5-7 April.
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