A new voice in the municipal blogging wilderness

September 1st, 2009
New kid on the block CivicScene flashes its impressive wares; intimidated blogging counterparts hover in the background

New kid on the block CivicScene flashes its impressive wares; intimidated blogging counterparts hover in the background

Welcome to CivicScene’s inaugural post in what will hopefully be a long line of intelligent, balanced and interesting contributions to the municipal discourse.

CivicScene has emerged to provide a new perspective in the current Vancouver municipal blogging scene, which in our humble opinion, has been lacking when it comes to progressive voices.

In addition, over the coming days and weeks, additional contributors will be signing on to the CivicScene team, bringing forth fresh perspectives and ideas from cities across North America.  Keep checking back for their profiles, which will continue to be added as details are finalized.

We are anxious to receive your opinions, suggestions and tips going forward, and hope that the debates can be kept civil and respectful.  Comments will be moderated to avoid slander or attacks, but never to engineer censorship.

Thank you for reading.

One Response to “A new voice in the municipal blogging wilderness”

  1. VancouverBikes says:
    September 1, 2009 at 2:52 pm

    Nice to see you back to blogging. I’ll be tuning in like I used to back in the day.

    TH

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FACT OF THE DAY

An article titled Vancouver Politics by Paul Tennant in The Vancouver Book (1976), describes the entry of TEAM onto the civic political scene in 1968. TEAM, wrote Tennant, “sought to be a moderate reform group appealing to persons of all political ideologies.”

On their left was COPE (the Committee of Progressive Electors), also formed in 1968, and on their right was the NPA (the Non-Partisan Association), which had been a power in city politics for nearly four decades, and which “held that the affairs of the city should be run by those with the necessary knowledge and experience, i.e., those with a professional-managerial background, in order to run the city in a business-like way.”

The reformers, on the other hand, “felt that civic decision-making should be open to the public, with leadership coming from a cross-section of the population, and rule going to the working class majority. This group was concerned about land use, they advocated city control, and preferred to structure politics around the neighborhood concept.”

Quote OF THE DAY

“It was very diverse, and we got together by word of mouth. There were professors, business people, labor, lawyers and from all across the city. It was a coalescing of people around the idea we should do something.” – former City Councillor Setty Pendakur on the formation Vancouver’s reform movement and its political manifestation – TEAM – came into being in the late 1960’s and early 1970’s.

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