Happiness: A Scaledown Perspective
I find it serendipitous that my last post was on how to live a more fulfilling life by “scaling down” right before statistics came out showing an Unhappy Windsor.
No one is to blame for our unhappiness other than ourselves. Anyone who gives power to someone else to make them happy or not deserves their fate. One wonderful quote explains that “pain is inevitable, suffering is optional”
A key finding is that the most important reason for geographical variation in happiness in Canada is differences in the sense of belonging to local communities, which is generally higher in small CMAs, rural areas, and Atlantic Canada.
If someone were to look for a cause, I believe it is best explained in the above quote. What is the number one cause of disconnect to your local community??? SPRAWL
Look at Scaledown’s mission
To connect every Windsorite to their own walkable neighborhood that has its own public spaces, local independent businesses and artists.
Talk about a reaffirmation of the importance of Scaledown and its’ mission. What stops us from connecting? lack of patronizing local independent businesses within your neighborhood so that no only do you meet the owners and employees of these businesses, but you meet your neighbors as they too shop.
People who live in Downtown and Walkerville have a higher attendance rate at the Capital, Art Gallery, Symphony and other arts and cultural organization. They too connect, not only with the people who make up these wonderful organizations but they connect with other patrons as well.
Who do you connect with at Walmart or other Big Box? Can you name the last clerk that rang in your goods, do you know the name of the butcher who handed you your meat? The other patrons?
I hate to sound elitist but I’m not very motivated to meet most of the other patrons in these places. However, I’ve struck up many conversations with Ted Farron, his employees and other patrons at Farrons Meats.
When I go to film Festival, the main theme I liked is that “The end of the film is the beginning of the conversation”. I leave you with these profound words of wisdom… 
Hello, world, here’s a song that we’re singin’,
c’mon get happy
A whole lotta lovin’ is what we’ll be bringin’,
we’ll make you happyWe had a dream we’d go trav’lin’ together
We’d spread a little lovin’ then we’d keep movin’ on
Somethin’ always happens whenever we’re together
We get a happy feelin’ when we’re singin’ a songTrav’lin’ along there’s a song that we’re singin’,
c’mon get happy
A whole lotta lovin’ is what we’ll be bringin’,
we’ll make you happy
We’ll make you happy,
we’ll make you happy
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The reason for many of society’s problems could very well be distilled down to isolation. The West’s elevation of “Individualism” to the lofty plateau of religious nirvana may have exceeded the Industrial Revolutions goals, but the marketers and PR people sure did humanity a disservice by selling it so well. We’re social creatures, but many of our fellow Windsorites still daydream about driving to the sub-burbs, clicking a button and driving into their houses without having to see their neighbours.
Did they have 8′ privacy fences prior to the sub-urban experiment?
Wow. Harsh.
Technically, separation and isolation are not necessary results of sprawl, but rather results of poor traffic planning. I lived in a very large sprawling group of cities where I was a part of a neighbourhood, and I felt part of the millions in the area as well. I could connect to any spot in that whole area in 15-20 minutes (so obviously it wasn’t LA or NYC…) the same time it might take me to cross the tiny spot on the map we call Windsor, because our roads here aren’t designed to get people where they are going so much as to provide a random place to put a driveway. Any loss of connection that Windsorites feel is entirely due to shockingly and shamefully poor design of roads.
If you’re going to attack sprawl (and it should be attacked) then attack it for the right reasons. It wastes oil and soil, discourages walking and cycling for things like shopping and commuting, and if these trends continue, it necessarily will kill us.
Similarly, attacking sprawl should not be done by attacking people who live IN the sprawl. If things are to change, you need most of those people to vote for that change at the ballot box and with their pocketbooks. Sprawl grew because living in a higher-density environment IS unpleasant for a lot of people.
Randy, I think my reason is as right as any and even more right
There’s what I call the ice cream test. When my son turns 8 can he go get an ice cream cone by himself in the summer without risking his life in traffic? If so he will learn how to make a purchase, check that he was given the proper change.
This is part of the normal development process for an 8 year old.
I don’t know that my son can do that where I live, but its close. Maybe that new cafe cache on cabana?
Chris seems to emphasizing the aggressive part of his normally passive aggressive. I think its posssibly because my new “niceness” is leaving that void here.
Sprawl does nothing to facilitate connections. It could though
Imagine if there were zoned in cafe’s in sprawl subdivisions where the common mailboxes are? That way you could meet your neighbors while you checked your mail.
There’s a lot of books out now on how to fix sprawl. But before we fix the problems with sprawl, how about not creating any more problems with it.
Sort of a hypocratic oath. FIRST DO NO HARM