by G.D. Maxwell
One of the reasons people get all nostalgic about the past is because they think they know what happened then. At least they think they know what happened in the part of the past they actually lived through… their past.
Another reason is because their past has been churned through the spin cycle of memory so often most of the nasty bits have been diminished, if not entirely repressed, while the really wonderful parts have been shined up to the point where they bear only passing resemblance to what actually happened and more to what shoulda happened if their superhero suit hadn’t been at the cleaners that day.
The future on the other hand….
Whatever happened to the future? Forget the future we were promised 40 or so years ago, the one with robot maids, flying cars, edible dinnerware and more leisure time than we would know what to do with. I’m still waiting for the future where I can just talk into my computer and it’ll do the typing for me. Which comes out this way when I actually try it. " I'm still need for the furniture where I can just talk into my computer and it'll do the typing for me ." As you can see, close, but no cigar.
And when you come right down to it, isn’t that the best thing about the future? We can’t be quite sure of it, can we? But with luck and hard work, maybe we can shape it in our own image.
For the handful of people who actually wade through Create Whistler’s Future – Comprehensive Backgrounder , the future will seem considerably clearer than it’s likely to actually be. It will also seem pretty rosy.
Having spent considerable money and gobbled up a fair chunk of what used to be the future to produce, it’s a little difficult to read through the narrative of the five possible futures and not think of Coronado traipsing around what’s now the southwest part of the U.S. always telling himself and his men, "Amigos, the Seven Cities of Cibola must be just around the corner. Trust me." Alas, the fabled golden cities proved to be, well, fabled.
" Step forward 17 years and imagine Whistler as it might be – the premier mountain resort destination, and a desirable place to live and work. Whistler 2020 is a destination resort community that contributes to global sustainability and is committed to sustainable living ."
That’s how all five scenarios start, more or less. For those of you who haven’t followed this saga at all, let’s take a minute to sketch the bare bones of Whistler: It’s Our Future . Consultants were hired. To avoid embarrassing the usual suspects, we’ll ignore the process by which they were hired.
Out of an infinite array of possibilities, several hundred operative assumptions were selected – there might have been fewer; it was so long ago I forgot. This begot a few dozen key success factors. Key success factors, for those of you unfamiliar with them, are the things that separate consultants from mere mortals. Without going into a chicken and egg thing or the history of the Boston Consulting Group, let’s just leave it at that.
Operative assumptions and key success factors were baked in the consultant’s alchemical oven for longer than it takes a good Christmas cake to mature and voilà, five possible futures came tumblin’ out. From the five futures, came nine questions Whistleratics have been asked to answer on a scale of one-to-five, and for those not intimidated by the English language, three short-answer questions where one can expand on one’s earlier nine answers.
Da people, you and me, now have two weeks left out of the three we were given to digest, discuss and divine our favourite possible future for our happy mountain home.
The five possible futures can be outlined thusly:
1. Lock the gates – no new growth. Bed limit stays the same, town stagnates, everybody moves to Squampton ’cept the rich folks who show up for holiday and wonder where all the people are.
2. Build more workerbee housing through infill projects in existing neighbourhoods.
3. Build more workerbee housing down in the Callaghan.
4. Build more workerbee housing down in the Callaghan and Lower Cheakamus and diversify the economy.
5. Let the evil, nasty developers build richfolk housing and, quid pro quo , make them build workerbee housing in Alpine and Lower Cheakamus to atone for their sins.
In any well-constructed multiple choice test the possible answers follow a pretty well-defined structure. One answer is the Red Herring. It looks good at first glance, grabs your attention, but it’s really just meant to throw you off the track. That would be future #4. Governments are both incapable of diversifying economies and, simultaneously, economies will naturally diversify given the appropriate, largely market-defined circumstances. But you knew that.
One answer, usually my favourite, is the Dummy Distracter. Dummy Distracters usually play to an ingrained prejudice, an inclination or predisposition if you will. They sound good and are pretty easily understood. They’re simple and to the point. I’m willing to wager George W. Bush probably selected the Dummy Distracter nine times out of 10 whenever he showed up for a test.
We’ve been blessed with two of them in our possible futures. We’ve even been tipped off to which ones they are by their placement – polar extremes. Futures #1 and #5 are the Dummy Distracters. They play to the prejudices of no growth and free-market growth. Both do their job admirably. They siphon off those with dogmatic tendencies and set up the final pair of multiple-choice answers.
If you’ve avoided the Red Herring and the Dummy Distracter, you are usually left with two options. In an actual multiple-choice test, those options are the Right Answer and the Wrong Answer. Quite often they consist of diametrically opposite statements and that’s where you either know the right answer or you guess between the two.
In the case of Whistler’s future, there is no right or wrong answer when it comes to choosing between futures #2 and #3. There are profound philosophical and practical differences between the two but both are viable futures. Both recognize the critical importance of taking bold steps to house the majority of people who make Whistler work, in or near town. Both rely heavily on the co-operation of residents, the provincial government, the Olympic largesse and the kind of grit that converted Whistler from a garbage dump to a, dare I say it, WC mountain resort.
And next week, we’ll explore the two options a bit more. In the meantime, read the documentation for yourself, come to the open house Nov. 15 th at Myrtle Philip between 1 and 5 p.m., think about the future, argue about it with your friends.
