cktimes.ca Archives for Cultural Musings on Chatham-Kent
Cultural Musings on Chatham-Kent
Lack of vision still blurs our way
Tuesday, September 16, 2003
International will remain open and all of Chatham-Kent's problems are solved. Right? Wrong!! The problems in Chatham-Kent will remain as long as we as a municipality lacks the one key ingredient that any institution, organization, business etc. must have and that is VISION!In a paradoxical way, I wish that International would have closed. Of course I would have felt sorry for all the workers, businesses and homeowners trying to sell their homes in Chatham-Kent but in another, long term way it may have been the best thing to happen to us.
It would have then forced us to look at other ways to survive.. It would have forced us to seek new, creative and innovative ways to improve our municipality. Maybe we would have even considered looking at something as radical as arts, heritage and culture as a way to ensure our municipality's place in the future.
Now I am afraid that Chatham-Kent will revert to their old ways and turn away from trying to improve and enhance our area. They will revert to the view that "Well.....things are good enough here. After all we are only Chatham-Kent and no one really wants to visit here and we are all too stupid to do anything that others would want to see." I would like to say that the previous statement is an exaggeration but I have heard very similar statements from many people who should know better.
Many residents of Chatham-Kent will now feel that, with International remaining open, we all have enough to get by and we now have permission to simply jump into our cars and speed away to Windsor, Detroit, London or Toronto for our arts, heritage and culture "fix" as well as to shop and eat.
What we need in this massive municipality, if we still wish to have one, is a clearly delineated, deliberate, and actively pursued PLAN and VISION. What should that vision embrace?
Well....for starters I think it should concentrate on our strengths. Our strengths are our climate, water, heritage, recreational activities and a developing arts and culture climate. If we could all get behind these things and together, AS A MUNICIPALITY, support, encourage, promote, enhance these activities in an integrated plan full of innovative strategies, careful planning, encouragement and help then our area could really "fly".
However, I do not see this happening in any fashion. In fact, since amalgamation I have seen a backward movement in the area of vision and planning. The things that are being done are not terribly creative nor are they innovative. Many are, to use Alvin Toffler's statement, "second-wave" activities that would have been an excellent idea thirty or forty years ago but are now sadly too little too late.
We, in Chatham-Kent, have always been reluctant to spend money and as a result of generation after generation of this "cheapness" we are left with a lot of....nothing and a bleak future promising a lot more of....nothing!
We should promote ourselves as a retirement community in preparation for the upcoming exit from large cities and the huge number of baby-boomers who are just now beginning to retire in large numbers.
We should promote our long summers, mild winters and ample golf courses and easy access to a wide array of lakes and fishing spots that are all available within minutes of any spot within Chatham-Kent..
We need to support and encourage all of the arts, heritage and culture activities that have developed throughout Chatham-Kent not through the efforts of the municipality but by concerned, creative and dynamic individuals. If our municipality cannot be a leader then they should at least be good, supportive followers.
Of course we need to encourage and support new as well as old industries and businesses but we need to have a wider and more comprehensive vision of what constitutes a business or industry. It is not only the traditional automotive-based industries. There is "much more to heaven and earth than is dreamt of" in this old adage.
Do I have a great deal of hope that this will happen? No. I am afraid not. We seem to be locked in a downward spiral that, unless there is a whole new approach, supported by the entire municipality, I shall be writing a column like this twenty years from now. Will we ever learn?
Jim and Lisa Gilbert are local, national and international award winning educators and historians.
