Sunday, June 4, 2017

After The Goldrush


After what has surely been the dreariest and wettest winter/spring on record, an early start to summer appeared with the Queen Victoria Day weekend.  The sun was shining, the outdoor patios & beaches were crowded and everyone had forgotten about the provincial election which had resulted in no clear winner. A brief respite from the unending trio of Vancouver woes; real estate prices, traffic congestion, and pipelines.


After a week of sunshine the rain returned and so did the three headed hydra. The Liberals attempt to dismiss the monster as a figment of people's imaginations didn't work but the NDP/Green plan to slay the beast wasn't all that credible either. The NIMBYism of certain Vancouver neighbourhoods wasn't going to allow for denser, low cost housing solutions, and neither was the absence of a speculator's tax, so people were fleeing to the suburbs and getting caught up in oil fuelled traffic jams on obsolete roads & bridges that nobody wants to pay for upgrading or replacing.


Just as in the olden days of previous gold rushes, the speculators and people with money continue to pour into the city hoping to cash in on a slice of paradise. An entire house of cards economy is built upon ever increasing layers of loans and finance to keep everything in motion.  Luxury shops spring up everywhere to take money from the rich for overpriced, trinkets, baubles, and articles of clothing while elsewhere merchants for the regular folks struggle to stay in business with ever increasing rents and competition from the Internet.


Oblivious to the more dangerous threat of oil being delivered by rail car as opposed to pipelines, the city`s futurists plan for an economy driven by video game programming, craft breweries, and installing made in China solar panels, with people cycling everywhere.  Meanwhile people living outside the lower mainland wonder what they will do for a living once all the oil & gas exploration, mining, and logging has been shut down.


The history of B.C. has always been one of boom and bust, which is what happens when the lure of easy money becomes stronger than the desire to be grounded in reality. In a land of super abundance it always seems like the good times will never end. But for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction and the question we should be asking ourselves now is what happens after the goldrush?