Adaptation
There’s not many people that know this, but we are in the thick of a strike by city workers. Their plan was a simple one : let the city get so ugly, so garbage and rat infested, with Kilimanjaros and Denalis of yesterdays Lean Cuisines and Jos Louis wrappers, that we as private citizens, with a healthy sense of smell, would beg the mayor and whoever else is in charge of this town to give them whatever they want, including a chopper idling on the rooftop and a bag of money, small unmarked bills.
Yet life went on, surprisingly. We have a strange habit in Windsor. We exist and we adapt. You could compare us to a fungus under a boulder on a shoreline, where the ocean beats us unmercifully for years at a time, yet, here we are, still green and mossy.
This strike has taken a once mundane implement of home horticulture, the lawnmower, and turned it into an instrument of political and social rebellion. People have started fights over its use. This strike has shown us at our worst and our best.
People who I never knew cared about anything have ventured out to Ford Test Track, scanned through acres and acres of waist high grass, and then cut it, risking the future usability of their instruments of rebellion, just so kids that many of them will never know could have a place to play.
This strike has shown how resourceful we are. People with nary a pickup truck and old work gloves from the job they were laid off from have made money, honest money by simply picking up other people’s garbage. We have taken our trash and made a treasure out of it.
We have become used to the mountains of green and black glossy plastic on the curb sides. Something that would have been grounds for ridicule a few months ago is now almost commonplace. People have helped each other, cut their neighbours grass, took their garbage to the drop off point for them.
Through this strike, we are doing something that I thought I’d never see, at least not in these terms. We are falling in love with our city again. We are rebuilding lost communities, and we are having a good time doing it.
Jackson Park, once a beautifully manicured example of English Colonial landscaping, has now reverted to a meadow. The riverfront has what looks like elephant grass growing in some spots and Landspeary Park has not seen its grass this high since it was the marshy bitter end of a drainage creek where people brought their old horses to die.
This city is getting more cartoonish and interesting every day, and I am glad to be alive and coherent in this time of great change and mobility.
Perhaps we will see the end of this strike sooner than later. There are still other strikes looming and ongoing, and no one knows if they will have a job tomorrow. So tonight, lets watch those bombs bursting in air while sitting in the elephant grass.
Tags: Downtown, neighbourhoods, revitalization, Riverside Drive, urban agriculture, World Changing
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Cool post. Said a lot. I too have been given a sense of hope watching “People who I never knew cared about anything…” go out and become involved in thier community. Adversity is sometimes the best tool for change.
I agree. I think it is great that people are taking back their neighbourhoods from both sides. It is about damn time that people realize is it THEM who hold the power to change their neighbourhood for the better.
One of my favs yet Brendan.
I like the meadowing of our parks and would like to suggest, that outside of walking paths through them, let them go wild, it could become an urban experiment in letting nature do what it does best. abhoring a vacuum.
Interesting and a good post Brendan. The Monday after Red Bull and on the way to work, I saw a couple of real entrepreneurs going down Wynadotte. They had two shopping carts filled with huge bags of pop cans! I asked them were they got them? “Man, we’ve been at it since midnight last night! Scouring downtown since the bars closed, this is our fifth trip, going to crush them all and head to recycle!!
I also agree with Dave, I have seen my neighbors in this condo, pickup loose garbage and take it inside to our recycle bins, done the same myself.
Dave you may like this article below, which I have just come across and knowing the decay of our alleys in the core this might be a neighbourhood project for us!
From Utility to Amenity: Greening the Alleys of Los Angeles
http://www.planetizen.com/node/37038
Green alley projects are popping up in cities all over the U.S. and Canada in an effort to make the concrete jungle a little better at absorbing rainwater. A new alley program in Los Angeles goes beyond the runoff to actively integrate these unique spaces into the urban fold.
Cool post Brendan, happy to have you back and writing!
The U of Windsor’s Green Corridor is doing a roadside exhibit. Many of you have probably noticed some of the works going up. My favourite piece is one that is not a part of the project. My favourite is the “artificial turf” at Ouellette. The lush green, apparently manicured artificial turf juxtaposed against the overgrown weeds in the garden beds next to it is quite and arresting and provocative sight. Add to that the fact that it is located in the nerve centre for the regions car obsessed infrastructure, an area that is purely hostile to pedestrian and cyclist, and well it is almost powerful enough to slam on the brakes and stop to enjoy the wonderful madness of this time of flux in Windsor.
Where “at Ouellette: Edwin? This must be documented for posteriority!
By the EC Row. You remember the astro-turf city experiment; well with the strike the tree/flower beds are over grown with weeds. I actually like the look minus the weeds. With some wild flowers or native grass instead, I could be convinced to keep the turf.
I could sit there for hours contemplating the symbolism and confluence of events that produced it.
-The EC Row the pride and joy of this region, the one thing that can galvanize the community to action. Who cares about polluting the river or paving over arable land or stuccoing over our heritage or starving our public services but don’t mess with our highway.
-The hostile pedestrian environment, beatification of our gateways, and cost cutting resulted in the field-turf decision.
-The unsustainability of the city’s finances are the cause of the long strike that resulted in the over grown weeds.
I think, it is the best piece not part of the exhibit.
“Windsor in Flux”
By: the madness of our time.
Does it sorta look like this?
i told you to invite me if you were going to come. i would have brought the blanket and picnic basket!
It was done on a very brief whim, Adriano, or you would have been the first person I called!
Edwin, we set up this `prank`very early into the strike, so there wasn`t much opportunity for any social comentary besides the cartoon environment we`re building around ourselves.
This may make a good blog post…
Yup, but you need to juxtapose that against the over grown “real” grass and weeds and wild flowers all around that area to appreciate the irony of this glimpse into a possible Frankenstein-ish future for Windsor. Adaptation without really dealing with the root causes. Not pretty but possible.
YOU DID IT!!!! awesome!
If we had that turf all across the city, we would have free urban golfing for everyone! No more debate about pesticides, no need to drive outside of the city (besides the course we own), and more people would start walking in their neighbourhoods.
Great initiative! This is surely going to start something.
Plus, great socks Chris!