[moon]

Originally Posted by Traditional_Ale

There will always be places for you to live where you can have it exactly as you want. This debate is about the sustainablity (lack thereof) of that life-style as the norm in Calgary. This has moral and ethical implications. Your post seems to be overly dramatic in defending yourself and your choices.

Your moral and ethical implications threats seem much more over dramatic then anything I posted.

You don't consider your blatant disregard for anything that isn't all about you you you, how it affects you, your bottom line, you this, you that a little bit disconcerting?

I am not the one proposing restrictions on what type of housing people/developers can build.

I think that people should be free to build houses/live where they want.

Not sure how that makes me selfish.

We're talking about stewardship for the enviornment in which we live.

You are talking about an opinion that you hold. If I don't agree with the opinion it doesn't make me selfish, it means that I have a different opinion.

So you're a city planner/engineer, energy producer/broker, AND enviornmentalist all at the same time?

Yep.

Obviously you make a good living if you think like this, which kind of makes you come across very gluttonous. Take your head out of the sand and stop thinking everyone else is (or should be) exactly like you. I sure as hell don't make as much money as you, so these things you cast off to the wind as trivialities to a lot (most) of us are very real issues.

I am a student with a wife that stays at home with the kids so I doubt that you would consider me making a good living. I also doubt that you make less money than me considering I currently work about 10 hours a week part time.

I don't think anyone should be like me. They should be free to live how they like. Again I am not proposing limiting the type of housing/development that should go up.

If everyone wants to live in high density inner city housing they should be free to do so but it doesn't appear to be the case and there is no reason why the city should take steps to move people towards this if they don't want it.

He didn't say that at all. Everything you said was attacking a position that you invented in your own head. Took half of what he said, distorted it in your own mind to lock in to some very troubling morals, and then attacked him. I call Bulls***.

Wrong. Read the posts in this thread and others. The arrogance on the issue comes across clearly in his posts.

It will become mighty unpopular mighty quick when we're paying so much taxes to try and sustain a beast of a situation that was entirely preventable by being mindful in our planning/development and NOT continually indulging in a bloated sense of entitlement.

Perhaps it will or perhaps like often happens people will find ways to adapt and make it work. Seems like a bit of a bogeyman approach to the situation though considering it is working fine just now.

Doesn't seem to be bothering people in the suburbs now.

Calgary IS a very wasteful and gluttonous place. Doesn't mean you have to choose to participate.

I don't find it that wasteful or gluttonous and don't even live there so I am not sure how much I am contributing to it anyways.

I wonder how many people I see going down the Deerfoot from McKenzie or whatever in their 55,000 SUV that I know for a fact guzzles gas like no tommorow while driving like a maniac (so I know their insurance is insane too) have ever been to Paris, or Tokyo, or anywhere other than their 400 dollar all-inclusive frat parties in Mexico? Or have money for their kids sports or music? Or even just not having financial stress in their life for the sake of nothing other than their health?

What does this have to do with anything?

I have been to Paris numerous times and it just reinforces my opinion that I would never want to live in the inner city if that is what it would like.

My guess is that people driving $55,000 SUV's are more likely to have been to Paris and Tokyo than the average person though. As well they are also likely to have money for their kids sports or music than the people driving a $2,000 Ford Taurus, but who knows its tough to judge people based solely on the vehicle they drive.

What people perfer and what is morally correct are not the same. This insane sense of entitlement will eventually render most things unachieveable because instead of saving up for a trip to Europe, you're paying out your ass in property taxes so a dumptruck can make the 40km trip from the core to get your three bags of garbage.

That has to do with people and their budgets. There are plenty of people in the inner city living in an apartment they can't afford likewise unable to save for Europe because they are too busy buying prenticious crap to keep up with their trendy neighbours and friends.

Living in the suburbs does not automatically render you a shallow, moron unable of properly planning your finances.

Most likely if people have been able to get to a point in their lives that they can afford $55,000 SUV's and nice homes then they also have the intelligence to plan for a trip to Europe if they so want to.

Because without some tough decisions now about lifestyle in this city, the hard raw economics of a morally repugnant sense of entitlement will eventually crumble everything you seem to think important.

They way you braodly paint people with your own bias' and values all the while acting like some morally superior jackass makes me laugh.

You talk to me about being selfish for think that "everyone has to live like I want" and yet constantly through out your own opinions as some sort of moral fact.

The fact is that there are likely just as high a percentage of "gluttonous, wasteful" people in the inner city and plenty of environmental waste and problems as well. However, because that doesn't fit within your arguement you ignore that and paint everyone in the Suburbs as some sort selfish, mornic, evil person who is lucky that they can tie their shows in the morning without the help from the poor, selfless, cultured matyrs living in the inner city.