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Originally Posted by 4X4
So is it official? Anyone in the home building industry is a weasel? Or is there some weasel criteria? Like if you build cookie cutter houses in the burbs, you're a weasel? Or is it just if you build anything within the city limits?
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You're right in that people are becoming too emotionally invested in Us vs. Them. And, although I like Nenshi, antagonizing builders - whether or not they are working to undermine his vision for the city - is not good policy, and only makes his enemies more determined to escalate in turn.
That being said, the perception that the construction industry has far too great an influence at city hall did not arise out of nowhere. Yes, people need places to live and work. However, if the consequences of the way we provide those places is more and more money being spent on giant interchanges and LRT lines, you have to look at what the long-term consequences of that may be, and try to plan accordingly to minimize the impact.
Then, when the City starts doing that planning, and representatives of one particular industry - whose interest in the status quo is obvious - begins working against any and all such changes in a confrontational and public way, the result is going to be polarization of people on one side or the other of the issue. I think it'll get much worse in the next few years, too, because Calgary has become big enough that power blocs are forming up and asserting themselves against each other to make over the city in their preferred image.
Nenshi's problem is that he can't really arbitrate between blocs because he is foremost leader of his own. We haven't had an activist type of mayor before, and it seems unnatural to many people. Yet again, though, big city means big city mayors, and those tend to be much more front and centre than the Chamber of Commerce graduates you find in smaller jurisdictions. It's going to be interesting times in Calgary over the next decade.