Town & Country Prospects Part 4: Residents, Citizens, Ratepayers
March 18, 2023 -- Original Kitchener, Ontario, Canada
The Open City
Settler cities and towns across Canada have known points of origin, and measurable limits, natural as well as arbitrary; conventional and set by law. Beyond that, they are remarkably open and free: There are no explicit restrictions to taking up residence in a place. No permission is required, and you don’t need to report your presence to any authority, although there are subtle, sometimes systemic barriers to settling, or even just moving about wherever you like.
Part of what makes this openness so remarkable is that since Jericho of old, cities were often walled citadels built to keep strangers out and enemies at bay. “Burg” in German means city or fortress. City names that end in -burg, -burgh or -borough, and related terms such as bourgeois and burgess, carry the same meaning of the city as citadel.
I used to think there was something insidious in the rise of the term “resident” in the place of “citizen” for city dwellers. Like “customer,” “client,” “taxpayer” and “stakeholder,” “resident” felt like a loaded term, inserted into everyday language in subtle ways, with ill intent: essentially, to alienate us from one another and from the various bodies politic we are part of and that belong to us. But “resident” does convey that openness, that freedom I’ve been talking about. It says, very clearly, that just by being here, you belong, and are part of a city or town as a political entity.
“Ratepayers” is a term that goes back to the time when the right to vote was restricted to property owners. Today, it’s an anachronism. You rarely hear it spoken anymore. It is useful, though, to have terminology that is applicable only to the municipal sphere, to remind us that we’re dealing with something distinct, with deep historical roots, not just a practical arrangement that serves primarily as an administrative unit. It is also good to remember that rates charged on parcels of land and what is built on them are, along with certain user fees, the only way we’re permitted to pay for services we provide for ourselves through our municipalities.
Towns and cities are, and have always been, the primary locus of the political or civic realm, as is evident in the terms I’ve italicized here: polis and civis are Greek and Latin for “city”. “Citizen” means someone who is part of a city. In a process that mirrored colonization and territorial expansion, but within rather than beyond borders, modern nation states have absorbed cities, and usurped the recognition and dispensation of citizenship. These domestic empires do, however, offer compensation for their subjugation, most notably peace and order. Nation states are the reason why our cities no longer have walls, and why we’re free, more or less, to come and go as we please.
International boundaries have been remarkably stable of late. Today, it is our cities that have an appetite for expansion and subjugation. Modern cities sprawl out, especially here in North America, where we tend to squander space, partly because, in comparison to other lands, like certain parts of Europe and Asia, we have so much room, and, as settlers, we tend to think we have a right to it. Here in and among the cities and towns of Waterloo County, we have the countryside line. As an imaginary wall set up to protect what is outside the gates from the unruly energies within, it is a reversal of the original city as a citadel.
For these and many other reasons, municipal reform is not just a matter of choosing between a one-tier and a two-tier structure, or whether one strong mayor could do the work of three or seven. It includes re-evaluating how we live in relation to the land, the waters, and the air we breathe, day after day after day. Living takes place, and for 80% of Canadians, our lives take place in cities or towns. For the rest, it is country living, usually in relation to the nearest urban concentration.
The name “Canada” comes from kanata, the word for “village” or “settlement” in the Laurentian branch of the Iroquoian family of languages. This has always been a “land of towns,” therefore fundamentally plural -- “the Canadas” -- in the same way the United States, a federation of former colonies, is plural. A province, in the original meaning of the term, is an administrative unit -- a portion of the whole, carved out for practical purposes, mainly managerial. What is singular, and indivisible, is the land itself.
Who Decides?
Town & Country Prospects Part 1: The A-word
Town & Country Prospects Part 2: Bigger Isn't Always Better
Town & Country Prospects Part 3: Better Together
Previous posts in this series have emphasized the uniqueness of the Tri-City, Quad-Township reality in what was once Waterloo County, and recommend working towards alignment, balance and harmony rather than the imposition of a monolithic order.
The crude amalgamations of the last century, which tried to erase distinctions and impose an abstract idea of order on reality and all its complexities, are best relegated to the dustbin of history. I’ve been recommending a federated approach, which looks for ways to achieve an integrated unity while embracing and conserving natural and historical variance.
But how would we decide what a new municipal order should look like? And if our minds were in agreement, what would be the first step towards realization?
The fact is, if we managed to find a will and a way to achieve an integrated municipal order for Cambridge, Waterloo, Kitchener and area, there is no mechanism for coming together as a federation of towns and cities on our own volition. Ontario must do the officiating, and the current regime represents a longstanding preference for arranged marriages. What is in our power is imagining possibilities, which can be useful for developing a purposeful vision for the future, immediate and longer term.
Provincial authorities have the power to determine and implement what the structure will be, but they cannot set a vision or purpose for a particular community any more than they can for any of us as individuals. Local/regional elected representatives, community leaders, public servants and experts in related fields all have a role, but they are similarly limited when it comes to the vision aspect. That’s up to us, residents and citizens: the people of Waterloo Country.
Once we know where we want to go and why, getting there will also be mostly up to us. Our elected representatives cannot simply legislate a better city, province, country or world into existence, and expect to keep everything in order with our police, courts, fines and jails. But the universe isn’t going to automatically unfold in the way we imagine it should either. Vision or purpose is just a starting point. Beyond that, it’s all a matter of will and effort.
By “we” I mean people who care about and help take care of the civil order. I’ve reached the conclusion that fundamentally, and ultimately, the future of our cities, towns, villages, neighbourhoods, countrysides, woodlands, grasslands, wetlands, creeks, rivers and lakes rests almost entirely on the people who care about them, who are well-intentioned, and who have managed to hold on to some measure of confidence that, individually or in concert, we can still make a difference through service to the greater good.
In a community where 80% of the electorate didn’t even bother to vote in the last municipal election, public opinion polls are of limited relevance. Voter turnout for federal and provincial elections is also in decline. This trend towards disengagement from the political process, and the concomitant rise of a hostile, intransigent partisanship, can undermine confidence in the viability of democracy itself. For one thing, it indicates that it is not currently feasible to settle anything significant by an old-fashioned, simple majority referendum. People who don’t vote have voluntarily moved themselves out of the deliberation and decision-making process.
I prefer to take an optimistic view: a 20% turnout in a municipal election is an expression of near universal support for leaving developments in the civic sphere in the hands of people who care, who make the effort to stay informed, who participate in the deliberation process when an election comes around, and who show up when it’s time to decide.
In a liberal democracy, civic engagement is a right, but it is not a duty. Not everyone is inclined towards paying attention to and becoming engaged with organized community life. The capacity to care about matters related to the vitality of the civic realm -- living in proximity with other human beings in cities, towns, villages and their hinterlands -- is a talent, a gift. There are other gifts, other talents, other things to care about, get involved with and work for.
Civic engagement can give your life meaning, purpose, satisfaction and sometimes joy, but it can also be a burden. It is an expression of hope. When you care about something, you feel obligated to act. You’re committed to doing what you can. Because so much of what really matters is out of our hands, caring can be discouraging in the root sense of the word: heart-breaking, and soul destroying
No one is in control. This chaotic state of things is part of the challenge, but it also means we’re left free to do what we are willing and able to do. This relative freedom, in turn, obligates us to work together when we’re committed to achieving peace and prosperity where we live, work and learn, because no one above us or beyond us is going to do it for us.
This kind of civic engagement, practiced where we live, in proximity with other residents or citizens, is the well-spring of democracy in the full meaning of the word, beyond an election every few years.
We don’t want to revert to the city as citadel, nor would we want municipalities to start controlling residency status or issuing anything like a passport. What we could do, though, is restore meaning to citizenship in a city service, town hall and civic square context by applying it to mean active engagement with public life in the community where you happen to live, work and learn.
You would become a citizen by choice, through action. This would not earn you any special rights or privileges, nor would it make you better than friends and neighbours who prefer to remain residents. Your commitment, however, and your service would certainly be honourable.
Voluntary citizenship in one's place of residence should be perfectly compatible with the true patriot love we sing about in the national anthem, or the loyalty Ontario was founded to uphold forever. It is when one sphere oversteps its authority that tensions emerge, as most of us would agree the province does when it relegates cities, towns, counties and regions to a state of permanent and near total dependency.
This is one more reason why, if we’re talking about municipal reform, we need to take the role of the other dimensions of the political order into considerationl. Canada and Ontario are integral parts of the picture. Fortunately, they are all democracies. They all represent, and exist to serve us all. They are us, we the people, in widening circles of inclusion. It is therefore not a matter of liberation, self-determination or turning the world upside down, but basically, making a regular habit of patiently looking for ways to make repairs and adjustments, along with a general fine-tuning, to achieve better integration, balance and harmony.
Those widening circles of democratic belonging and representation begin with each and every one of us, as we are, and where we happen to be.
