Burlington's Changing: A time to pause, reflect, and plan for the future
Burlington is changing. It’s not just an old folks home anymore.
Burlington wasn’t always this way. Thirty years ago, Burlington was a bustling centre of mixed-use housing developments in a previously rural area. Seventy-five years ago, Burlington was transitioning from farms and centralized manufacturing, notably the cannery, to a suburban municipality. At each transitional phase, residents of Burlington were faced with major challenges and big decisions about their future. Burlington was not always a united city, but a swath of farms and forests populated by a few interspersed townships. The one constant in Burlington’s short history has been growth, particularly in rapid fashion in the Post-World War II era that has been characterized by sprawling bungalows on luscious green space, proximity to the QEW highway, light industrial companies, and cheap electricity.
Burlington’s history is ripe with examples of our pride for the cultivation of cultural heritage and the stewardship of our natural environment, as evidenced in our preservation efforts and in our references to our notable residents throughout our history, including Joseph Brant Thayendanegea. Burlington had an important role in the history of Upper Canada at the head of the lake. The current Joseph Brant Museum has taken the stewardship of Burlington’s cultural history and has effectively blended a recreation of Joseph Brant’s house with contemporary Canadian design and landscaping. The result will likely be a vibrant museum blending conservation, protection of our cultural identities, architecture and great geography into one place.
Burlington is in a geographically enviable position as it a perfect connector to Greater Toronto Area through a serious of major highways, the QEW, 403, 401 and 407, allowing goods and commodities to move freely. To the South and West, Burlington connects to Hamilton, the Kitchener-Waterloo Region, the Niagara region, and is under an hour’s drive to the US border. GO transit has made many of these regions accessible through public transit. To this degree, Burlington has been considered by many to be a sleepy-commuter town while housing a diverse range of highly skilled professionals. The recent development of the Paradigm Condominium Towers at the Burlington GO station only reinforces the perception of Burlington’s citizens as people who come home to sleep after a long day spent somewhere else.
A budding trend in Burlington is support for localism. The downtown core, including Brant Street, has spurred a micro-culture to be rivalled only by the travel reviews of historic Canadian communities like Queen West and Kensington Market in Toronto. Burlington’s growing downtown has attracted so much interest that in recent months developers have flocked to leave their mark. Our last municipal election was largely defined by the unease that many Burlingtonians felt after experiencing years of being at the whims of developers. The city has changed immensely over the last 24-months. The recent election saw a schism within Burlington’s community vision. Since the election, some have claimed the change is a result of populism. However, when leaders do not trust their citizens to know what is best for themselves, we see this creates stark division in our politics and community. It is critical that leaders with any form of influence, acknowledge, accept, and espouse the central role of citizens in democratic decision-making as part of the community building process.
In governance within Canadian jurisdictions at any level, there tends to be a need for a gut-check every so often. These gut-checks come in many forms, from elections to changing consumer tastes. Elites either governing or designing their business legacy, should be aware of what the people they are affecting need. Nobody understood this better than New York’s Robert Moses (1888-1981). Moses revolutionized New York, for better or worse, but left lasting impressions in New York state’s largest cities ranging from the energy sector, bridges and ports, highways and parkways, to great parks that are lasting monuments to the achievements of the last century. Coincidentally, Burlington’s most notable balancing act has been weighing development against available access to green space. In the last election, a major issue was access to parks and green space within the downtown core. How our new council and Mayor Marianne Meed Ward achieve this balance between green space and development will greatly shape Burlington’s trajectory for the next 25 years. We will all have to live with the consequences of their decisions.
As Burlington grows, be it gradual or fast-paced, it will need to determine how to effectively engage and represent the city’s residents. Burlington’s population has been ageing, but the city is also attracting many young people. In our 2016 Canadian census, over 20% of Burlington are people 20-39 years of age, followed by more than 20% being aged 0-19 years of age, while less than 20% of Burlington’s residents are over 65. This does not mean that we should stop caring about how we build for the elderly. But it does mean that we as a city need to seriously think about what infrastructure we need in order to ensure we have fulfilling cradle to grave infrastructure available. Families in Burlington and across the world at large have been the building blocks of future generations and require various access to facilities ranging from parks, splash pads, daycare spaces, and public transportation. Similarly, the elderly do not simply disappear once they retire. The elderly of Burlington are hard-working Canadians who are transitioning out of a busy workforce. Opportunities to find meaning by volunteering within their communities, joining sports groups, access to transit, and music in the parks have been wildly successful.
Whatever your take, we will be a part of shaping the next Burlington. And we do not need to be a part of a city or citizens committee to do so. We just need to regularly share our thoughts with our leaders. We must ensure that we are not just heard but understood; not only talked at but talked to. The Burlington Bubble is your platform to protect and build a Burlington that works for you.