PANEL ON URBANISM

PAUL:	How we live is defined very much by where we live.  ... Crimey that's 
	insightful!  Who wrote this?  I did?  So I did.  Canada has become, since 
	the war, an urban society.  Now the shape, the organization, the very nature 
	of our cities is being altered by Government policy as it is dictated by the 
	major banks.  Here to discuss our changing metropolitan landscapes are 
	Dr. CeAnne Byrne, an urbanist and director of the Institute for Parking S
	tudies at the University of Newfoundland at St. John's 

CeANNE:	Delighted to be here.

PAUL:	...and Farley Monk, head of the Townies Front, a citizens' rights group.

FARLEY:	Paul.

PAUL:	Rights, Farley?  For Citizens?  In this day and age?

FARLEY:	Why not?  These are our cities.   It's our space!

CeANNE:	This is where the trouble often starts.  Cities are first and foremost 
	trading centres, hubs of enterprise.  That people live adjacent to business ... 
	well that's their problem.

FARLEY:	My family has been in St. John's for generations, businesses have 
	come and gone.  Perhaps capitalism happens here because it's where the 
	people are -- not the other way around.

PAUL:	Yes, I live, well I live at my Mom's place and we've been there for 
	years, and now they're putting in this open-pit infected human tissue dump 
	out back and when I call city hall to complain I'm laughed at.  There's a 
	bio-hazard sign nailed into our fence.

FARLEY:	Who built the fence originally?

PAUL:	My Dad.

FARLEY:	I'm making a note of this.  We might be able to help with the sign.

CeANNE:	That's just one aspect of this very complex problem.  Paul points 
	out the trouble he's having when he tries grousing about some tissue dump 
	to the bureaucrats at city hall - it demonstrates that cities are, secondly ...

PAUL:	After places for business to happen?

CeANNE:	Yes, secondly they are government entities, jurisdictions, tax bases.  

FARLEY:	Why not have a city then, with businesses, a municipal government and no 
	population?  

CeANNE:	We're looking at that.

FARLEY:	Who will work in the businesses, who will buy the goods?

CeANNE:	Assuming that all manufacturing jobs will have been eliminated by the year 
	2008, the other portion of the work force can be shipped in from the breeding ... 
	sorry, the satellite communities.  A portion of their pay will be in city vouchers ...

PAUL:	Like what?  What city are we talking about here?

CeANNE:	It's a different circumstance in each centre.  In Toronto the terms are 
	being dictated by the votes of the suburbs.  There the ethnically diverse, 
	essentially liberal urban core will be used as a sort of furnace, heating 
	the surrounding conservative wasp incubators.  

FARLEY:	I'm afraid to ask what's in store for St. John's.

CeANNE:	Here the terms are still dictated by an incredibly chauvinistic group in 
	the East End of the City Core.  This group needs living space and so will 
	expand westward.

PAUL:	Well isn't the bedroom community of Mount Pearl in the way?

CeANNE:	They will be displaced from their homes and used as slaves.

PAUL:	I can see the logic in that.

FARLEY:	Continued amalgamation then gets neighbourhoods and their petty local 
	concerns out of the way of the centralized plan.

CeANNE:	Precisely.

FARLEY:	Despite the fact that referendum after referendum indicates massive 
	public opposition!?!?

CeANNE:	Well Farley you have to ask whether our society can still afford 
	these democratic exercises.

PAUL:	That's true, Farley --  I mean what's the point shelling out for 
	referendums that we already know aren't going to be respected by the authorities?

CeANNE:	Precisely my point.

FARLEY:	But CeAnne, what you're proposing is some kind of Fritz Lang-type 
	nightmare Futuropolis of sub-human slaves in the service of a faceless 
	techno-city whose only meaning is its own reproduction!

CeANNE:	Something like that.

FARLEY:	Ah-hah, but how did that movie end up?

PAUL & CeANNE:	Hmmm.  Let's see.  Hmm. Can't remember.

PAUL:	Farley?

FARLEY:	Hm.  No.

PAUL:	O.k., well, I'm sure we haven't heard the last of this issue. CeAnne 
	Byrnne, expert, and Farley Monk -- what would you call yourself, Farley?

FARLEY:	Ah, activist and househusband.

PAUL:	O.k., thank you both for being with us.