The housing variety and availability get pinched. Local social services and infrastructure struggle to meet demand. Classrooms across schools near capacity. Parks get busier. Secret spots become everyone’s favourite place.
I often walk throughout downtown on breaks during the work week. I think about how the towering cranes symbolize a growing Squamish. Each machine pierces the sky, gently swinging material, while a cacophony of construction sounds sing.
At times, perhaps like some of you, I feel a little annoyed when I see them. They can feel like an unwanted mark on the landscape. More recently, however, I’ve been trying to change my perception of them.
Now, I try to picture the possibilities they bring.
Some of my work in Squamish centres on interviewing new and incoming businesses in town. In just the past year, I’ve talked extensively with businesses in picture framing, yarn, cycling, tourism and hair cutting, along with new restaurants or food options.
The diversity of these incoming businesses would likely not be possible without new spaces for the businesses to thrive. They would likely not be possible without these cranes circling the sky downtown.
In addition to new business ventures, many of these cranes are building new homes, apartments and condos.
Although they might be different from what the housing looked like in Squamish 10 to 15 years ago, they’re going to help more people make Squamish their home. As someone who moved here from elsewhere not that many years ago, I’m all for others enjoying the things that I’ve come to enjoy, too.
And, this isn’t a way of saying that all growth is good or fair or unworthy of criticism. But it is a way of saying that we’ve all got to live somewhere, so we have got to find the pockets to make space for everyone.
It is a way of saying that change is, in fact, inevitable.
What everything looks like now will ultimately look a whole lot different in just five years. And in 10 years? Well, it’ll certainly change again. And in 20 years? I am positive I won’t recognize a thing.
The road to growth isn’t smooth. It is jagged and rocky and filled with potholes. But really, when does anything in life ever actually go according to plan?
