Boring

Here's my definition of boring - Nanaimo's 2011 economic development plan. Have you seen it? Read it? I dare you to get past page three while remaining awake.

We pay good money - and lots of it - to come up with plans like this. This is probably the third or fourth I've seen in the past dozen years. They are entirely interchangeable. They have coloured charts describing the demographics of the city; they reiterate our "resource" economy and the fact that this is changing - and (yawn) on it goes in the driest possible language.

These reports are passed around. The people who commissioned them and those who wrote them congratulate each other and eventually they collect dust on a shelf.

These many multipage reports are not visionary. They are far from inspirational. They do not act as a blueprint for moving this city forward into the future. And the worst crime? They don't get people excited. That's why we have a city without a mulitplex and with a conference centre that's a drain on the city coffers.

We need vision!

An economic development plan that works would be a couple of pages long. Really! Outline the vision. If you don't have a vision, get one for heaven's sakes! Once you have a vision that everyone is excited about, you have guideposts that inform every decision you make. Never mind where the money is going to come from. That's not the job of the plan - the point is to have something to aim for. We need a star to grasp for.

For instance: I can envision a city that takes back the term. "Hub City." What the heck is "Harbour City" anyway? Dozens of cities have harbours. Not many are the hub of an entire island - the hub for transportation, for the arts, for adventure, for shopping, for great living and more.

Once you know you're the hub then you build on that. You get all the industry on the downtown waterfront out to Duke Point where it's supposed to be. Expand on the cruise ship terminal - put in a multiplex, retail shops and condos. Build the pedestrian bridge to Newcastle Island; make the whole Linley Valley a park, put a gondola up Mount Benson, create a mecca for mountain bikers and while we're at it - a restaurant on the top.

How's that for starters? Crazy? They called Klaus crazy when he suggested murals in Chemainus. I can't even imagine what they said about the Ancient Egyptian who suggested a  pyramid and a sphinx.

The point is not about the details of getting these things done. Those details are best left to 100-page reports that will put you to sleep. The point is to have a goal - a vision - and then steer the ship in that direction.

Well, that's my rant.