Recently, I've become really interested in Richard Florida's work on cities, what makes certain cities successful, and why some are more geared to one's personality than others. I found this article on his blog about the increasing suburbanization of the American work force.
I felt compelled to respond; it would take a lot longer to make a strong, coherent argument, but this is a start:
It’s interesting to note what jobs are moving out of the city centres. Transportation and warehousing, finance and insurance, utilities, and real estate and rental and leasing were mentioned. In some of these cases, there is a real interest in locating out of the centre. Transportation and warehousing is easier out there; not only is there more space, but traffic snarls from attempting to enter urban cores are avoided. The other positions follow people closer to their suburban homes. However, I wonder why positions in other fields have concentrated outside of the city centres, and why mining is the only industry to have concentrated towards the centre of cities. I’m not sure that their position categories capture all relevant forms of employment, and it seems that the most creative industries are less apt to have moved (health, education, arts, information), though professional and management positions have moved more than the average.
I think the authors nail the potential impacts of the increasing suburbanization of jobs on the prospects for economic development:
“The decentralization of employment, by lowering density and interaction among proximate firms and workers, may also lower the rate of innovation. Carlino and colleagues find that across metro areas patenting rates are strongly associated with employment densities in the urbanized portion of those metro areas.″
I don’t believe this bodes well for environmental sustainability, either.
A shift to nodal development, where there are centres of development outside of the city centre that act as clusters for employment, day-to-day needs, etc., that provide increased accessibility without dependence on private transport, could mitigate the environmental impact of the suburbanization of work. But would that be considered the creation of new city centres? Overall, this appears to be a worrying trend.
Those that are against taxes should keep in mind that services need to be paid for somehow. Creative taxation solutions might work better, though. This, however, doesn’t seem like the right forum to discuss taxation solutions to encourage the return to urban centres (and I don’t have the expertise to discuss taxation, either!).
Monday, April 13, 2009
Sunday, March 22, 2009
Ottawa Senators and the .500 mark
I read an article today about the Sens, and that the team went over the .500 mark, which to me, means they've won more games than they've lost. Others interpret it as the team having taken more than 50% of the points available to them. I don't agree with this interpretation, because in the old NHL, there were only twice as many points available as games played. In a season of 30 teams playing 82 games, this would translate to 2460 points. Today, there is no specific ceiling to the number of points teams can get. But, it is more than 2460. It could be as high as 3690; but that would require EVERY game going to at least overtime, if not shoot-outs.
Anyhow, in the current system, the Senators have 31 wins, 30 losses, and 10 overtime/shoot-out losses. So they've won 31 games, and lost 40 games. While they have 72 points out of 142 points, they have lost nine more games than they've won.
On top of that, they wouldn't have necessarily won 31 games in the old system. Three of those wins are shoot-out wins, and they have five shoot-out losses to date (this data will change as the last 11 games are completed).
Those games, under the old system, would've been ties. Overtime losses would have fit into the loss category - the Sens have lost five overtime games prior to the shout-out, so those would've fit into the old "loss" category.
So, under the old system, they'd have 28 wins, 35 losses and 8 ties - 7 games below .500. They would've had 64 points, 8 points fewer than they have now.
Anyhow, in the current system, the Senators have 31 wins, 30 losses, and 10 overtime/shoot-out losses. So they've won 31 games, and lost 40 games. While they have 72 points out of 142 points, they have lost nine more games than they've won.
On top of that, they wouldn't have necessarily won 31 games in the old system. Three of those wins are shoot-out wins, and they have five shoot-out losses to date (this data will change as the last 11 games are completed).
Those games, under the old system, would've been ties. Overtime losses would have fit into the loss category - the Sens have lost five overtime games prior to the shout-out, so those would've fit into the old "loss" category.
So, under the old system, they'd have 28 wins, 35 losses and 8 ties - 7 games below .500. They would've had 64 points, 8 points fewer than they have now.
Saturday, March 21, 2009
Sweden and Sustainability
Hey,
This was an email I put together, but this is probably a better place to put it.
So, I've been living in Sweden for almost 7 months now. I've been able to see some of the incredible work going on in leading Sweden towards sustainability.
I live in Karlskrona, which is a kind of unremarkable town on the road towards sustainability, other than having the first university in Sweden to declare that it would be climate neutral. Karlskrona does has a biomass-fired district heating plant, and the house I live in on an island (Långö, which translates to Long Island) half way between school and downtown has a ground-source heat pump, because the district heating network's pipes are just being laid down here now. Karlskrona also has some pretty good density in the town centre. However, it is fairly sprawled and has a power centre, not unlike those of Canadian cities. On the other hand, it has good public transport and bicycle paths to get there.
Karlskrona is 90 km south of Kalmar and 115 km southeast of Växjö. These two cities are doing much better on their road to sustainability.
I completed a project on looking at how Växjö, which has the slogan "The Greenest City in Europe" (originally given to it by The Independent in August 2007, could make future developments as sustainable as possible. Växjö is a pseudo-success story. They set a target to reduce fossil carbon emissions by 50% from 1993 levels by 2010, and have made a 32% reduction so far (as of 2007), mostly through shifting their combined heat and power plant from oil to biomass (largely locally-sourced wood residues, given its location in Småland, which is one of the leading lumber regions in Sweden). However, transportation emissions remain intractable, and have gone up 15% over the 15 year period.
Interestingly, Kalmar has started to steal some of the thunder from Växjö. The Smålandsposten, which is the regional newspaper for the area covering both Kalmar and Växjö, has been criticizing Växjö Kommun (somewhat unjustly) for not buying new biodiesel buses and instead getting older ones from Kalmar. However, Växjö plans on using biogas from their wastewater treatment in new buses starting in 2010.
It is interesting to note how Swedes have very similar conditions to Canadians and yet are so much further ahead. I still haven't nailed down exactly what it is, but there is no doubt culture plays a large part in it. How often have we heard Swedish companies say that they're moving towards sustainability because "it's the right thing to do"? More than once...
There is one thing, however, that really changes things. For all taxes collected up to the 30% tax bracket, 2/3 are directed straight to the municipalities. The other 1/3 goes to the county. Beyond that, the national government gets to collect taxes, e.g. the exorbitant 25% sales taxes on goods as well as gambling and alcohol revenues, and carbon taxes which will raise about SEK28 billion (CDN$4.5 billion) in Sweden this year, at about $150/tonne (I can't find the actual rate by searching through the Swedish government website in either Swedish or English, since carbon taxes and energy taxes are lumped together).
That may explain why Swedes are more willing to pay taxes - because they see the benefit at the local level. To me, this is a much better system than the property tax system in Canada (i.e. municipalities can only collect from transfers and property taxes). I don't pretend to have a strong grip on tax systems, and am welcome to comments on what I've written here.
This was an email I put together, but this is probably a better place to put it.
So, I've been living in Sweden for almost 7 months now. I've been able to see some of the incredible work going on in leading Sweden towards sustainability.
I live in Karlskrona, which is a kind of unremarkable town on the road towards sustainability, other than having the first university in Sweden to declare that it would be climate neutral. Karlskrona does has a biomass-fired district heating plant, and the house I live in on an island (Långö, which translates to Long Island) half way between school and downtown has a ground-source heat pump, because the district heating network's pipes are just being laid down here now. Karlskrona also has some pretty good density in the town centre. However, it is fairly sprawled and has a power centre, not unlike those of Canadian cities. On the other hand, it has good public transport and bicycle paths to get there.
Karlskrona is 90 km south of Kalmar and 115 km southeast of Växjö. These two cities are doing much better on their road to sustainability.
I completed a project on looking at how Växjö, which has the slogan "The Greenest City in Europe" (originally given to it by The Independent in August 2007, could make future developments as sustainable as possible. Växjö is a pseudo-success story. They set a target to reduce fossil carbon emissions by 50% from 1993 levels by 2010, and have made a 32% reduction so far (as of 2007), mostly through shifting their combined heat and power plant from oil to biomass (largely locally-sourced wood residues, given its location in Småland, which is one of the leading lumber regions in Sweden). However, transportation emissions remain intractable, and have gone up 15% over the 15 year period.
Interestingly, Kalmar has started to steal some of the thunder from Växjö. The Smålandsposten, which is the regional newspaper for the area covering both Kalmar and Växjö, has been criticizing Växjö Kommun (somewhat unjustly) for not buying new biodiesel buses and instead getting older ones from Kalmar. However, Växjö plans on using biogas from their wastewater treatment in new buses starting in 2010.
It is interesting to note how Swedes have very similar conditions to Canadians and yet are so much further ahead. I still haven't nailed down exactly what it is, but there is no doubt culture plays a large part in it. How often have we heard Swedish companies say that they're moving towards sustainability because "it's the right thing to do"? More than once...
There is one thing, however, that really changes things. For all taxes collected up to the 30% tax bracket, 2/3 are directed straight to the municipalities. The other 1/3 goes to the county. Beyond that, the national government gets to collect taxes, e.g. the exorbitant 25% sales taxes on goods as well as gambling and alcohol revenues, and carbon taxes which will raise about SEK28 billion (CDN$4.5 billion) in Sweden this year, at about $150/tonne (I can't find the actual rate by searching through the Swedish government website in either Swedish or English, since carbon taxes and energy taxes are lumped together).
That may explain why Swedes are more willing to pay taxes - because they see the benefit at the local level. To me, this is a much better system than the property tax system in Canada (i.e. municipalities can only collect from transfers and property taxes). I don't pretend to have a strong grip on tax systems, and am welcome to comments on what I've written here.
Tuesday, January 20, 2009
Communication skills really are learned...
Hey everyone,
Back for the first time in a while. Some down time (well, not really... but making it anyway).
I have been enjoying my time biking around in the not-so-cold of Karlskrona, not having to depend on the bus system, but having it as an option. Neither can be said of Ottawa these days, and I feel for those stuck because of the transit strike. It is my belief that transit should be considered an essential service, and this strike should've lasted all of three or four days before mediators and an independent arbitrator brought it to a close. Both sides are making Ottawans suffer.
One of my contacts back home recently made his views on the strike known to many people; he sent them out to all of the city councillors, the mayor and a mailing list. His approach was, well... undiplomatic? Let's just say that I could picture throbbing veins either in his neck or his forehead while writing it.
There's an approach we learn here which I had learned before (I remember discussing it in Gr. 11 gym class) but never had a name for - our program calls it non-violent communication (to me, it's a form of diplomacy). Not rocket-science, but so often forgotten when trying to win others over. Basically, framing arguments from the "I think that..." or "I feel that..." perspective, so the other side of the argument isn't as defensive.
It wouldn't be fair or right for me to post his message or say his name. But I can probably explain a bit more about communication skills and non-violent communication (and my own opinion of the bus strike, and my current, early perspective on the state of cities and municipalities in Sweden) through my response to my contact. See the message I sent him below (in almost its entirety; only pleasantries and statements superfluous to the argument have been removed).
______________________________________
Hey,
I am impressed with the amount of time you have taken on this issue. We need more people to hold city council to task, especially when they have been in the wrong, as they have been on the strike.
In Sweden, municipalities are really strong and own loads of stuff - district heating plants, transit companies, etc. They are really good at making money outside of tax revenue! Different model, and I think there's a lot more trust in government here (as is evidenced by your message).
While I agree with your assessments, I don't think that your approach has been the most productive means of getting your point across. Were I sitting in the seat of the councillors, particularly those suburban/rural councillors that are on Larry's side, I would probably react by not responding to your message, and perhaps not reading it beyond where the anger and the insults begin. I don't think the councillors are retarded monkeys; I think that those that agree with Mayor O'Brien (shudder - still can't believe Ottawans did that) are making a huge mistake, and making the citizens of Ottawa suffer unnecessarily. They may be doing it out of malice, or poor social skills and poor political skills and acumen, but idiocy isn't the problem. Even if this is the case, name calling will not change things - they're far more likely to go on the defensive and defend their actions, no matter how ridiculous those actions are. No doubt they have many people calling them out on this, and they're especially stressed at this time - that enough should get them back to the table.
Politics and diplomacy is about telling people their idiots when they're being idiots, and doing it in a way that they may stop being a idiot and fix the problem because you give them a way out of their dumb move. Good politicians do this. Some of city council includes good politicians. OK, maybe just Alex Cullen and Clive Doucet (he stepped back and apologized for speaking out against the mayor last week, and I respect him for it, even though he was in the right at that time). Still, they are out there.
Here's good news I just found out today - the Natural Step, an organization closely linked to the Master's I'm doing here, is working with the City of Ottawa on an Integrated Community Sustainability Plan. If they're successful, the city will see the value of public transit and how integral it is to sustainability, and another strike won't happen.
Anyhow, I hope the strike ends soon. All the best,
Adrian
Back for the first time in a while. Some down time (well, not really... but making it anyway).
I have been enjoying my time biking around in the not-so-cold of Karlskrona, not having to depend on the bus system, but having it as an option. Neither can be said of Ottawa these days, and I feel for those stuck because of the transit strike. It is my belief that transit should be considered an essential service, and this strike should've lasted all of three or four days before mediators and an independent arbitrator brought it to a close. Both sides are making Ottawans suffer.
One of my contacts back home recently made his views on the strike known to many people; he sent them out to all of the city councillors, the mayor and a mailing list. His approach was, well... undiplomatic? Let's just say that I could picture throbbing veins either in his neck or his forehead while writing it.
There's an approach we learn here which I had learned before (I remember discussing it in Gr. 11 gym class) but never had a name for - our program calls it non-violent communication (to me, it's a form of diplomacy). Not rocket-science, but so often forgotten when trying to win others over. Basically, framing arguments from the "I think that..." or "I feel that..." perspective, so the other side of the argument isn't as defensive.
It wouldn't be fair or right for me to post his message or say his name. But I can probably explain a bit more about communication skills and non-violent communication (and my own opinion of the bus strike, and my current, early perspective on the state of cities and municipalities in Sweden) through my response to my contact. See the message I sent him below (in almost its entirety; only pleasantries and statements superfluous to the argument have been removed).
______________________________________
Hey,
I am impressed with the amount of time you have taken on this issue. We need more people to hold city council to task, especially when they have been in the wrong, as they have been on the strike.
In Sweden, municipalities are really strong and own loads of stuff - district heating plants, transit companies, etc. They are really good at making money outside of tax revenue! Different model, and I think there's a lot more trust in government here (as is evidenced by your message).
While I agree with your assessments, I don't think that your approach has been the most productive means of getting your point across. Were I sitting in the seat of the councillors, particularly those suburban/rural councillors that are on Larry's side, I would probably react by not responding to your message, and perhaps not reading it beyond where the anger and the insults begin. I don't think the councillors are retarded monkeys; I think that those that agree with Mayor O'Brien (shudder - still can't believe Ottawans did that) are making a huge mistake, and making the citizens of Ottawa suffer unnecessarily. They may be doing it out of malice, or poor social skills and poor political skills and acumen, but idiocy isn't the problem. Even if this is the case, name calling will not change things - they're far more likely to go on the defensive and defend their actions, no matter how ridiculous those actions are. No doubt they have many people calling them out on this, and they're especially stressed at this time - that enough should get them back to the table.
Politics and diplomacy is about telling people their idiots when they're being idiots, and doing it in a way that they may stop being a idiot and fix the problem because you give them a way out of their dumb move. Good politicians do this. Some of city council includes good politicians. OK, maybe just Alex Cullen and Clive Doucet (he stepped back and apologized for speaking out against the mayor last week, and I respect him for it, even though he was in the right at that time). Still, they are out there.
Here's good news I just found out today - the Natural Step, an organization closely linked to the Master's I'm doing here, is working with the City of Ottawa on an Integrated Community Sustainability Plan. If they're successful, the city will see the value of public transit and how integral it is to sustainability, and another strike won't happen.
Anyhow, I hope the strike ends soon. All the best,
Adrian
Thursday, November 13, 2008
National Sustainable Development Strategies
Last semester, our class was asked to review national sustainable development strategies in Europe. This piqued my interest. I had known about the departmental sustainable development strategies (e.g. the one at Natural Resources Canada), but was not sure if there had been a Canadian one. There hadn't been one developed on a national level, but Bill C-474, the Federal Sustainable Development Act, passed the House of Commons on June 13, 2008. I was glad to see that all MPs in Canada who were present at Second Reading (in February 2008) voted for the Federal Sustainable Development Act - except Bradley Trost of Saskatoon-Humboldt, who voted against even all other Conservative MPs. I sent Mr. Trost the following message about this, and encourage you to do the same.
If you do email him, include your address; he is more likely to respond to you directly if you do so.
Dear Mr. Trost,
I was recently asked to study National Sustainable Development Strategies in Europe. Piqued by this request, I decided to analyse Canada's progress on developing a National Sustainable Development Strategy. I discovered that Bill C-474, "An Act to require the development and implementation of a Federal Sustainable Development Strategy and the development of goals and targets with respect to sustainable development in Canada, and to make consequential amendments to another Act", was passed on June 13, 2008. I was pleased to find out that all Members of Parliament had voted in favour of this act, save yourself. I am writing this message to ask for an explanation as to why you voted against this Act. Could you please provide your reasoning behind this decision?
Thank you very much.
If you do email him, include your address; he is more likely to respond to you directly if you do so.
Dear Mr. Trost,
I was recently asked to study National Sustainable Development Strategies in Europe. Piqued by this request, I decided to analyse Canada's progress on developing a National Sustainable Development Strategy. I discovered that Bill C-474, "An Act to require the development and implementation of a Federal Sustainable Development Strategy and the development of goals and targets with respect to sustainable development in Canada, and to make consequential amendments to another Act", was passed on June 13, 2008. I was pleased to find out that all Members of Parliament had voted in favour of this act, save yourself. I am writing this message to ask for an explanation as to why you voted against this Act. Could you please provide your reasoning behind this decision?
Thank you very much.
Sunday, November 9, 2008
First update!
Hi everyone,
So, it has taken me a LOT longer than I expected to get around to this. I guess I had underestimated how much work a one-year Master's would be... Just to catch you up on school, I'm doing a Master's in Strategic Leadership Towards Sustainability (MSLS) at the Blekinge Institute of Technology (Blekinge Tekniska Högskola, or BTH). The program is divided into four semesters. We've just wrapped up the first semester. It was only one course during the first semester - the Introduction to Strategic Leadership Towards Sustainability course. Our exam was on Hallowe'en.
I've divided this message into a few sections to try to cover what it's been like living in Sweden over the first 2 1/2 months.
Karlskrona
Karlskrona is a fairly small city in southeastern Sweden. The Karlskrona Kommun has about 60,000 people, but the city itself is far smaller, around 33,000. One of my classmates compared it to Kingston. I feel that North Bay might be a more apt comparison at times - it definitely looks like it could be on the Canadian Shield. The surrounding area looks a LOT like Eastern Ontario and Western Quebec. Fall colours and the landscape definitely make this comparison stronger. The town was fairly depressed until about the late 1990's, when a technology area was set up. Ericsson and Telenor are in town, and BTH is growing and becoming more respected as an institution. It is a military centre, and the navy is important here. I have to admit a bit of ignorance on this point - I have not gotten to know Karlskrona as well as I expected to up to this point.
Weather
Well, autumn is not when we get the best weather in southeastern Sweden. It's the wettest time, and because I stream CBC Ottawa daily and hear the weather reports, I get jealous of the warm sunny fall days that those of you back home are having. That said, there have been enough nice days to enjoy (for those I have on Facebook, check out the pics of my bike rides), and it hasn't really started getting cold yet. The temperature dropped to 5C at night in mid-September, but it has kind of stayed around there. Temperatures right now range between daily lows of 6C and highs of 10C. The next few days are going to be lousy, windy rainy days...
I'm looking forward to winter, though, as the weather is about 10C warmer here on average than in Ottawa!
Transportation
I find getting around very easy here. I bike everywhere, and do it in lousier weather than I would've back home. That might have to do with the dedicated bike lanes that have curbs to separate bikes from car traffic on the road to school and into town, and, well, almost anywhere else I've gone. There is a shockingly good bus system for such a small town (probably as good as Ottawa's system, for 1/15th the population base). Space isn't as well planned here as I thought, however. The car-dependent suburbs still exist. But on the plus side, one has legitimate options for traveling around the city and to other towns – if not train, then buses.
Housing
Finding a place was a bigger stressor than I anticipated when I arrived. At the beginning, I was very jealous of those who had pre-arranged their accommodations. I didn't know where I was going to live or with whom, or if I'd be living alone, and the market looked really tight (and was, well, in Swedish…). Well, things really worked out. I live about 15 minutes by foot from both downtown and from school, on an island called Långö, just off of the main route between school and downtown. There's a grocery store about 5 minutes away by foot. It's a gorgeous spot in an 80 year old brown brick house that is distinct from the other houses on the island. I have two incredible flatmates – Josefin, who is from Norrköping, about 300 km north of here, and Carlo, who is from Melbourne. The house dynamic is incredible. I am lucky that this worked out as it did.
Shopping
This will be a short section. Stores in the centre of the town aren't open much – until 6 in the evenings on week-days, and 2 on Saturdays and not at all on Sundays. What a great way to save money and keep you from buying too much! My shopping tends to be geared towards food more than anything else. A little message for Tammy and others who noticed my wine collection in Ottawa – it gets hard to stock up wine bottles when the liquor store keeps those hours. ;) There are slightly better hours out at the power centre (yeah, they have power centres here – groan; but they're bike accessible and even have bike parking, which is nice), but even out there, week-end hours extend all the way to 4 p.m.
Travel
On of the nicest things about Karlskrona is that the train to Copenhagen runs every hour. :) This plays on a joke told about Stockholm in Gothenburg – what is the one good thing about Stockholm? There's a train to Gothenburg from there.
There are plenty of local buses to get us to all of the closest towns. I took advantage of this in September to go up to Kalmar to watch a football match with a couple of friends (which turned out to be the Swedish Cup Final). I haven't been out of Karlskrona nearly as much as I thought I would, though; other than Kalmar, I've only travelled to Denmark on a school trip. We stayed near Roskilde for the class workshop, about 40 km west of Copenhagen, and stopped in Copenhagen for the week-end. This may change soon, though – Germany is too close to go untouched. Poland is next door - there's a direct ferry from here to Gdynia, and Poland beckons at some point, as does Stockholm, Oslo, England, the Netherlands, France…
Class and Classmates
Classes are not what I expected! While there is a fair amount of technical discussion in some courses, it is as much about the strategic and leadership parts of the program's title as it is about sustainability. This is what I probably needed, without knowing so before I got here. I'll benefit most from learning how to have the discussion on sustainability, why we need to move towards it as a society, and how we can get there.
To summarize it, we have four basic rules that can be considered scientifically accepted principles for sustainability:
There are no systematic increases:
1) in materials moving from the Earth's crust to the biosphere;
2) in manmade compounds in the biosphere;
3) in physical degradation of ecosystems; and
4) there should be no degradation of people's abilities to meet their needs.
This does not mean that a sustainable world will be perfect. There will still be crime, there will still be occasional extinctions, and there will be occasional changes in the amount of material moved to the biosphere from the crust, and the amount of manmade compounds added to the biosphere. But, what it does mean is that these levels will no longer systematically increase in concentration. They will reach a steady-state, and so will society.
We have had some incredible speakers already. Karl-Henrik Robèrt, the founder of The Natural Step and co-founder of the program, has given several lectures to us. His first lecture convinced me that I had made the right choice in doing this. Göran Carstedt, formerly head of Volvo and IKEA North America, also came and spoke to us about leadership and organizational change for 1 ½ days. We've had other great guest speakers, and the roll call will only get better over the next two months. Our Engineering for a Sustainable Society course will be going to Gothenburg in three weeks to meet with Leif Johansson, the current CEO of Volvo. As you can guess, our program and The Natural Step both have a close connection with Volvo. The teaching staff is very knowledgeable. I think that all of them either had a hand in creating the MSLS program or are graduates of the program. BTW – let me know if I sound a bit cultish – it's been one of my worries.
There is a variety of backgrounds in the class. However, almost half of the class is Canadian and American – ten Canadians (though three of them are Canadians with other links) and thirteen Americans. Other countries represented include China (6), Pakistan (5), Brazil (3), Australia (3), Sweden (3), France (2), Mexico, Bangladesh, Nigeria, the UK, Greece, Taiwan and South Korea. They have a lot of different academic and professional backgrounds. Some of my classmates are fresh out of school (with about 2 to 3 years of experience); others have as much as 15-20 years of experience in the work world. The group is not as science and engineering heavy as I'd expected – which is good! I am learning as much from them as I am from the courses. I won't get into a detailed discussion about the people in the class, but I have become fast friends with a few of them, and know that I will be in touch with many of them once we're finished off here.
Language
So… Swedish is a bit harder than I thought. I still can't make heads or tails out of what I hear, and what things look like on paper still don't correlate to me to what they sound like.
I had applied for the Swedish class offered at school about 5 days before it started. Unfortunately it was full. After sitting in on it last week, though, I realized I should've been sitting in the whole time – the class is, at best, half full. Anyhow, having a Swedish flatmate has helped, but my Swedish is still at the level where my typical answer when asked anything is "Jag förstår inte Svenska." (I don't understand Swedish.) I've at least finally learned the numbers… I'm starting to learn more, but I need to work more at it, if the time presents itself.
Wrap-up
I haven't gone into everything here. I haven't talked about what I miss the most from home (the answer is 'the people in my life'), and I probably haven't hit on what I like and dislike about here directly (indirectly, there is a picture painted).
So, that's a bit of an idea of my impressions of my first 2 1/2 months in Sweden. Thanks for reading this!
So, it has taken me a LOT longer than I expected to get around to this. I guess I had underestimated how much work a one-year Master's would be... Just to catch you up on school, I'm doing a Master's in Strategic Leadership Towards Sustainability (MSLS) at the Blekinge Institute of Technology (Blekinge Tekniska Högskola, or BTH). The program is divided into four semesters. We've just wrapped up the first semester. It was only one course during the first semester - the Introduction to Strategic Leadership Towards Sustainability course. Our exam was on Hallowe'en.
I've divided this message into a few sections to try to cover what it's been like living in Sweden over the first 2 1/2 months.
Karlskrona
Karlskrona is a fairly small city in southeastern Sweden. The Karlskrona Kommun has about 60,000 people, but the city itself is far smaller, around 33,000. One of my classmates compared it to Kingston. I feel that North Bay might be a more apt comparison at times - it definitely looks like it could be on the Canadian Shield. The surrounding area looks a LOT like Eastern Ontario and Western Quebec. Fall colours and the landscape definitely make this comparison stronger. The town was fairly depressed until about the late 1990's, when a technology area was set up. Ericsson and Telenor are in town, and BTH is growing and becoming more respected as an institution. It is a military centre, and the navy is important here. I have to admit a bit of ignorance on this point - I have not gotten to know Karlskrona as well as I expected to up to this point.
Weather
Well, autumn is not when we get the best weather in southeastern Sweden. It's the wettest time, and because I stream CBC Ottawa daily and hear the weather reports, I get jealous of the warm sunny fall days that those of you back home are having. That said, there have been enough nice days to enjoy (for those I have on Facebook, check out the pics of my bike rides), and it hasn't really started getting cold yet. The temperature dropped to 5C at night in mid-September, but it has kind of stayed around there. Temperatures right now range between daily lows of 6C and highs of 10C. The next few days are going to be lousy, windy rainy days...
I'm looking forward to winter, though, as the weather is about 10C warmer here on average than in Ottawa!
Transportation
I find getting around very easy here. I bike everywhere, and do it in lousier weather than I would've back home. That might have to do with the dedicated bike lanes that have curbs to separate bikes from car traffic on the road to school and into town, and, well, almost anywhere else I've gone. There is a shockingly good bus system for such a small town (probably as good as Ottawa's system, for 1/15th the population base). Space isn't as well planned here as I thought, however. The car-dependent suburbs still exist. But on the plus side, one has legitimate options for traveling around the city and to other towns – if not train, then buses.
Housing
Finding a place was a bigger stressor than I anticipated when I arrived. At the beginning, I was very jealous of those who had pre-arranged their accommodations. I didn't know where I was going to live or with whom, or if I'd be living alone, and the market looked really tight (and was, well, in Swedish…). Well, things really worked out. I live about 15 minutes by foot from both downtown and from school, on an island called Långö, just off of the main route between school and downtown. There's a grocery store about 5 minutes away by foot. It's a gorgeous spot in an 80 year old brown brick house that is distinct from the other houses on the island. I have two incredible flatmates – Josefin, who is from Norrköping, about 300 km north of here, and Carlo, who is from Melbourne. The house dynamic is incredible. I am lucky that this worked out as it did.
Shopping
This will be a short section. Stores in the centre of the town aren't open much – until 6 in the evenings on week-days, and 2 on Saturdays and not at all on Sundays. What a great way to save money and keep you from buying too much! My shopping tends to be geared towards food more than anything else. A little message for Tammy and others who noticed my wine collection in Ottawa – it gets hard to stock up wine bottles when the liquor store keeps those hours. ;) There are slightly better hours out at the power centre (yeah, they have power centres here – groan; but they're bike accessible and even have bike parking, which is nice), but even out there, week-end hours extend all the way to 4 p.m.
Travel
On of the nicest things about Karlskrona is that the train to Copenhagen runs every hour. :) This plays on a joke told about Stockholm in Gothenburg – what is the one good thing about Stockholm? There's a train to Gothenburg from there.
There are plenty of local buses to get us to all of the closest towns. I took advantage of this in September to go up to Kalmar to watch a football match with a couple of friends (which turned out to be the Swedish Cup Final). I haven't been out of Karlskrona nearly as much as I thought I would, though; other than Kalmar, I've only travelled to Denmark on a school trip. We stayed near Roskilde for the class workshop, about 40 km west of Copenhagen, and stopped in Copenhagen for the week-end. This may change soon, though – Germany is too close to go untouched. Poland is next door - there's a direct ferry from here to Gdynia, and Poland beckons at some point, as does Stockholm, Oslo, England, the Netherlands, France…
Class and Classmates
Classes are not what I expected! While there is a fair amount of technical discussion in some courses, it is as much about the strategic and leadership parts of the program's title as it is about sustainability. This is what I probably needed, without knowing so before I got here. I'll benefit most from learning how to have the discussion on sustainability, why we need to move towards it as a society, and how we can get there.
To summarize it, we have four basic rules that can be considered scientifically accepted principles for sustainability:
There are no systematic increases:
1) in materials moving from the Earth's crust to the biosphere;
2) in manmade compounds in the biosphere;
3) in physical degradation of ecosystems; and
4) there should be no degradation of people's abilities to meet their needs.
This does not mean that a sustainable world will be perfect. There will still be crime, there will still be occasional extinctions, and there will be occasional changes in the amount of material moved to the biosphere from the crust, and the amount of manmade compounds added to the biosphere. But, what it does mean is that these levels will no longer systematically increase in concentration. They will reach a steady-state, and so will society.
We have had some incredible speakers already. Karl-Henrik Robèrt, the founder of The Natural Step and co-founder of the program, has given several lectures to us. His first lecture convinced me that I had made the right choice in doing this. Göran Carstedt, formerly head of Volvo and IKEA North America, also came and spoke to us about leadership and organizational change for 1 ½ days. We've had other great guest speakers, and the roll call will only get better over the next two months. Our Engineering for a Sustainable Society course will be going to Gothenburg in three weeks to meet with Leif Johansson, the current CEO of Volvo. As you can guess, our program and The Natural Step both have a close connection with Volvo. The teaching staff is very knowledgeable. I think that all of them either had a hand in creating the MSLS program or are graduates of the program. BTW – let me know if I sound a bit cultish – it's been one of my worries.
There is a variety of backgrounds in the class. However, almost half of the class is Canadian and American – ten Canadians (though three of them are Canadians with other links) and thirteen Americans. Other countries represented include China (6), Pakistan (5), Brazil (3), Australia (3), Sweden (3), France (2), Mexico, Bangladesh, Nigeria, the UK, Greece, Taiwan and South Korea. They have a lot of different academic and professional backgrounds. Some of my classmates are fresh out of school (with about 2 to 3 years of experience); others have as much as 15-20 years of experience in the work world. The group is not as science and engineering heavy as I'd expected – which is good! I am learning as much from them as I am from the courses. I won't get into a detailed discussion about the people in the class, but I have become fast friends with a few of them, and know that I will be in touch with many of them once we're finished off here.
Language
So… Swedish is a bit harder than I thought. I still can't make heads or tails out of what I hear, and what things look like on paper still don't correlate to me to what they sound like.
I had applied for the Swedish class offered at school about 5 days before it started. Unfortunately it was full. After sitting in on it last week, though, I realized I should've been sitting in the whole time – the class is, at best, half full. Anyhow, having a Swedish flatmate has helped, but my Swedish is still at the level where my typical answer when asked anything is "Jag förstår inte Svenska." (I don't understand Swedish.) I've at least finally learned the numbers… I'm starting to learn more, but I need to work more at it, if the time presents itself.
Wrap-up
I haven't gone into everything here. I haven't talked about what I miss the most from home (the answer is 'the people in my life'), and I probably haven't hit on what I like and dislike about here directly (indirectly, there is a picture painted).
So, that's a bit of an idea of my impressions of my first 2 1/2 months in Sweden. Thanks for reading this!
Tuesday, August 12, 2008
Hello!
Hi, and thanks for stopping by to read this. I haven't had a chance to get to this as yet; there will hopefully be plenty of time for this upon arrival. I plan on using this blog to let those who are interested stay on top of what's happening to me while I'm in Sweden.
In the next posting, I'll start going through some of the reasons I've decided to head over to Karlskrona, Sweden, to do a Master's in Strategic Leadership towards Sustainability at the Blekinge Institute of Technology. There are both professional and personal reasons for this voyage.
I debated about whether I should stay in my well-paying, secure, and occasionally high-profile position. But I felt that this would not have been the right decision for me for now - there is a professional path I wish to follow, one that leads me to a sustainable design field. At present, I'm not sure which sustainable design path, exactly; I could do product, industrial or urban design, though my heart is pulling me towards urban design. I feel this path is best served by taking this challenge on at this point. I feel that my location in southern Sweden environment will be an excellent jumping point to see what is being done to move towards sustainability in the countries that are leading the charge towards sustainability (Sweden as well as Denmark, Norway and Germany).
Personally, I would regret not taking this opportunity. One of my former bosses has written, on his Facebook page, "Sixty years old, now trying to do all the things I should have done thirty years ago!" I want to do those things now, before I'm tied down by a mortgage, car payments, screaming child(ren)...
Anyhow, I'll go into greater detail in the next post - planning on a top five reasons in both realms.
In the next posting, I'll start going through some of the reasons I've decided to head over to Karlskrona, Sweden, to do a Master's in Strategic Leadership towards Sustainability at the Blekinge Institute of Technology. There are both professional and personal reasons for this voyage.
I debated about whether I should stay in my well-paying, secure, and occasionally high-profile position. But I felt that this would not have been the right decision for me for now - there is a professional path I wish to follow, one that leads me to a sustainable design field. At present, I'm not sure which sustainable design path, exactly; I could do product, industrial or urban design, though my heart is pulling me towards urban design. I feel this path is best served by taking this challenge on at this point. I feel that my location in southern Sweden environment will be an excellent jumping point to see what is being done to move towards sustainability in the countries that are leading the charge towards sustainability (Sweden as well as Denmark, Norway and Germany).
Personally, I would regret not taking this opportunity. One of my former bosses has written, on his Facebook page, "Sixty years old, now trying to do all the things I should have done thirty years ago!" I want to do those things now, before I'm tied down by a mortgage, car payments, screaming child(ren)...
Anyhow, I'll go into greater detail in the next post - planning on a top five reasons in both realms.
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