• Home
  • Campus views
  • Thought leaders
    • Natural Resources
    • Democratic Institutions
    • Pluralism
    • Canada in the world
    • Building healthy communities
    • Innovation
  • Home
  • Campus views
  • Thought leaders
    • Natural Resources
    • Democratic Institutions
    • Pluralism
    • Canada in the world
    • Building healthy communities
    • Innovation
scroll down for more
Campus views

How do we build community in our cities? Canadians today feel lonelier than ever. But one university town is bucking the trend and building bridges that connect unlikely communities. What do they have to teach the rest of us?

Cameron Raynor October 5, 2015 No Comments
cam
  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Google +
  • Email

There has been a wave of research in recent years on what makes people happy. Time and again, social scientists come up with the same answer: strong relationships that make us feel connected to one another.

 

Yet many Canadians are feeling lonelier than ever. In 2014, Maclean’s magazine reported over 30 per cent of Canadians feel disconnected from their neighbours. According to Statistics Canada, Canadians are seeing their friends less frequently. More of us are also living alone than ever before.

 

Even on university campuses, places designed to bring people together, students often feel disconnected and isolated. A 2012 report by the Canadian Association of College and University Student Services found that nearly two-thirds of students reported feeling “very lonely” in the past 12 months.

 

And this has serious consequences. Persistent feelings of isolation can raise blood pressure, lower immunity, and boost levels of stress hormones that wear the body down. It impacts our health in a major way. But perhaps most pertinently, it also lowers the resilience of our communities in hard times. So the question of how to boost connectivity in our communities has real implications for the health of individuals, but also of our country.

 

Canada’s isolation crisis has been reported before. But the task of determining where to start when it comes to finding solutions is a different question altogether. And though the fate of Canada’s communities lies in many more hands than just university institutions, the story of one campus’s fight to build bridges between communities offers a glimpse of how these institutions, anchored in cities across the country, can be key pieces of Canada’s connection puzzle.

 

“Save Our Neighbourhood”

 

When I spent a week of my summer in Kingston, Ontario, living with friends in their shared student home, you could feel the tension between the permanent residents and their student neighbours. We spent most of our time socializing in the “student ghetto” surrounding Queen’s University, however, when I was outside those blocks I couldn’t help but feel unwanted and looked down upon by the permanent residents.

 

My friend Aaron, who lived in the neighbourhood for three years during his undergrad pointed out that there is even a website created by residents who wanted to “save the neighbourhood” from the “unacceptable behaviour of many Queen’s students.” That is, mostly, partying.

 

Kingston may be particularly notorious for police complaints and vandalism, but tension between homeowners and students renters can be a problem in near-campus neighbourhoods across the country.

 

The Camrose experience

 

In Camrose, a rural Albertan town of approximately 17,000 residents located about an hour’s drive southeast of Edmonton, about 500 students live off-campus, many of them in rental housing that surrounds the University of Alberta campus.

 

“Most near-campus neighbourhoods hate the university,” says Dittmar Mündel, president of the Augustana Neighbourhood Association. “It gets very seedy very quickly as soon as you approach the campus … [the housing is] more like ‘slum landlord’ rentals.”

 

Like other neighbourhoods near the campus, Augustana has had incidents of police complaints — particularly about noise — and complaints about the poor maintenance of student housing, which can lead to low property values.

 

But about seven years ago, the Augustana Neighbourhood Association started taking a proactive approach by hosting community events for all residents. Every September, for example, they co-host a big barbecue with the university to create a space where its members, and students, feel equally welcome. Mündel says the idea is to break down barriers between students and permanent residents, many of whom are seniors.

 

While we might roll our eyes at the idea that a measly community barbecue might hold the key to the community’s strife, studies show that the connections we build over burgers and discount soda pop should not be underestimated.

 

A 2014 report by the Caledon Institute of Social Policy found that community events and activities play a big role in creating the kinds of spaces where communities can form a common identity, social connections, and empathy among groups or group members. They “create vital social networks and foster a sense of belonging,” the report suggested. “We seriously undervalue the importance of community values,” it continued, and recommended that governments “eliminate user fees for all community celebrations.”

 

Camrose Police Patrol Sergeant Craig Ferguson says the perception of Augustana as a problem neighbourhood has “gone down drastically,” and residents worry less about mischief and damage to vehicles. “I think it’s changed a lot,” he says. “[Now] the students who are living in that area feel that they’re part of that area.”

 

Mündel also says that now, aside from the occasional one, noise complaints have mostly stopped. “It’s been a definite culture shift,” he says. “People appreciate that, and people appreciate their neighbours.”

 

Mündel says the Augustana Neighbourhood Association was inspired by a similar initiative by the University of Waterloo, Wilfrid Laurier University, and a near-campus neighbourhood in Waterloo, Ontario.

 

Shamir Mehta, manager of municipal enforcement services for the City of Waterloo, says community members are driving the process, which was started after the city found many of the complaints they received in near-campus neighbourhood weren’t strictly by-law issues, but a “lack of understanding.”

 

The city’s bylaw officers are “just a band-aid solution,” says Mehta. “It’s a change in culture where by-law and police are putting the onus back on residents and students to be the solution.”

 

Students from the University of Alberta spent an evening getting to know neighbours during a community barbecue on September 10th 2015 (credit: Amielle Christopherson, the Camrose Canadian)
Students from the University of Alberta spent an evening getting to know members of the community during a community barbecue on September 10th 2015 (credit: Amielle Christopherson, the Camrose Canadian)

But there’s more to it than that. In 2012, the city of Waterloo released a report detailing the need for properly designed spaces and development as well as improved sense of community through public gatherings. Building on the recognition of the value the community gatherings offered, the report made clear the natural extension of that logic: if we want people to gather in order to build community, they need to live in places that encourage them to do so.

 

Happy neighbourhoods

 

How our neighbourhoods look and feel can also have a huge effect on health and happiness, says Omar Dominguez, director of operations and sustainability at Happy City, an organization that explores how the design of buildings, neighbourhoods, and cities affects well being and happiness.

 

“The design of physical environments can nudge people into conviviality, generosity and altruism, or they can nudge us towards fear and separation,” says Dominguez.

 

Strong relationships, he says, are “the single most important factor of human happiness,” and strong relationships with neighbours matter just as much as they do with close friends and family.

 

These relationships have financial benefits as well. Economists have found that in areas where people place more trust in each other — where there is more “social capital” — economic growth is stronger.

 

Dominguez says creating environments with many street-front businesses and natural elements, like trees, “slows people down, people are nicer and kinder,” said Dominguez.

 

But many of our neighbourhoods aren’t built like this.

 

As of 2011, more than 16 million Canadians live in an automobile-dependent neighbourhood, according to a 2014 report from the School of Urban and Regional Planning at Queen’s University. When cities are designed such that residential housing, workplaces, shopping and entertainment are located in different areas, it’s difficult for people to interact. Despite evidence that these sprawling suburban neighbourhoods negatively affect health, developers continue to create these neighbourhoods and the market for large, suburban homes remains strong across North America.

 

‘No longer just your neighbour’

 

And when it comes to near-campus neighbourhoods, they have even more specific challenges.

 

Researchers have found, for example, that as communities become more diverse, levels of trust amongst community members decreases. In other words, it’s more difficult to achieve a sense of community in places where there are strong demographic and economic divisions, like those that exist between middle-aged homeowners and student renters. Economic competition in particular “makes people dislike each other even more and creates rigid group boundaries,” according to Sean Moore, a psychology professor at the University of Alberta who specializes in emotion.

 

This is precisely why the story of what the University of Alberta and the Augustana Neighbourhood Association achieved is so remarkable. As both Moore and Dominguez point out, you can’t force groups together and create a community just by putting them in physical contact with one another. People want to maintain their differences, but also feel like they belong, which is precisely what the community barbecues accomplished.

 

This feeling of belonging is the difference I felt between the neighbourhood where my friend lived in Kingston, and between the Augustana neighbourhood in Camrose, where I live now. Other students who live here feel it too.

 

“Humans need relationships with each other. I think we’ve lost that simple truth,” said Tim Faltin, a fourth-year environmental science student at the University of Alberta. “It just kind of changes the way you look at your neighbours.”

 

“It’s no longer just your neighbour. There’s so much more added to that.”

  • Share This:
  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Google +
  • Email
Previous How Affordable Housing Can Reduce Emissions
Next How can Indigenous voices be better represented in the media?
Cameron Raynor

Cameron Raynor is an Economics student at the University of Alberta Augustana in Camrose Alberta. He is the current editor in chief of the Dagligtale, the University of Alberta Augustana Campus’ student newspaper. Cameron likes to write about politics, student issues and campus news. He is currently working with the Canadian University Press’ Youth Vote Project to cover the federal election. Cameron is also a scholar at the Peter Lougheed Leadership College and an avid runner and coffee drinker.


Tweet us at #PossibleCanadas

We want Canada to be...

  • Where are we now?
    Kevin Rey
    The same
  • How do we bridge the engagement gap?
    Michaela Catherine Slinger
    Engaged
  • How Affordable Housing Can Reduce Emissions
    Chris Adams
    Environmentally conscious
  • How do we build community in our cities?
    Cameron Raynor
    A community
  • How can Indigenous voices be better represented in the media?
    Alexander Kim
    Representative
  • How can we make bachelor’s degrees worth it for students?
    Chandler Walter
    Employed
  • How do we change who we’re really voting for?
    Josie Lukey
    Reformed
  • Can universities lead the movement towards reconciliation?
    Kate Black
    Reconciled

CREDITS

Produced by DISCOURSE MEDIA | Editor TARI AJADI | Contributing editors ERIN MILLAR, COLLEEN KIMMETT & CHRISTINE MCLAREN | Web development CAITLIN MILLAR | Engagement NELLY BOUEVITCH | Design MAGGIE CASPAR | Audio ALEXANDER KIM | Reporting ARNO ROSENFELD, KEVIN REY, CHRIS ADAMS, MICHAELA CATHERINE SLINGER, CAMERON RAYNOR, JOSIE LUKEY, CHANDLER WALKER, ALEXANDER KIM & KATE BLACK
Join the conversation on Twitter using hashtag #PossibleCanadas.

About

Possible Canadas is a partnership of diverse organizations that share the goal of supporting forward-looking conversations about the future of Canada. The project is produced by Discourse Media and Reos Partners, in collaboration with RECODE and the J.W. McConnell Family Foundation. Partners’ support does not imply endorsement of the views represented. Contact us at possiblecanadas@discoursemedia.org.

©2015 Discourse Media - Collaborative solutions journalism

From 1870 to 1996, more than 150,000 First Nations, Métis, and Inuit children were placed in residential schools and forbidden to speak their language and practice their culture. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada (TRC) estimates there are 80,000 former students living today, and that the ongoing impact of residential schools are a major contributor to challenges facing modern Aboriginal populations.

Canada’s TRC is one of many commissions worldwide to undertake revealing and resolving past wrongdoings, mostly by governments. Other examples include:

South Africa

In 1996, President Nelson Mandela authorized a Truth and Reconciliation Commission to study the effects of apartheid in South Africa. The commission allowed victims of human rights violations to give statements about their experiences, but also allowed perpetrators of violence to request amnesty from criminal prosecution.

Argentina

The National Commission on the Disappearance of Persons, initiated in 1983, investigated human rights violations, including 30,000 forced disappearances, committed during the Dirty War.

Guatemala

The Historical Clarification Commission was created in 1994 in an effort to reconcile Guatemala after a 36-year civil war. The commission issued a report in 1999 which estimated that more 200,000 people were killed or disappeared as a result of the conflict.

In June, the Canadian Truth and Reconciliation Commission released 94 “calls to action” to “redress the legacy of residential schools and advance the process of Canadian reconciliation.”

The scope of recommendations range from child welfare to education to Indigenous language rights, and has recommendations targeted for private and public spheres of Canadian life alike. The document calls upon law schools in Canada to require all students to take a course in Aboriginal people and the law, for example. Notably, the document calls upon the federal government to appoint a public inquiry into the causes of, and remedies for, the disproportionate victimization of Aboriginal women and girls.  

The 11-page document can be read here.             

http://www.trc.ca/websites/trcinstitution/File/2015/Findings/Calls_to_Action_English2.pdf

MMP

STV

Canada’s employment statistics are much better now than they were 20 years ago. In 2012 for example, 61.8% of working-age Canadians were employed as opposed to 58.7% in 1995. The unemployment rate has gone down from 9.5% in 1995 to 6.8% in 2014. Youth unemployment has gone down too, from 16.1% to 13.5% in the same time period. The outlier in these trends is labour force participation, or the amount of working-age Canadians who are either employed, or unemployed and looking for work. Right now, participation is at the lowest rate since the year 2000, mainly because the “baby-boomer” generation is moving towards retirement. Read more about that here.

Housing preferences among Millennials, however, tend towards smaller, higher density housing close to activities, signs that changing economic realities and the generation shift will create more demand for housing in compact, walkable neighbourhoods.

Belfry-Munroe suspects that youth disinterest has to do with political parties. “There’s been a lack of engagement one-on-one with people since the 1970s, and a greater focus on mass media and now things like social media,” says Belfry-Munroe. “The other thing is that parties have become uncool,” she continues, “and I think that getting excited about the election without parties is like getting excited about the World Series without the teams. If you weren’t excited about the Blue Jays, you would not be concerned about the World Series.”

To extend this analogy, young Canadians currently aren’t even interested in baseball. What could work to change this would be getting other types of fans — soccer, golf, darts, you name it — engaged in baseball due to their passion for sports in general. Politically, this is the bridge that is missing for youth. The Blue Jays don’t matter if youth are removed from sports. Similarly, political parties and leaders would have little relevance if youth are removed from electoral politics.

“The generational effect is even larger [than the life cycle effect]. At the same age, turnout is 3 or 4 points lower among baby boomers than it was among pre-baby boomers, 10 points lower among generation X than it was among baby boomers, and another 10 points lower among the most recent generation than it was among generation X at the same age.”

— An excerpt from “Why Was Turnout So Low?” in Anatomy of a Liberal Victory by Andre Blais, Elisabeth Gidengil, Richard Nadeau and Neil Nevitte.

Rock The Vote also published a Youth Voter Strategy Report in 2007 that compiled many scholarly findings on this subject. You can find that here.

According to Elections Canada, “people are less likely to cast a ballot if they feel they have no influence over government actions, do not feel voting is an essential civic act, or do not feel the election is competitive enough to make their votes matter to the outcome, either at the national or the local constituency level.” Read more here.

The trend of youth voter disengagement persists across much of the developed world. According to the Economist, for example, in 2010 just 44 per cent of people aged 18 to 24 voted in Britain’s general election compared to 76% of those aged 65 and over. America saw its lowest voter turnout ever in its 2014 midterm elections, where just 19.9 per cent of young people voted, compared to an overall turnout rate of 36.4 per cent. This trend tends to change, however, when charismatic politicians reach out to youth. According to Politico, Barack Obama would have lost the 2012 American presidential election without youth voting — overwhelmingly for him. Read more here.


 

WordItOut-word-cloud-1200538