A open letter to Naheed, the man behind @nenshi, and to all Proud Calgarians:

September 29, 2014 -- You could heed this advise or just say na! ...that's entirely your call. But you
will read this, as will all mayor's of Canadian cities. One thing all Mayor's must learn to do, is not mess
with another city's politics, especially 4 days before a local election, especially if they aspire to the
Premier or Prime Minister someday.
What say you, Calgarians? Do you care for your mayor enough to give him the right advice? I do!
Dear Naheed,
No mayor of a city should stick her/his nose into the affairs of other cities. The simple truth is all
municipal politics is local. And all backroom municipal treachery, hyper local. Everyone knows this, as
do you -- as well as the unintended consequences of preaching one's local success to others who have
a different geography and vastly different politics.
But as an idea's popularity soars and becomes currency, TEDx beckons. The thunderous opening
music numbs us, the silent walk to the centre of the dark stage intoxicates, and the halo of the spotlight
lulls us into believing we are the chosen one to empower the world with more bullet points and sound
bites.
The substantive difference between TEDTalk and TEDx fades, omnipotent arrogance takes over brittle
ideologies, and turns truisms into small, consumable bites of manufactured wisdom, feverishly gobbled
by the wide-eyed sleep walkers.
Success of one local culture - one city, rarely does get translated to another city. The past mayor of
Winnipeg attempted to graft his success onto an entire province and in the process turned himself into
a salesman of truisms in Ontario. He did end up losing not only his hefty portfolio, but also his gravitas.
His buddies in Hamilton still think he is cats whiskers of urbanism, but he has lost his bite. The end
result, no one tags him in tweets from Hamilton anymore.
Hamilton is a far more complex city than most in Canada. It has more number of liars per capita than
any other city on the continent. To administer its half-million+ residents, we have a strong force of 7000
city staff - a formidable and impenetrable bureaucracy that ensures we will not be changing our ways
very soon. The old boy's have ensured their legacy continues unchallenged, by placing blank slates in
key power positions of key organizations, and who play SIMcity with realty all day. Their game keeps
the sleep walkers and local media busy and engaged, least one of them wakes up and stops walking.
How does it remain this way? in spite of significant immigrants bringing new cultural and economic
capital every year to Hamilton? Well... I'm not telling. Because that would only make it easy for you to
recycle such local pecui-realities into packaged sound bites with local context, and sell us more brittle
ideologies of compact walkable cities, glorious bike lanes, and warm cross-cultural hugs with the
mandatory, crescendo aspiring Kumbaya.
Real cities as distinct from the imaginary cities of Dutch planners, presently running amuck across
Canada, have individual geographies and individual issues which are local and hyper local, and non-
replicable. If you are not of the kind who aspires to homogenize the rugged individuality of all Canadian
cities into one single hipster look & feel--As seen on TV, the so called Dutchification of Canadian cities,
then you will appreciate that what is good for Calgary is not necessarily good for Hamilton or Sudbury.
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We have our individual destinies, our separate geographies, and our peculiarly awkward and highly
nuanced financial realities. This is what drives our city rebuilding, and not the lack of design ideas or
lack of design sensibilities.
Jane Jacobs' made it very easy for everyone across North America, including the sleep walkers
become city planners, designers, and even urban visionaries. Although, you do know, that was never
her intent.
In Hamilton, we have the most number of Jane Jacobs' planners, designers, and urban visionaries per
capita than any other city on the continent. The invitation you have received to Hamilton for a visit only
days before the municipal election, is from this fringe group that does not represent the true diversity of
a half-milion+ residents, and surely not from the elected City Council or Mayor of Hamilton.
Civic protocol for mayoral visits does not matter to such non-inclusive reactionaries. They need you
here only to legitimize themselves in their eyes. They desperately require the presence of a popular or
populist leader who can push their local agendas. They are most willing to manufacture the aura of a
rock star for such compliant leaders -- as they once did for Glen Murray, and now for Toronto's city
planner Jen Keesmat, and our very own city planner Jason Thorne.
Unless you are the type who likes his coat tails to be used as a surf board for Hamilton's lost generation
that has yet to learn the critical importance of intercultural relations in city building, and gratitude for
immigrants who are bringing millions of dollars into Hamilton every year then you are most welcome
to Hamilton. You will surely find hundreds of sleep walkers and surf boarders, who will embrace you and
most graciously genefluct, to make your stay most pleasurable. And it surely could be your TEDx
moment, but hardly your TEDTalk moment, if that makes you happy.
If not, and you do have bigger aspirations for yourself in the post Calgary phase - possibly provincial or
even federal in nature, then please don't indulge in such cheap Dutchification of Canadian cities,
sonmething which Glen Murray tried and lost his power over. Least of all, please don't let your coat
tails be used for inadvertently endorsing Hamilton candidates by your mere photo opp presence, or
even worse, unknowingly endorse a wrong direction at the wrong time, for Hamilton -- a city vastly
different from Calgary in its resources and intellectual capital.
A better approach, if you do love us so much, would have been for your office to call the mayor's office
first and set up a formal visit to Hamilton. You would only expect the same protocol be followed by other
city mayors who are interested in coming to talk to Calgarians on many suburban sprawl issues.
@nenshi is a popular twitter handle for many in Hamilton. And 'Naheed' the man behind this handle,
has a glorious future in Canadian politics. So should he stick his nose into Hamilton's most dirty politics
only four days before its municipal election and risk getting a cold from a city he knows nothing about --
an enigma, where its left is the closeted far right, and its right the center left?
Proud Calgarian's... kindly do help Naheed, Canada's most beloved mayor, make the right choice!
To visit or not to visit Hamilton for a fake TEDx moment, 4 days before its municipal election, is the
question.
Warmest regards, from Hamilton, Ontario.
@HamOntReporter | Mahesh P. Butani
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