The Our Town - Clarenville Blog by Paul Tilley

Over the past few years, Clarenville has budgeted quite a few dollars for what has been dubbed as Economic Development activities.  The focused goal has been to spur business development in the town and generate money.  This has been met with varying degrees of success (depending on who you talk to)  (see my previous post on this  http://ourtownclarenville.blogspot.ca/2013/04/economic-development-or-community.html  ) I would like to propose a radical rethink of this approach. First and foremost, the term Economic Development is much too narrow and too focused on money rather than the people it is supposed to benefit.  What we really need to talk about is Community Development .  The goal of community development is to take efforts to improve the “livability” of our town by making it a better place to live for its citizens and by creating a positive experience for its visitors.   This is known as “Placemaking” and has been the subj...

Naheed Nenshi is the Mayor of Calgary.  He’s young, just over 40, and he’s innovative.  Mayor Nenshi spoke at Memorial University last week and in St. John’s.  His hour long talk and question and answer session is a fascinating look on how we can renew municipal government and engage citizens in the process.  It’s well worth the watch – see it  here Key discussion themes that Mayor Nenshi raised in his discussion.  I reflect on them as LESSONS FOR CLARENVILLE: On Involvement - people will be involved in their community if they are asked to be involved. On being open as a country   - Nenshi noted that in order to continue our growth we are going to need imported talent.   We have to be more open.   Nobody should care where you are from - be concerned about what you can bring to the table On Transparency  - People want honesty and transparency. Transparency...