As I’ve mentioned before I listen to CBC Radio on my way to and from work (when I’m tired of listening to music). I love the station, but if you listen to it long enough you start to notice that it is very bias towards big cities. In Canada the term “Big Cities” typically means places like Toronto, Vancouver, Halifax etc.
A couple of days ago I was listening to the “The Current” [a current events radio show] – they were talking about the use of biodiesel fuels and the impact on the environment. At one point during the show they were talking about how people use their vehicles and the guest mentioned that more money needed to be put into public transportation in the smaller cities. The host then proceeded to say that “living in smaller cities was a choice and if people wanted better public transportation they should choose to live in places where it exists”.
How I interpreted this is “if you want to live in a place with good public transportation and be good to the environment then you need to live in a big city”. The sad thing is not all of us want to live in a big city, and the other thing is not everyone can afford to live in a big city. Big city life is exceptional more expensive, than living in smaller places – unless you are willing to live in a neighbourhood where the population consists of junkies and prostitutes.
Kitchener-Waterloo has a “transportation” system – consisting of buses (and there are talks of a light rail transit system). The bus system is okay but I’ve only used it a couple of times. I wouldn’t say it is great. Even Toronto’s transit system (buses, streetcars and subway) isn’t great. Paris’s transit system is great and Berlin’s transit system is great.
I think CBC and even the Canadian government should stop being so big city bias. A lot of people don’t choose where they live, there are also a lot of people (like me) who don’t want to live in a bigger city. When you only care about the big cities the rest of the country is ignored.
P.S. I really need to figure out how to end my arguments.