This non-story, naturally, brought out the Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test dummies from Vancouver, who saw an opportunity for direct action and promptly moved to Salt Spring, built a Freedom Camp and began protesting "development." Naturally, they chose the most beautiful, pristine, treasured and visible beach on the island, which is usually filled with swans and a thousand sea birds and now harbours broken-down school buses, plastic sheeting tents and a few old pirate barges pulled up onto the shoreline -- on which, the by- laws concede, cooking is allowed. Single moms breastfeed fetchingly on the beach; why, when I hobbled down there on my crutches this week with a Parks official, it looked like a fashionable version of the Third World. With First-World toilets in the adjacent park, which we then inspected. Politics at the local level has a great deal to do with hygiene.

After our inspection, the Parks officer and I had lunch with two local activists; one wants incorporation and the other works for water preservation. Ken Lee, an NDP supporter and one-time high school principal in St. Catharines, argues that the island needs to become a municipality, because getting rid of the Freedom Squat was nearly impossible without self-determination. The other, Andrea Collins, resists because she believes a town council will be co- opted by developers from West Vancouver who will drain the water table and force the residents to pay for developer mistakes, a reasonable enough suspicion to hold.

(Copyright National Post 2004)

enickson@nationalpost.com

ON SALT SPRING ISLAND, B.C - One million dollars for a hundred feet of waterfront. That is the price some dumb American paid last week on Salt Spring Island. We are getting used to such prices, being the most expensive jurisdiction, house-price-wise, in Canada. Over-leveraged Boomers (which is to say all of us) pray that the flow of rich runaway liberals from the south will continue. "Let's hope George W. wins," say my left-of-centre friends, hoping to cop a million or more from a terrified Yank. "May it be so," I invariably reply.

This non-story, naturally, brought out the Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test dummies from Vancouver, who saw an opportunity for direct action and promptly moved to Salt Spring, built a Freedom Camp and began protesting "development." Naturally, they chose the most beautiful, pristine, treasured and visible beach on the island, which is usually filled with swans and a thousand sea birds and now harbours broken-down school buses, plastic sheeting tents and a few old pirate barges pulled up onto the shoreline -- on which, the by- laws concede, cooking is allowed. Single moms breastfeed fetchingly on the beach; why, when I hobbled down there on my crutches this week with a Parks official, it looked like a fashionable version of the Third World. With First-World toilets in the adjacent park, which we then inspected. Politics at the local level has a great deal to do with hygiene.

August is heartland month in North America, the time when everyone goes home to their roots, or a fantasy version of same -- small towns, cottage country, farming communities, third world beaches -- and at least half of us wish that life could be lived in a sweet and easy place where everyone knows your name.

As The New York Times reported recently, quite a few people in early middle age have decided to make it so, upping sticks from big urban centres where they had proper "creative class" jobs, and moving to the country to take up organic living. They were dubbed Opies by the Times in an article called "Going Up The Country, But Keeping All The Toys." Opies (a contraction of organic yuppies) are on the cutting edge of cool.

Which begs the question of cool cities. This winter, Steve Malanga of the Manhattan Institute exposed the lazy thinking behind Carnegie-Mellon professor Richard Florida's theories on the Creative Class, cities and growth.

It appears that once the number-crunching is done, all the money spent to attract artists and thinkers is wasted, and in fact, cities that grow and prosper tend to be on Florida's distinctly un-cool list. Creative class people, the Times piece indicates, are starting to flee cities, with their dirt, noise, pollution and heat. Which means our about-to-be implemented, multi-billion dollar new cities policy may be based upon the activities of a demographic that has already shifted.

A new U.S. census note concurs: In the past 10 years, new geographic regions dubbed "micropolitans" or "agburbs" have grown on average 12%. These are communities based around a small centre, or village, but spread over a large -- sometimes very large -- area. Despite the decades-long efforts of the leftish New Urbanists, who want everyone to live on top of each other in town houses, thereby preserving the "wilderness," people have been choosing to move out into the country and organize their own lives. One in 10 Americans now lives in Micropolitan Statistical Areas.

And as far as economic growth goes, these places are future engines. The advantages are plenty: cheaper land, cheaper construction, lower labour rates and a small-town quality of life. More importantly, with a little ingenuity, these communities can shape themselves. Do they want big box retailers and fast food joints, or do they want to turn into Carmel-by-the-sea? Young families or retirees? Organic farms or manufacturing? A new generation of small-town innovators are deciding that their future does not have to be shaped by people devising policy in a city far away. And in a sharp reversal of a hundred years of social history, many micropolitanites say they believe that their kids will go away for an education, then come home to stay.

After our inspection, the Parks officer and I had lunch with two local activists; one wants incorporation and the other works for water preservation. Ken Lee, an NDP supporter and one-time high school principal in St. Catharines, argues that the island needs to become a municipality, because getting rid of the Freedom Squat was nearly impossible without self-determination. The other, Andrea Collins, resists because she believes a town council will be co- opted by developers from West Vancouver who will drain the water table and force the residents to pay for developer mistakes, a reasonable enough suspicion to hold.

Ken says that most everyone who wants a municipality balks at paying more taxes. I heartily agree. Tensions even at this casual meeting ran high and I calculated there was one Green, one NDP, one Liberal and one Conservative at the table. The discussions over the next year will be acrimonious and endless, and will eerily mirror the contention in our future parliament. Everyone will know everyone else's name, but sweet and easy? Only in your summer dreams.