Redefining Quality of Life (CityStudio #1)

In just nine years, Vancouver hopes to be the “Greenest City” on the planet. It plans to get there by addressing ten goals–Green Economy…Climate Leadership…Green Buildings…Green Transportation…Zero Waste…Access to Nature…Lighter Footprint…Clean Water…Clean Air…Local Food–by developing strategies informed by its citizens and outlined by the 2011 Greenest City Action Plan. Becoming the “greenest” is a political goal. It is a marketing campaign. Therefore, one can understand, even expect, a level of skepticism and reluctance from the public throughout the process of getting us to 2020 in the shape we hope to. We are bombarded with marketing campaigns daily that, as most are aware, typically weigh sales over health and happiness. Why, then, believe another?

If asked, the general public would welcome any of the ten goals by title. However, engagement beyond this can often butt up against the measure of quality of life that most in North America enjoy. After all, a policy action that grew from the Clean Water goal did regulate how often property owners can water their lawns.

To understand how a collective society such as Canada could arrive at a point where developing and implementing such a green action plan for even its healthiest of cities is crucial, it is important to understand how contemporary quality of life is measured. It turns out that the current measure can be attributed largely to the work of Edward Bernays, the nephew of Dr. Sigmund Freud. In 1928, Bernays wrote Propaganda, in which he argued for the importance of manipulating public opinion within a democratic society in stating:

The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country…we are dominated by the relatively small number of persons…who understand the mental processes and social patterns of the masses. It is they who pull the wires which control the public mind, who harness old social forces and contrive new ways to bind and guide the world.

After the industrial revolution gave rise to machines that supplemented workers to produce all the goods needed within a less amount of time necessary to keep laborers busy for an entire work year, marketers such as Bernays himself helped to rethink the model for consumerism as not a model for a reduction in working hours (and an increase in leisure time) but as a rise in productivity so that more goods could be consumed. Today more than ever, the North American culture, both domestic and exported, is steeped in a subjective attachment to consumerism. 

Most of us are beyond busy, trying to keep up with the race to finding wealth to afford us relaxation. Most of us are growing more immune to marketing campaigns and yet, find it hard to imagine the means to escape the consumerist paradigm in which we live. Despite a rise in a public adoption of the phrase "sustainable development," society still remain a helpless glutton and appears unable to change, perhaps until a redefinition of quality of life is forced upon it. Perhaps preemptively working out this definition is the key to Vancouver realizing its coveted green celebrity.