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The New Buffalo Hunters Threaten Calgary’s Growth.

December 28, 2006

CALGARY -- There is a new class of people being recognized within Calgary's evolving civic aesthetic. We call them "buffalo hunters."Exactly who they are is still taking shape, but there is a growing consensus they represent the "gold rush" culture that produces million-dollar staircases of Italian marble but has the Salvation Army's kettle campaign, for instance, fighting to meet its goal. They are -- notwithstanding the knee-knocking spectacle of a carbon-taxing prime minister Stephane Dion -- the only discernible threat to Calgary's otherwise remarkable economic and fabulous cultural growth.The term "buffalo hunters" refers to those who view their stay in this city as a temporary assignation, not something permanent. Their ambitions are short term, i.e. to make as much money as they can in as short a period as possible before they go "home." Their long-term aspirations, if any, lie elsewhere.No one's saying that buffalo hunters are bad people or that they are not free to accept what this city has to offer and move on. It's a free country, after all, and these are not the "eastern bums and creeps" infamously referred to by Calgary's then-mayor Ralph Klein in the 1980s. Often they are here simply because of a lack of opportunity from whence they came. They need economic opportunity, and Calgary badly needs people willing to work and take advantage of the opportunities that exist here. In that sense, the relationship makes perfect sense -- at least on a temporary basis -- from both an economic and social point of view.It is not a marriage, however. It is a one-night stand. In the long run, Calgary doesn't just need workers -- it needs citizens willing to commit their time, and their money, to the evolution of the city's soul. After all, the temporal attitudes of buffalo hunters have already proven capable of producing devastating cultural consequences."We all see that the day is coming when the buffalo will all be killed, and we shall have nothing more to live on," said Chief Crowfoot in 1877 as he pondered the bewildering circumstances of his people less than 30 years before barbed wire went up across the prairie.Today, we live in a new era of accelerated change that, just as it did to Crowfoot, is making Calgarians anxious. Business leaders are faced with unwieldy staff turnover rates. People come, people go -- making it increasingly difficult to build and sustain corporate cultures, let alone a sense of shared loyalty. The greater the sense of temporary status, the lower the levels of trust. And the trust that comes from commitment is the foundation for spirit -- corporate or civic -- that is the essence of greatness.It wasn't, after all, just the repeating rifle that killed the buffalo. Temporary greed killed the buffalo. Most of the hunters then, as now, just wanted to make as much money as they could in as short a period as possible and ship it back "home." This is a genuine challenge as Calgary's civic, business and cultural leaders struggle to understand and nurture commercial (innovation) and cultural (volunteerism) values that have traditionally been the foundations of what is certainly among history's most economically prosperous societies.There is a lot of excitement in this city. Arts organizations long neglected by the provincial government are nevertheless blossoming commercially and artistically. Communities of shared enthusiasm such as the Red Mile (at times to the consternation of civic planners) are emerging spontaneously as they do in real cities. There is breathless anticipation of a new cosmopolitanism that will be organically Calgarian and not an imposed reproduction of something superficially attractive, yet essentially foreign to the city's soul.Citizens, whether in this city, corporate or otherwise, need a set of shared aspirations, not just economic ambitions, laudable as those might be. People don't just need "buzz." They need to foster spirit, and that is difficult in a city to which a significant number of people have assigned their skills but not their souls.Toronto poet laureate Pier Giorgio Di Cicco, speaking of Enthusiasm and the Creative City during his recent visit to Calgary, put it this way: "City spirit is the engine to city building. Physical construction may give the illusion of a dynamic city, an illusion that may stimulate citizens and create 'buzz'; but the soul of citizenship is what makes a city stand head and shoulders above others."Calgary's next great hurdle probably isn't economic. It's learning to manage prosperity so it continues to invest in the social capital that produced it in the first place.Buffalo hunters, alas, leave only piles of bones and rotting cultural carcasses in their wake. It's all they can do.Citizenship requires more than that.Peter Menzies is a past publisher of the Calgary Herald and a senior fellow with the Work Research Foundation.