Healthy libraries make healthy communities

(February 24) - Libraries are destinations. Places where people go so they can say they went there. This used to be the stuff of museums and art galleries. You would get on the bus, go into the city and make a day of it. The museum, the gallery, the library are magnets. They draw you in and, if they are properly situated and designed, they keep bringing you back. They are people places and there is nothing quite like them for livening up a downtown.

We came another big step closer to completing the puzzle of downtown revitalization last week. Council approved the specific location and general design of the new central library building. With two “destination” buildings anchoring the northern and southern edges of the downtown, there is great promise for the prosperity of the shops between them.

A friend sent me a link to a very interesting website that explains all this very well. It is the Project for Public Places . It describes itself as a “non-profit organization dedicated to creating and sustaining public places that build communities.” Just wandering through the website will give you an education in the intelligent design of community spaces. The common element in all the designs is people. If a downtown does not attract people, it will never thrive.

Despite my serious misgivings about where the planning priorities were lining up in the centre of Guelph, it is making sense now. There will be a transportation hub, parking, green space and healthy businesses. The ingredients are lining up well.

The timing is even right. There will be a chorus of people saying the library is too expensive for the hard economic times we are in. I disagree. The sooner we can get the shovels in the ground, the sooner we can start getting more Guelphites working. The post office building was built as a public works project in the dirty thirties. Now we can’t imagine downtown without it.

Approval of the project ran into some turbulence because of its potential impact on the Family Thrift Store. This business has a lot of street support. Friends of the store mounted a fast Facebook campaign and rallied to its defence. Council wisely decided that the fate of the public library can’t depend on the survival of a used goods shop. If its services are really needed it will find a home somewhere else.

The question of building ownership is still up in the air. There are at least three choices available. The poorest alternative would be to turn the project over to a private developer and lease back the space. The former design options showed a building complex housing the library, a parking garage, and commercial and residential space. An argument could have been made for a type of co-operative ownership model. Now that the library will be in its own building at the north end of Baker Street, there is no good reason for ownership to be anything other than public.

The Public Library Board, of which I am a member, has owned the building and its contents for more than 100 years. This is a fine tradition that should not stop just because we are entering a recession.

It is generally acknowledged that the cause of this economic meltdown was a drive to more and more uncontrolled globalization. The way out will be through regulated regionalization. The people who brought us to the brink of financial disaster dismiss this scornfully as protectionism. It is a mystery why anybody would continue listening to them. There is nothing wrong with protecting the communities in which we live, work and raise our families. It is the sensible thing to do.

As they say on the Public Spaces website, “libraries are now being included in downtown revitalization projects and other urban and suburban development plans.” It’s been going on across North America for the past 10 years or so. Library spending has a healthy return on investment. The return is partially economic, but it has a much wider impact.

Healthy libraries make healthy communities. Last week city council moved Guelph towards the right side of the curve. Let’s stay there.