Sep. 30, 2009 - Issue #728: Fall Style 2009

Next Gen

Talkin' 'bout my generation? Innovative youth-focused committee struggles to deliver on its promise

If Friday night's Pecha Kucha is anything like its four previous Edmonton incarnations, it will be a bustling, lively affair. Attendees can expect to hear about the work of Edmontonians from a variety of disciplines and backgrounds, with a general focus on design, and meet and mingle with an even wider swath of young professionals from across the city. A hive of ideas and engagement, Pecha Kucha has been an unqualified success since its inception last year.

Unfortunately, the same can't quite be said of its organizers, the Next Gen committee. As there's a decent chance you don't know exactly what that is, I'll take some time to explain. Officially founded in 2006, the Next Gen committee grew out of an eponymous city council initiative to find ways to encourage younger generations to come to and stay in Edmonton. Comprised of up to nine city employees, 13 public representatives and employing the services of one coordinator, its mandate, outlined in a 2006 report to council, was to make Edmonton an attractive destination for 18 – 40-year-olds, with specific recommendations towards that goal that ranged from starting marketing campaigns to developing city architecture, culture and recreation plans to facilitating networking opportunities for young people.

It was, and still is, a unique idea, particularly for the city of Edmonton. That forward-thinking and innovative approach to engaging young people was part of what attracted Cary Williams, a long-time volunteer and now public co-chair of the committee, to it in the first place.
"The city really reached a hand out to leave it up to us to figure out how we'd help them best," explains Williams, who used to privately organize events that had a similar goal to Next Gen's before coming over to take advantage of what he saw as more resources and opportunity, working with a large group. "I don't really recognize that happening 10 years ago, having a council who recognizes that there are a group of young people who are smart and engaged and want to make a difference and that they should let them decide what the best way is to do that."
While there's no denying that the creation of the committee was a large step towards understanding the desires of Edmonton's younger generation, the question of just how well Next Gen has taken advantage of that opportunity remains open.

Dave Cournoyer is one of Edmonton's pre-eminent political bloggers, perhaps most notorious for his Ed Stelmach/Harry Strom website prank, but more importantly an engaged and active citizen right in the middle of Next Gen's target demographic. And as such, he finds the committee lacking in its ability to truly advocate for Edmonton's youth.

"One of my biggest criticisms of a committee like Next Gen is how close it is to city council. There are a number of issues where its proximity to city council—and the fact it's dependent on funding from the city as well—I think that really puts it in the position where they can't go political on issues that are important to the next generation," Cournoyer explains, citing the recent airport debate as an example of an issue on which Next Gen remained largely silent, despite strong support for closing the airport amongst younger Edmontonians.

While Williams certainly understands the criticism, he argues that public advocacy isn't a particularly effective way for Next Gen, comprised almost entirely of volunteers, to spend its time. As a committee responsible for representing some 240 000 Edmontonians, he points out, it can be hard to reach a consensus position that Next Gen would feel comfortable putting a public stamp on. Using the airport debate again as an example, Williams explains that Next Gen felt it would be more effective to try and get young people out to the public consultations and debates than purporting to speak publicly for such a diverse group.

"The problem that we run into is that there are over 200 000 people in the city between the ages of 18 and 40, and how do we properly represent them in a way that is accurate to what they think and feel?" Williams asks. "From our point of view, for us to really say that this is what our demographic believe about this issue, we'd have to go through that kind of public consultation process anyway, so we really focused on how we could try to promote the consultation process, get young people engaged and get them to recognize that this is an important issue and that they need to add their voice to it.

"Besides, Next Gen doesn't necessarily need to take public positions to make Edmontonian youth's voice heard. Ward 5 Councillor Don Iveson—who, along with Ward 2 Councillor Kim Krushell, sits on the committee as an ex-officio representative of council—has seen Next Gen effectively offering some youthful advice to city ideas and plans. As an administration committee, however, its job is to advise the city bureaucracy as opposed to council, so by its very nature that role tends to happen outside the public eye, though it isn't any less effective for that.

"A lot of the feedback Next Gen provides is within administration at earlier stages ... and it's just that it's not as visible," Iveson says, pointing towards a recent consultation on the city's redevelopment plan for The Quarters (96 Street) and the forthcoming city livability plan, The Way We Live. "They come along at an early enough stage to impact some of the decision making, versus coming to council when the thing is coming to us for final approval, when things are harder to implement. They have ground-floor access, is maybe the way to put it, within the bureaucracy."
However, even if they're making opinions heard out of the spotlight, concerns remain over just how representative of Edmonton's next generation the committee is. Mack Male is a blogger and local social media guru who has followed Next Gen since its inception and has praise for some of their social events, but who finds the group somewhat lacking in terms of outreach to the community.

"They need to be better at finding out what they should be talking about," he declares. "They represent the 'next generation,' but at their meetings, they decide what they're going to focus on with the people in the room. There's never even something like a survey on the website that asks people about their top 10 things Next Gen should look into—that kind of outreach stuff just doesn't really happen."
Cournoyer offers a more succinct summation of the committee's problems: "I don't think half the people of Edmonton work for the City of Edmonton."

This is certainly a more poignant line of critique. Though the 13 public positions on the committee are theoretically open to anyone in the demographic, Next Gen has had some serious problems making itself known in the wider community. It's hard to judge public perceptions without resorting to anecdotal evidence, but one indication of its lack of public recognition might be its newsletter: a weekly offering outlining upcoming events throughout Edmonton, it currently goes to just 1400 of the 240 000 Edmontonians the committee purports to represent (and even the relatively successful and high-profile Pecha Kucha nights have yet to attract more than 600, while acknowledging that they have all sold out).

Though civic life is traditionally rather low on youth priority lists, and Iveson points out that any initiative is going to only have so much reach, Williams is fully accepting of the criticism, and says getting the word out has been one of Next Gen's biggest challenges since day one.
"I think we have a long way to go," Williams says frankly, though he also points to some tangible steps the committee has taken in the past year in an attempt to rectify that. Pecha Kucha's success is one example, as were the efforts to get the demographic out to the airport consultations. Next Gen also has plans to start hosting "world café" discussions, broadly themed gatherings designed to give people a chance to tell the committee their opinions on the biggest issues facing Edmonton. "It's always difficult to shock people out of the daily grind, but it's one of my personal goals to reach out to different kinds of people within our demographic. We don't want to just be a committee that focuses on the typical people who come out to network and get to know people because of whatever business they're in."

That kind of will is important, and indicative that the organization is willing to look beyond city hall's walls for inspiration, but, as always, it can be hard to transform will into tangible results, especially for a volunteer organization. Still, the commitment is there, and both critics and committee members agree that Next Gen is an organization with a lot of potential—it is, at this point, simply a matter of realizing it.
"I think if they wanted to, they could become a real information conduit for young people," offers Male, who would like to see them expand upon their newsletter, which he finds informative, and do things like offer summaries of council minutes and agenda summaries that point younger people towards issues that are being debated that they may have a stake in. "They need to figure out where the next generation aren't already being served and go out and fill those."

"One of the hopes is that Next Gen will be this hub, this glue that bring different people and organizations together and creates a greater community," sums up Williams. "I want people to be excited about what's happening here and wanting to contribute to the energy and creative thought here, and I'd love Next Gen to be the pebble in the pond that causes people to get out and be excited about building a community." V 

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