The sky is blue.
It’s warm out, for September; just t-shirt weather, as you lock your apartment door and walk down the stairs one story to street level. The street is already busy: the shops all along the street opened early and the crowds are out to take full advantage of the beautiful day.
You stop in at the market on the corner to get a sandwich for lunch before you get to the streetcar stop. Your commute isn’t far - Cornwall has grown, but not outwards - but the streetcar is comfortable and will get you right across the city in less than 30 minutes.
Looking at the city as it passes by, you try to remember what Cornwall used to look like: smaller streets, and only a handful of buildings over five stories. Those days are behind you, now. Cornwall has dozens of apartment and office buildings now, all mixed-use, each its own little community that connects with all of the other little communities springing up nearby.
The businesses that dominate the downtown are all home-grown: from Fantasy Realm to Schnitzel’s, restaurants and services and even some street vendors thrive amongst the crowds. The downtown core that inspired your own neighbourhood’s love of buildings with apartments on top of shops still shines, refurbished every few years but a tourism favourite even in mid-September. People are already sitting at some of the broad patios and sipping at coffees.
Not everyone is happy, of course, even on a day as beautiful as this. There’s no city in the world where everyone is happy. But even people who want change have a voice in Cornwall, be it through direct action at city hall or one of the many community associations operating throughout the city, enabled and encouraged by the city to make changes that matter to their homes.
E-bikes and hard-pedalled bicycles zip past in their protected lanes, in some places busier than the cars around them. It’s a bit too hot for you, but maybe on the way home from work you’ll get a bike from one of the city stations and ride it home instead of getting another streetcar - always good to get the blood flowing before dinner, right?
Your stop is announced and you ring the bell, waiting for the wheelchair ahead of you to get off before you step onto the wide sidewalk near your office. You hoist your bag over your shoulder and step into the cool air of the air-conditioned building, ready for another day.
This is, to me, the Cornwall of fifty years from now - the Cornwall we’ve grown and built and nurtured together from the great city we have now to the incredible metropolis it could and will be. This is the city and the future I want to fall in love with, and I’d like you to fall in love with it too.
Talk to me about what your Cornwall 2076 looks like: what does the city look like? What has gotten better? What has gone away? What would you miss if it was gone?
Email me at dan@danbeaudoin.ca, message me here on the site, or come tell me any time you see me at an event or at your door over the next two months. Cornwall 2076 isn’t a city that should only come from my head (or my heart), so lend me yours and let’s make it together.