Guelph is no longer a town---

Downtown Guelph at night. Photo by Andrew Goodwin

I'm researching a series of articles about energy and Guelph, and one of the things that I'm taking away from this is the clash between people who understand that Guelph has to start seeing itself as a city, and others who are nostalgic for the "good old days" of being a small town. In this specific case this has manifested itself in so-called "conservatives" who don't want the city to  concern itself with "big city" ideas like developing a strategic vision for future economic growth and how to position ourselves for the 21rst century. Instead, they just want to get back to small town worries like fixing potholes and keeping taxes under control.

I noticed the same thing about the general citizenry in my housing articles. The vast majority of people I know (at least in my age group---I'm a baby boomer) seem to be deeply offended by and bitterly opposed to any housing that is more than four stories high. They wax nostalgic about life in the countryside and the necessity of every child being able to directly experience nature. To their way of thinking, any child who has to grow up in an urban environment has been subjected to child abuse.

This attitude is already causing big problems, and will only get worse in the immediate future. Cities are not towns or villages. The great benefit of city life is that it brings together a great mass of different folks who energize each other with their different ideas. This has been what attracted people to live in cities from the time of ancient Athens. But there are trade offs. Towns and villages can provide access to the countryside for everyone because they are so low density that land remains cheap enough to squander. But a city cannot be so wasteful, simply because there are too many people competing for the scarce resource called "space". Instead, cities offer something else to their citizens: social interaction.

What do I mean? Well, look at the photo on the top of this missive. It was taken by a fellow named Andrew Goodwin, who is the very gifted artist behind Beautiful Guelph.  He found the Back-Grounder on-line and became a supporter. As part of my promotion, I sent him a copy of my first book Walking the Talk, which he liked so much that he decided to write a story about me for his own upcoming indie media project. He also offered to help me with the design of the blog---some of which he's already done. He also offered me free advice, including a suggestion that I make use of this Patreon feature designed to keep subscribers interested between posts.

Another example is Adam Donaldson's indie media work through Guelph Politico. He has helped me through giving me a couple interviews where he introduced me to his listeners. In exchange, I try to promote the work he does to my readership.

Yet another example is Jeremy Luke Hill who runs the Vocamus Press and the Vocamus Writer's Community. Jeremy is someone I met through the Guelph Time Bank. I had the original manuscript of Walking the Talk, but I didn't have a clue about how to publish it. He turned me onto the Lulu self-publishing system and gave me the background necessary to find Smashwords which both directly publishes my Ebooks and other distributors all over the world. I could also go on about the various sources in the community that help me research my articles, but by now I'm sure most readers will get my point. Writing may be a "lonely pursuit", but publishing requires an entire community.

And that's the good thing about Guelph. We are big enough that we have a very vibrant and exciting cultural scene---which includes an emerging indie media subculture. I love this about Guelph. I grew up in the countryside and in real towns instead of cities. And there was nothing at all like the synergy that happens in the Royal City. That's a wonderful thing not just for adults, but also for children too. I just wish that more baby boomers would understand this point and stop trying to hold up the future by pining for "the good old days" of small town Guelph. I was here for the tail end of that time, and to be totally honest, it really wasn't all that good.

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I've sent out the above "teaser" op-ed ("opinion-editorial") piece because I'm trying to build an audience for the "Back-Grounder", and the professional advice I find all says that to build an audience a blogger has to put out regular posts on a frequent basis. So, I'm going to try to hammer out something like this once a week. (I've written regular columns in newspapers and magazines in the past, so it shouldn't be much of a problem.)

I also want to build a subscription base of paid readers too, which means that I'm going to be working on drawing them to my Patreon page too. The idea is that if you pay a monthly subscription (as low as one dollar a month) you will get these op-eds sent to you through email as they are written. Eventually, the idea is that you will have to buy a subscription in order to receive them.

I had hoped that I wouldn't have to do all this stuff to build a subscription base, but it just doesn't seem that most of my readers want to give me any money to support indie media in Guelph. (I know that I have a lot of readers, because I can track them after I post an article.) What this means is that I'm going to have to laboriously grind away at teasing, cajoling, and, wheedling people into signing up through Patreon. I wish I didn't have to do it, because the time I spend marketing this blog will be time I cannot spend researching and writing my articles.

The problem is, however, that I'm doing all of this with one hand tied behind my back. The vast majority of stuff you read on the Web is designed to get you to support it financially. The editorial decisions are made specifically on the basis of how many "clicks" associated advertisements will come from an article, and, how often you will share a story with friends of social media.

Just to illustrate this point, I recently heard an interview with several journalists on the "cannabis beat" talk about why there was such an avalanche of stories about legalization. They all admitted that it was simply because their editors thought that the stories produced would be shared and generate "clicks". In contrast, Jesse Brown at "Canada Land" just started producing a series of important podcasts about the rash of murders of young First Nation's people in Thunder Bay . Brown has been on the air for months cajoling his listeners to pony up some money in order to pay a reporter to work on this file (yup, I put some money into it myself---a lot of the money I get from subscribers gets recycled this way.) Not a lot of "clicks" in stories about children being murdered and tossed in the river I suppose, so Jesse has to really fight for the resources he needs to cover the news.

Anyway, I loathe having to be so damned pushy about subscribing to this thing. But I know that I'm producing something that is a real service to the community because I get so much verbal support from people who are real experts on the subjects I am covering. I also know that a lot of "progressive" people complained bitterly about the demise of "the Mercury"---but I have yet to see much support from these folks in terms of cold hard cash. How come? Don't they really care about the existence of an independent, object source of information?

Again, I have to acknowledge the support that I am getting from the people who've already subscribed. You are AWESOME! Your money is also moral support for what I do, and it's why I am inspired to continue with the work. I wish I didn't have to constantly whine about finances, but I understand that that is the only way that we can wean readers off the idea that news is, and always should be "free". :-(