It’s no secret we live in a technologically advanced, rapidly changing time. Your Ryan Gosling with cats for arms Tumblr page probably says as much. But it’s nice to know that the forward thinkers at the city aren’t afraid of some good old-fashioned, Luddite-friendly legwork to get its message out — even when it’s to inform residents that they should evolve, lose their dorsal fins and take a dip in the Jacuzzi of modernity to make their life easier, simpler and way more exciting.
At least that’s the message we took from a poster that was unsophisticatedly fastened to our doorway recently. The notice, plastered up and down our street, informed residents that they could now purchase their residential parking permits online, complete with a photo of a smart-looking young woman in casual business attire sitting cross-legged in front of her MacBook Pro and raising her arms in the air like she had just won a internship position at Hootsuite.
We found this interesting for a number of reasons. First of all, we’ve noticed that most of the residential parking in front of our house is usually completely filled by 9 every morning by people who don’t seem to live on our street yet park their cars there, with a proper parking permit we might add, before they walk to work at city hall, which is a block away. Hmmm.
The other thing that struck us about the poster was the section that read: “The City of Vancouver is improving the way it delivers services to residents.” The irony of using a poster to inform residents that the city is improving the way it delivers things is somehow outmatched when said poster is crudely affixed to the doorway by two stubby strips of masking tape.
Is Scotch Tape too transparent for city hall and not part of its Greenest City 2020 Action Plan? Do thumbtacks pose too much of a danger to pets and errant waterfowl? Was Coun. Tim Stevenson’s paper route cancelled and he needed a part-time summer job? Is masking tape meant to be some sort of hipster throwback to the ’80s, like fluorescent-coloured clothing, cut-off shorts and ghetto blasters — sorry, economically diverse neighbourhood blasters?
We have no idea. But we’re sure once we email the city our queries they’ll get back to us as efficiently and sophisticatedly as possible. They might even use a fax machine.
