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CURRENT ISSUE VOLUME 19 NO. 3 MAY/JUNE 2008
 Fixing the City of Broken Dreams
Halifax powerbrokers determined to change municipal agenda, halt urban decay
By Eleanor Beaton
Last March, a few weeks after returning to Halifax following 10 years on the West Coast, Barb Stegemann realized she'd come home to a "changed city". As she wandered along Spring Garden Road or Barrington Street, she says the signs of urban decay were unmistakable. Homelessness, commercial vacancies and graffiti were widespread, there were frequent reports of violent crime in the city's downtown and the prevalence of bullying in city schools was alarming. But what really got her, she says, was that no one seemed to be taking any responsibility for it.
"I saw so many leaders going around and asking, 'where's the leadership?'" For Stegemann, who had built an award-winning business in British Columbia designing campaigns to reverse urban decay in Port Coquitlam and parts of Vancouver, the latter signaled a disengaged citizenry with a serious case of the "messiah complex". "We're a culture that expects a leader to come and tell us what to do."
With her unique brand of dizzying alacrity, Stegemann (whose day job sees her working as communications manager with a prominent Halifax organization) started calling on friends and colleagues, many of them Halifax's business elite. She urged them to check out the website of the Non-Partisan Association, a civic engagement society she had volunteered with in Vancouver, and pitched the idea of starting a similar citizens' group in Halifax that would nurture leaders from within its ranks. A few months later, the Citizens for Halifax Society (CFH) was born.
The above excerpt was taken from the most recent issue of Atlantic Business Magazine. Our complete editorial content is available in print form only. To receive a free subscription to Atlantic Business Magazine,
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