Hi there, it’s nice to meet you!
We’re Lisa Hrabluk, Gina Miller and Paul Davis, three good friends and co-founders of Sidewalks, a new digital publication about how we pull ourselves together so that we can stave off the forces that push us apart.
We start by focusing on the people in our neighborhoods, about what is happening on the ground and in our communities.
Those problems, regardless of the locale they're in, whether it's Saint John or Sudbury, Halifax or Haida Gwaii, are commonly the result of larger forces and what pours down to us at the end of the pipeline can be traced back to its source.
We’re interested in the trickle-down effects of larger changes and the disruptions that they cause, and in how our communities are responding and adapting to or pushing back and challenging those changes.
We’re not interested in taking sides; we're really interested in every side of the argument.
The three of us have been talking about Side Walks for close to a year, but it just so happens that we decide to launch the first week of February right when the biggest, most disruptive force has just landed, courtesy of our neighbours to the south.
Lisa and Gina are the journalists. They met at the New Brunswick Telegraph Journal, and while the three of us are based in southern New Brunswick, we want Side Walks to be a national publication telling the story of Canada, town by town.
Lisa is originally from Mississauga but has spent the bulk of her career in the Maritimes. Gina is from New Brunswick but spent the bulk of her career in Hong Kong. Paul is the most travelled of all of us. He’s originally from the U.K., spent 20 years in Hong Kong and is now here in New Brunswick. He’s spent his career working on the business side of the media industry and will oversee Side Walks’ business plan and revenue-generating activities.
Tackling national issues at the local level
On the content side, there’s no shortage of challenges to consider.
Certainly health care and trade are incredibly important, but we've also got cost of living issues, housing shortages, immigration and Canada’s changing demographics.
We've got natural resource allocations and access and access to clean water, and then the big one, climate change.
Now, because these are big problems, people have spent time and effort looking at these issues and thinking about them. The result is polarization and entrenchment of positions, emotionally entrenched about how they feel about these things.
That means getting people with different viewpoints to reach a consensus on any of these wicked problems is incredibly challenging.
Side Walks wants to help find a way forward together and lower the temperature around some of these topics by focusing on local problem-solving because it is here, in our communities, where we believe we can develop and scale solutions.
It’s easier to find common ground with the neighbour you know rather than the semi-stranger on social media.
Breaking down barriers at the local level, in real life, can be how we make headway on bigger provincial, national or global issues.
These are the stories we want to tell.
Why? Because innovation doesn’t happen in the centre, it happens on the fringe.
What you’ll get when you subscribe to Side Walks
Please subscribe to Side Walks on Substack. You can subscribe for free and check us out. The free subscription will give you access to a post per week.
Paid subscribers, $8/month or $80/year, will get access to everything we produce – which will include writing, podcasting, video, and live-streamed events.
You’ll also access our online community, where you can come chat with us and others who share our faith and hope in the power of local communities to drive positive change here at home and around the world.
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