OPINION: In a new year, remember change is possible

It’s 2024! We begin each new year with rituals of renewal, welcoming January with the mindset of inspiration and intention. And there is no place in Anchorage quite as inspiring as the Linny Pacillo Parking Garage. Yes, really.

The story of the Parking Fairies themselves, recently retold by historian David Reamer and colorfully documented in stained glass on the building’s southwest corner, illustrates how community activism with a bit of whimsy can be very effective. But insight can also be found at a humble ticket payment machine on the ground floor, right across from the Atwood Building. Last time I visited, the machine was stuck mid-payment and had a makeshift “Out of Order” sign taped on the screen — but its message of hope peeked out below:

Change is possible.

Of course, this is good news for anyone paying with cash. But I like to imagine an optimistic spirit inhabits this parking facility, manifesting wisdom in small places. This three-word adage should serve as our mindset of intention for Anchorage in 2024: that we can do things differently, we can improve our situation, that how things are now is not inevitable or immovable. A better Anchorage, achieved through changes we make together, is possible.

Perhaps this phrase just states the obvious: Change can be good and bad, but it happens nonetheless. Anchorage has seen more than a century of rapid change, with plenty of growing pains, from prosperous years to lean times, building booms to market crashes, patterns of outward expansion and slow disinvestment in the urban core. We watch businesses and political leaders come and go. And yet, perhaps more than ever before, our community’s culture has become change-averse. Many of our neighbors seem to react to “something new” as “something worse.”

Naturally, we lament when beloved stores close and traditions end. But is the colorful new facade on 5th Avenue, on a building that looked tired and gray before being damaged in the 2018 earthquake, really a negative addition to Downtown? Should zoning code changes to bring more new buildings to neighborhoods, and with it new neighbors — not to mention, more economic opportunities for builders, workers, and homeowners! — be feared, rather than welcomed? When we focus on a past that we can’t hold onto, and don’t believe in a brighter future, change becomes a dark cloud, not a path lit with opportunity.

This year will bring more big changes to Anchorage. Part of our future hinges on the outcome of our mayoral and school board elections — but not all of it. Our trajectory as a community also depends on our mindset, our intention to embrace changes we can control, with the goal of making our city work better, with a higher quality of life for people who choose to live here. With a can-do mindset, we can build the collective will to make it happen. How? A few examples:

We can change policy. The Assembly’s Housing Action Plan is full of good, practical efforts make to encourage more housing, from a homeowner building an accessory dwelling unit, or ADU, to residential zoning reform, to more fairly sharing the cost of public infrastructure required to revitalize aging properties. We’ve already made positive changes, like making it easier to build triplexes and four-plexes; we need to do much more in 2024.

We can improve how we do things. Anyone who has endured our lengthy, inefficient permitting and development review system in the last 20-plus years knows it needs to be fixed. Other processes we can change, if we try: prioritizing community input on infrastructure and park projects, accessing public records, applying for and awarding grants, increasing participation in community councils and other civic life.

And we can work to welcome new people, places and ideas to our community. Check out and support new businesses. Learn and celebrate more traditions at our many cultural festivals and events. Embrace changes to our built environment that happen over time, from new residential development to renovated storefronts to streets where drivers, bikers, and walkers can safely share space. A community thrives by evolving and renewing itself. We can start right now by believing in our own agency, the power to make it happen.

Change is possible.

Anna Brawley is a member of the Anchorage Assembly serving District 3, West Anchorage.

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