A guy whose age (38), religion (Ismaili Muslim), ethnicity (Indian by way of Tanzania) and local origin (Calgary’s hardscrabble, polyglot northeast quadrant) were all without precedent in the mayor’s chair. A guy who was admittedly “within spitting distance of zero” in the polls when the race began.
Outside Calgary, along with talk of his skilled use of digital channels such as Facebook and Twitter, there has been particular emphasis on his Harvard degree and his Muslim faith, almost as if he were a precocious and extremely high-profile minority hire. Among the electorate itself, these details were incidental.
The real key to the Nenshi phenomenon is that he electrified the city with a new vision of itself. Mr. Nenshi won not on image or spin but on big ideas and a road map dense with details on how to make them manifest. Cities – great cities, anyway – are products of the stories they tell themselves about what they are and what it is possible for them to become.
via Cowtown no more: Why Calgary chose Naheed Nenshi – The Globe and Mail.
Ismailimail 