2 days Ago
Most new years can’t come soon enough. January 1 is a chance to put the old year behind us. To start fresh.
To set new goals and resolutions. And to embrace the future. This year, though, it feels like many are approaching the new year with a bit of trepidation.
Instead of eagerly ushering in 2025, many seem to be holding tight to these last moments of 2024 — even if 2024 wasn’t exactly the year we hoped it would be. This past year has been another difficult year in a string of difficult years. The prices of groceries and other everyday items continued to squeeze consumers (despite a booming U.
S. economy). Devastating wars raged on in Ukraine and the Middle East.
And our fractious political landscape seems to have finally driven a wedge all the way through American society, with the final result being a narrow popular vote victory for a presidential candidate who appears intent on testing the limits of our democracy. On top of all of that, our planet continued to warm at an alarming rate. But such a bleak lens hardly leaves space for all the good that took place, the successes and triumphs and baby steps made in the direction of progress.
So, as we look back upon a year that many wish to just forget, let’s make sure to be measured. Don’t overlook the good, and don’t forget the bad — we need both as we approach 2025. The good we need for hope.
Without a vision for the future, hope becomes impossible. The bad we need for change; without recognizing the faults of our world, we will never rectify them. And this past year has shown us plenty of things worth changing.
Here in Boulder in 2024, we continued to struggle with homelessness — including the recent dismissal of a challenge to our city’s inhumane camping ban . The housing crisis persisted . Policing remained a sensitive topic with the hiring of new Boulder Police Chief Stephen Redfearn over the objections of the local NAACP chapter .
And the consequences of climate change hit close to home again as we all were forced to helplessly watch wildfires rage across the Front Range . In 2025, we hope to see our community approach homelessness with more compassion. Our city and county are making great strides to lift people off the streets.
But we should put an end to the criminalization of sleeping outside with a blanket. It is unnecessarily cruel. Our elected leaders must also continue striving to address our housing shortage, both filling the gap of middle housing for young families to put down roots in Boulder and affordable housing to provide people a foothold here in the first place.
We must also continue striving to engage in constructive dialogues to help our city leaders understand and empathize with citizens so that those in positions of leadership have the support and respect of our community as a whole. The listening necessary must go both ways. And on the climate, we must continue being an innovative community in order to provide other cities a blueprint for how to proactively address climate change — no matter what our federal government is doing.
Beyond Boulder, there will also likely be a fight about the fate of the millions of immigrants living in our country. These individuals will likely be in need of advocates over the coming year — because our country needs them. Immigrants play a vital role in our economy — and in our communities.
They do a vast array of imperative jobs. They are less likely to commit crimes than U.S.
-born citizens. And a crackdown on immigrants could make the U.S.
a less-inviting place for students and academics, meaning we might not just lose low-wage workers but we might also suffer a brain-drain at universities and businesses. Most importantly, they are human beings who deserve dignity and respect. In 2025, Boulder should be prepared to do what it can to show compassion and humanity to its most vulnerable residents.
Let’s not forget 2024’s positives that we should aim to build from: Boulder is a finalist to become the new host of the coveted Sundance Film Festival. Coach Deion Sanders has propelled the Buffaloes to a strong second season and a bowl game, providing both excitement and an economic boon. And across our state, Coloradans showed up at the polls and enshrined abortion access into our Constitution, removed an antiquated same-sex marriage ban, created a tax on firearms for a bevy of vital services, extended a vital TABOR extension for RTD, and struck down a disingenuous school choice measure and a new voting system that could have wrought havoc on our elections.
These successes — small as they may seem when compared to the vitriol and uncertainty emanating from Washington, D.C. — should be celebrated and held up as a reminder of the fact that we can and still do good even when facing an unpredictable world.
They should also help us to remember that the most important thing in 2025 is to not succumb to hopelessness. The apparent direction our country is headed in under the forthcoming stewardship of Donald Trump is likely unnerving to many Boulderites. And the desire to disconnect and retreat from a political reality that is beyond our control may be great.
It is true that staying civically engaged can be emotionally taxing — we are well aware that the news can often read like an avalanche of despair. It can be dispiriting. It can make the world seem bleak and beyond repair.
We cannot blame anyone who wants or needs to consume less news in order to take care of their own mental health. But collectively, we cannot resign ourselves to passivity. Democracy requires engagement and participation.
Whether you agree or disagree with our leaders — locally, at the state level, or nationally — what is important is that we pay attention and we hold them accountable for their actions and we do our part to ensure that the course they are charting is right for us. This requires vigilance. It requires staying in tune with current events.
And it requires facing the discomfort of our current reality. So, while the world awaiting us in 2025 may look scary, let’s do our best to face it with hope. Not blind hope.
But the sort of hope that emanates from our recent successes. Of course, not many societal ills can be cured in 365 days. But the difference between a good year and a bad year is trajectory.
And trajectory is something we can determine. So let’s determine the trajectory of this year. Let’s let our hope guide us to making the changes we want to see.
2025 will be what we make it. Sure, there is plenty beyond our control. But there is so much we can change.
Many of the problems plaguing our community and the individuals therein are rooted in larger societal factors, but that doesn’t mean we can’t do everything in our power to make Boulder — and Colorado and America — a more resilient, equitable, hospitable place. Let’s ring in the New Year by resolving to keep working to better this place we call home. — Gary Garrison for the Editorial Board.
