I take it as a given that cities need healthy economies if they are to thrive as vibrant, creative places. And I wonder what’s wrong with the established business interests in Victoria, whether in traditional commerce, or in our growing high tech sector, or even in tourism. Here’s the problem: we have a municipal election […]
Christopher Hume takes aim at sclerotic Toronto, but his critique could apply to quite a few Canadian cities, including (much-smaller) Victoria. See his Aug. 1 Toronto Star article, The future out of reach for city fearful of change. Toward the end, he writes: City hall’s resistance to change has been noticed by many observers who […]
The Vancouver Sun published two articles, nearly back-to-back, which make a lot of sense when read in conjunction: on March 22, we read Bob Ransford’s As cities become more complex, our taxes keep rising and on March 24 we read Milo Cernetig’s Approach to social woes a moral failure by all three main B.C. parties. […]
It’s up — my second article is up on the Vibrant Victoria website. It’s called Victoria’s Choice: to be or not to be …is not the question. While it’s about the problem of municipal infrastructure funding in Canada generally, I try to address specifically the situation in Victoria. That is, Victoria’s choice not “to be […]
A big thanks to Anna Fahey at the Sightline Institute for posting this entry, A Green Wave Shall Lift All Boats, about Van Jones. I confess that I hadn’t heard of Jones before, nor have I had enough time to explore his website and agenda with the full attention they deserve. But I think it’s […]
Another Toronto Star article on Toronto specifically, but Canadian cities generally, written by Royson James: Conservatives have written Toronto off Annotated James’s article relates to one from the previous day by Jim Coyle, If Tories not for cities now, when? (also Toronto Sun), which I blogged about here. Echoing Coyle’s theme (and also Christopher Hume’s […]
If the “continuing saga” were a question, the answer might be “badly.” Or: “poorly,” literally. The Toronto Star‘s Jim Coyle has a great column, which asks this question: If Tories not for cities now, when? He leads us into the problem with Rabbi Hillel’s three questions, as used by Bob Rae, a Liberal politician at […]
Take a look at this article from CEOs for Cities: Artscape Helps Broker Triple-Win Deal in Queen West Triangle for the low-down on a fascinating & essential new project in Toronto. What Toronto will do is provide space for artists — precisely the kind of people who provide the “infrastructure” that innovative, creative cities need, […]
Not all of the Urban Land Institute‘s annual conference presentations are being webcast, but several key ones are, and furthermore they’re supposed to be archived for later viewing, too. Surf over to this site and follow the links: ULI – the Urban Land Institute | 2007 ULI Fall Meeting I listened to a fantastic presentation […]