The recent devastating and immense wildfires in Southern California that destroyed tens of thousands of structures inspire much sympathy and sadness among observers. Soon, thoughts will turn to rebuilding the burned-out homes, businesses and public buildings....
Big Topics & Big Ideas
Watch on video Some members of the Winnipeg City Council are determined to continue their reckless war on natural gas in buildings in Canada’s coldest city. The latest move occurred at City Council when the City’s Standing Policy Committee on Water, Waste and...
Manitoba residents recently demonstrated the power of grassroots activism when they packed a public hearing in response to what some believe is a plan to implement 15-minute cities in Winnipeg and surrounding communities. The turnout was so overwhelming that...
A Snapshot of Property Rights Protection in Canada After 10 years
The writ has been dropped and Albertans are off to the polls on May 29. That leaves just four weeks for political leaders and voters to sort out what is arguably the most divisive, yet significant, issue for this election - health care. On Day 2, NDP leader Rachel...
What a difference the remote work revolution has made. The University of Minnesota Accessibility Observation auto and transit access data for 2021 (the latest) indicates a huge improvement in 30-minute job access for the average resident of 50 metropolitan areas that...
Big Topics & Big Ideas
Big Topics & Big Ideas
The rupture of Calgary’s biggest water main revealed more than the problems of aging infrastructure. It showed a civic bureaucracy unable to provide basic services or fix things when they break, and a mayor eager to blame others and scold citizens for their selfishness in wanting city services in return for their tax dollars. Above all, it laid bare the increasing tendency of governments to neglect their core responsibilities in favour of social policy fetishes, and to sidestep accountability when things go wrong. Clear, competent, mission-focused public servants are a vanishing breed, writes George Koch, and governing a city is now mainly about keeping city workers, senior officials and elected politicians happy.
The provincial election is the perfect opportunity to lay down the gauntlet against the green extremists’ unjustified war on natural gas furnaces and stoves that is slowly creeping up on us. The City of Nanaimo - yet another British Columbia municipality – just passed...
This article entitled People in Toronto won't stop working from home and it's impacting the city paints a relatively negative picture about downtown prospects - noting that Toronto office vacancy rates have just hit their highest level since 1995. Looks like the...
One of the arguments against single-family zoning is that separating housing from other uses forces people to drive to shops, work, and other destinations. Urban planners want to redesign cities so that people can walk to most of those destinations. They even have a...
Downtown Calgary is a big deal (see photo below and photos following the text). Traditional American and Canadian downtown areas (central business districts or CBDs) are a holdover from the pre-auto era. Their geographical limits were largely set by the early Great...
The demand currently on the lips of youthful mobs and their academic enablers is “Defund the Police”, a catchy phrase that encapsulates both the innocence and ignorance of the young and the sinister intent of those who will use any crisis to bring down capitalism and...