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
Canadians are fleeing overpriced cities to find more affordable housing. And restrictive urban planning policies are to blame. Canadians may be solving the housing crisis on their own by moving away from more expensive areas to areas where housing is much more...
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...
Big Topics & Big Ideas
The RTD ship is sinking and Colorado legislators want to fix it by rearranging the deck chairs. According to U.S. Department of Transportation data, RTD carried less than 64 percent as many riders in May 2024 as in May 2019, well below the 77 percent average for...
Big Topics & Big Ideas
Calgary Transit is mired in the past, building an obsolete transit system designed for an archaic view of a city. Before the pandemic, transit carried 45 percent of downtown Calgary employees to work, but less than 10 percent of workers in the rest of the Calgary...
Attempts to contain ‘urban sprawl’ have driven land prices sky-high. It’s time to abandon densification strategies.
The latest urban planning fad to sweep across Canada is the 15-minute city, which proposes to redesign cities so that all urban residents live within an easy, 15-minute walk of schools, retailers, restaurants, entertainment, and other essentials of modern life. This...
Big Topics & Big Ideas
Canada’s first subway line, which opened in Toronto in 1954, was 7.4 kilometers long and cost $6.8 million per kilometer—$76 million per kilometer in today’s money. That seems a bargain compared to a subway line Toronto is now constructing at a projected cost of well...
Policy Series 241