Attempts to contain ‘urban sprawl’ have driven land prices sky-high. It’s time to abandon densification strategies.
Urbanization
The 15-Minute City: An Extraordinarily Bad Idea
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...
Frontier Live on X – Is Our Transit System Really Serving You? – With Randal O’Toole
Big Topics & Big Ideas
Reinventing Transit for the 21st Century
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...
Featured News
There’s Nothing Fair About Canadian Health Care
For the past 14 years, Vancouver surgeon Dr. Brian Day has led the charge for health-care reform, pushing for the right of patients to pay for private care if their health and well-being are threatened as a result of waiting in a stagnant and overburdened public...
Transformers: More than Meets the Eye
The path to net zero, based on the much disputed belief that carbon dioxide is a pollution, is more steep and impractical than most people realize. Replacing fossil fuels with clean electricity will require much more power generation and a greatly upgraded grid to...
The Death Of The Great American City
The flight of office workers to the hinterlands will have profound effects on society.
Improving Transportation Access and the Economy in Winnipeg
The debate continues about the Route 90 expansion (Kenaston Boulevard) and whether it is a good investment for Winnipeg. Some arguments have been tabled to the extent that there is no use in expanding highways, or that transit would be better, or that nothing should...
Downside of Calgary Downtown Residential Conversions?
The Calgary Herald reports that some office tenants are being forced out of their buildings in the city of Calgary’s program to convert office buildings to residential uses. We had covered this program recently, noting that “that the City has adopted an aggressive...
Leaders on the Frontier: Debunking Myths about Urban Sprawl with Randal O’Toole
David Leis' guest here, Randal O'Toole has dedicated decades of research and analysis to policies that help citizens live and thrive rather than be held hostage to the demands of green belts and bureaucratic restrictions. In this conversation he debunks myths about...
Playgrounds for Elites
The revival of America’s core cities is one of the most celebrated narratives of our time—yet, perhaps paradoxically, urban progress has also created a growing problem of increasing inequality and middle-class flight. Once exemplars of middle-class advancement, most...
The World’s Ten Largest Megacities
Originally published for The Huffington Post. The world is rapidly becoming urban. More than half the world’s 7-plus billion people live in urban areas (urban cores, suburbs and small towns). Nearly a quarter of the population lives in “cities” of a million or more....
Urbanization and the Good News About World Poverty
Originally printed in the Huffington Post. The history of humanity is a history of poverty. This is illustrated in the work of University of California, Davis economist Gregory Clark. According to Clark (Farewell to Alms: A Brief Economic History of the World):...
Mid-Sized Cities Can Attract Tourists by Being Themselves
People flock to major cities to take advantage of unique experiences. In theory, most of the types of activities tourists seek out can be replicated most anywhere, but people are willing to pay a large premium and go out of their way to see a show on Broadway, or eat...
Craft Beer: A Tool for Urban Revitalization?
Most people don’t think of breweries as tools for economic development. In fact, the default assumption among politicians seems to be that alcohol is an unavoidable evil. However, the growth of the craft brewing industry has been a major boon to urban revitalization...