cities
New Sustainable Cities Research Program – New Job, Exciting Prospects
Vancouver-based NGO Sustainable Cities International is an excellent outfit that runs a network of cities focused on green urbanism that spans the globe. The research that I’ve been able to…
Montreal’s Collective Push for Urban Agriculture
We are all still trying to figure out what a sustainable city is. Yes, we’ve got some good ideas. But to go beyond marginal changes and begin retrofitting, or building,…
Is Toronto Lost?
Has Toronto lost its way? That's been the word on the street, and pretty much everywhere else, since Mayor Ford took office a little less than a year ago.But as…
The Privatization of Social Housing
Last weekend, I spoke on a panel at the Annual Conference of the Ontario Non-Profit Housing Association. The panel was inspired in large part by the recent debate in Toronto…
Open Access Research: Cities and Climate Change
It may be an urban legend, by they say that the average academic article is read by a grand total of 6 people. That's not an inspiring thought, especially for…
Cities—the provincial option
The possibility of Toronto becoming a province has popped up in the news again. The idea has floated around for years, supported by a variety of civic thinkers including the…
Letter to Toronto City Councillor, Mary-Margaret McMahon (Ward 32)
Dear Councillor McMahon,I am a resident of Ward 32, and am writing to express my concerns regarding the service-cutting fiscal plan proposed by Mayor Rob Ford. As I am sure…
EcoCity 2011 – Networked Urban Sustainability: Breaking the Integration Barrier
September hit with the usually flurry of activity, which means that I'm only now putting up this version of one of the two talks that I gave at the 2011…
The Economy: Stealing The Future, Selling it In The Present, and Calling It GDP
In this TED talk from last month, futurist Alex Steffen shares a vision of the way our cities offer the key to addressing climate change. Cities, Steffen says, can help…
Tax value
This piece in the Globe today by a Toronto architect, Jack Diamond is worth a read because it's the kind of case that's not often made these days for what's…
On the Green Party platform.
Finally -- for now, at least, until the Tories and NDP release the rest of their platforms, and the Libs release anything at all -- I'm going to take a…
On the Ontario PCs’ platform
So, here we go with the Ontario PC Platform, the Changebook (warning: PDF). Or is that the Change Book? ChangeBook? I don't know, and I don't think they do, either.According...
On the Ontario PCs’ platform.
So, here we go with the Ontario PC Platform, the Changebook. Or is that the Change Book? ChangeBook? I don't know, and I don't think they do, either.According to this,…
Montreal discovers it’s not easy going green: New Economist Green Cities Index
An article that I wrote on the new Green Cities Index (.pdf) released last week by yhe Economist Intelligence Unit is out in today's Montreal Gazette. It was an interesting…
Kunstler on The City of the Future and "Yesterday’s Tomorrows"
I'm no apocalypse junkie; visions of the end of days don't do much for me. But I am going to recommend James Kunstler's most recent article anyway. Kunstler is a…
Solar Map of New York City
New York City's new Solar Map has gone live, and it's a beauty. With a googlemap style interface, you can zoom into any building in the greater NYC area. Click…
How Rob Ford Can Fix Social Housing
I have an opinion piece in today’s Toronto Star regarding Toronto’s Mayor, Rob Ford, and the Toronto Community Housing Corporation (TCHC). Mr. Ford would like to see a considerable number…
Municipalities, Procurement and Canada-EU Trade
There is an excellent post by Scott Sinclair at the CCPA blog.
Post C40 Summit Cities Need to "Go Big or Go Home" on Climate Policy
[I've got a new piece running over at The Mark News. The latest Clinton C40 urban climate summit just wrapped up in Brazil, and as always there's been a flood…