• MILLER: What kind of city do you want? [ National Post ]
• Miller ally wavering on tax plan [ Toronto Star ]
• Same fight for Toronto, Calgary [ Toronto Star ]
• Right-leaning councillors launch vote-tracking site [ Globe and Mail ]
• HUME: Mississauga’s ‘downtown’ needs a slowdown [ Toronto Star ]
• The Centre cannot hold… 32-storeys [ Globe and Mail ]
• Your subway for sausages [ National Post ]
• Toronto’s cleanest beach [ Toronto Sun ]
photo of downtown Mississauga by Tory Zimmerman/Toronto Star
6 comments
I like the subtle common thread between today’s news stories. First, we’ve got Miller asking what kind of city we want. Then, sprawly Toronto and sprawlier Calgary facing the same kind of budgeting problems, and sprawliest Missisauga trying to become more than a bedroom community. Finally, the despair of residents in the face of massive developer pressure. It seems that though city planning, or the lack thereof, is a tangiental concern to so much that happens in Canadian cities, rarely does the state of our planning regime itself make the news. If so much that goes on (or goes wrong) in Toronto and elsewhere brings into question the effectiveness of Canadian city planning, why is this subject rarely addressed directly? I’m not optimistic about the ability of the city government to reform the planning regime, but if Torontonians were better-informed about the effects that planning has on the city, they might more effectively mobilize themselves.
One thing I would like to point out, which seems to be true in your city as well is that Calgary has had a very poor infrastructure growth policy.
Back during the 90s, when Oil Prices were quite low and Alberta’s economy in a slump, Calgary did very little investment in infrastructure. At that time, because of lower inflation levels it would have been cheaper to upgrade Calgary’s infrastructure on coming boom. Plus since property taxes are not linked to economic growth, the city would had proportionately more money,. But City Council and the Province did nothing at that time. They knew very well that oil prices were rising and that the city would need more infrastructure soon.
Now as oil prices are starting to skyrocket, the city is trying to play catch up on infrastructure. We are building new freeways in the suburbs, more transit lines for the inner city. But at the end of the day, all of this is costing us much more than it would have during the 90s. Had we build the infrastructure necessary during the 90s; we would not be the same “growth†pressures today.
It really brings up classic Keynes economics; we should spend when the economy is not strong to revitalize the economy. At the same time we should save when the economy is booming for the rainy days.
I’m not deny that the province is clearly favouring the rural areas, well I should say rewarding the rural areas for reaming Tory Blue. It is quite clear when the province cancels funding for the West and SE LRT lines to build new freeways in For Mac. But City Council also has to try to find ways to build infrastructure when the economy is not growing.
~Aman
Sometimes I think you don’t love me anymore.
Don’t take it personally, NOW.
NOW Magazine – some days you’re hard to love, given your prevailing crankiness in the first 20 pages. While you’ve got Dan Savage you’ll always have readers though.
Wow — the unreadable kids blog sticks up for the unreadable angry weekly.
NOW, you crybaby, you are the Sun of the left….i really wish you weren’t.