As to the first I think problems in this realm, as your guest alluded to, stem from
1) the current highly politicized nature of municipal politics in large and small centres, the politicians creating theatre via performative anger rather than setting clear policy objectives, and
2) failure to empower the people who should be making the common sense day to day decisions without being micromanaged by 18 layers of managers, each of whom will potentially vary in their opinion/interpretation, have to exhibit their superior intelligence through obscure interpretation, have rarely had front line community engagement experience and who are scared shitless of making the "wrong" decision and impeding their career advancement.
None of this bodes well for creating an engaging community.
Nice episode, both segments. I'm not a historian, but I think you misspoke when you said that Bishop shot down the Red Baron. Billy Bishop didn't shoot down the Richthofen. Although two Canadian pilots were involved in the Baron's demise ("Wop" May and "Roy" Brown), it is disputed who actually brought him down. The RAF credited Brown, but ground fire may have been the cause.
Civic politics end up distorted because of the apathy of the voting public. Turnout for municipal elections is usually dismal; the attendance at things like city council meetings even worse. This allows the process to be hijacked by small groups of highly motivated people who turn out to push their agendas while everybody else generally leads fulfilling lives that don't involve the tedium of attending council meetings.
This problem cascades through civil society where we've simply abdicated a lot of the grassroots activity that used to make communities work. There used to be more of a sense of duty in volunteering for community associations, whether it was something like the Rotary Club, the parent-teacher association, or your church. My grandfather was chairman of his city school board for over a decade - it wasn't a paid position at that time, and it was another job on top of the business he was running. He did it because he felt education was important. That was on top of being involved with the Shriners and the Legion. I'm a slacker - I've gotten dragged kicking and screaming onto a church council; I volunteer occasionally for my kids' activities, but I'm not a leader or even a particularly dutiful volunteer.
I'm guessing if somebody poked at the community associations that appear to be a nexus of NIMBY activity in Toronto, they'd probably find that they're the equivalent of a couple of neighborhood cranks and some raccoons in a trenchcoat. They've got control of the association and the influence that comes with it because they showed up. The influence is a legacy from a time when the association was more of an active embodiment of the community. It's probably time to stop pretending that such groups are actually representative of the public, and cultivate alternative ways of getting public engagement.
I enjoyed the deep dive into municipal politics, whose themes are universal even if the details vary. In my tourist town it’s a bit more idiosyncratic in that there is seemingly a constant tug of war between the environmentalists and the developers. I often feel that as we focus our attention on elk migration vs. big $$$ we leave out the human experience. Wherever we live, human beings want to feel like they have access to what we need, and that we belong.
I listened to a podcast where, around the 39-minute mark, Dan Seljak claimed it costs more to deliver services to rural and suburban areas. I think that’s a myth pushed by city staff to justify providing lower service standards in those areas. The idea that rural residents pay less in taxes is also false—the rate is based on property value, and there are more million-dollar homes in rural areas than in older parts of the city. Rural communities get volunteer firefighters, lower-tier snow removal, less police presence, slower street repairs, and rely on wells and septic systems instead of city infrastructure, which makes the “too expensive” argument pointless.
If it truly cost so much, why are smaller municipalities thriving? Outside of the GTA, Hamilton, Ottawa, and other big cities, surrounding communities deliver services well without issue?
Taxes aren’t lower, but the streets are cleaner, homelessness is less visible, there’s less open drug use, no one is sleeping on the streets, and people are moving there. To me, that makes his “big city” narrative nothing but propaganda—he’s spent too much time drinking from the City Hall water fountain.
The infographic in the first link is completely misrepresenting the data it comes from fwiw. The missing piece is the study assumes *less people* in the urban home, a little more than half as many. Many of the costs shown there (like police iirc) aren’t even modelled as depending on density, just the number of people.
There’s some differential left once you adjust, but it really doesn’t make me personally confident how many claims about the cost savings of density are using nonsense stats.
I live in Saskatoon about a five minute walk from the Wellness Centre run by the Saskatoon Tribal Council. This is the only one but it's overcrowded because NIMBY runs rampant so much so that when they tried to open a second one, across the city, residents lobbied to ensure a bylaw was passed to ensure a second one was not built.
It frustrates me that people complain constantly about homeless people but don't want to shell out to work on the problem. I'm a conservative, but on the side of a Red Tory, because I understand it's cheaper to fix the homeless issue than it is to bandaid it.
All this to say, I liked what your guest had to say about smaller, better supported wellness centres as they are the right thing to do.
My family lived in Dauphin, MB for 6 years. And I attended a junior high school named in Barker's honour. Neat to hear both the place and the person in the podcast.
It takes Balkan levels of absurd irony to have a guy named Seljak to be one of Toronto's most prominent urban advocates, but here we are. (Seljak literally means villager in the Slavic world)
Micallef and Bozicovic also being prominent advocates isn't a coincidence btw, their people come from places that have IMHO figured out zoning and urbanism way better than most places around the world.
My point is that Canada could learn a lot from Malta and Central Europe on how inclusive, family friendly and functional communities that are affordable can work.
Great segments, appreciate them.
As to the first I think problems in this realm, as your guest alluded to, stem from
1) the current highly politicized nature of municipal politics in large and small centres, the politicians creating theatre via performative anger rather than setting clear policy objectives, and
2) failure to empower the people who should be making the common sense day to day decisions without being micromanaged by 18 layers of managers, each of whom will potentially vary in their opinion/interpretation, have to exhibit their superior intelligence through obscure interpretation, have rarely had front line community engagement experience and who are scared shitless of making the "wrong" decision and impeding their career advancement.
None of this bodes well for creating an engaging community.
Nice episode, both segments. I'm not a historian, but I think you misspoke when you said that Bishop shot down the Red Baron. Billy Bishop didn't shoot down the Richthofen. Although two Canadian pilots were involved in the Baron's demise ("Wop" May and "Roy" Brown), it is disputed who actually brought him down. The RAF credited Brown, but ground fire may have been the cause.
Yes, it’s disputed as to whether von Richthoffen was shot down by Brown or by an Australian Army machine gun crew on the ground.
Civic politics end up distorted because of the apathy of the voting public. Turnout for municipal elections is usually dismal; the attendance at things like city council meetings even worse. This allows the process to be hijacked by small groups of highly motivated people who turn out to push their agendas while everybody else generally leads fulfilling lives that don't involve the tedium of attending council meetings.
This problem cascades through civil society where we've simply abdicated a lot of the grassroots activity that used to make communities work. There used to be more of a sense of duty in volunteering for community associations, whether it was something like the Rotary Club, the parent-teacher association, or your church. My grandfather was chairman of his city school board for over a decade - it wasn't a paid position at that time, and it was another job on top of the business he was running. He did it because he felt education was important. That was on top of being involved with the Shriners and the Legion. I'm a slacker - I've gotten dragged kicking and screaming onto a church council; I volunteer occasionally for my kids' activities, but I'm not a leader or even a particularly dutiful volunteer.
I'm guessing if somebody poked at the community associations that appear to be a nexus of NIMBY activity in Toronto, they'd probably find that they're the equivalent of a couple of neighborhood cranks and some raccoons in a trenchcoat. They've got control of the association and the influence that comes with it because they showed up. The influence is a legacy from a time when the association was more of an active embodiment of the community. It's probably time to stop pretending that such groups are actually representative of the public, and cultivate alternative ways of getting public engagement.
that was a good exchange. It sounds frustratingly similar to whats going on where I live as well.
I enjoyed the deep dive into municipal politics, whose themes are universal even if the details vary. In my tourist town it’s a bit more idiosyncratic in that there is seemingly a constant tug of war between the environmentalists and the developers. I often feel that as we focus our attention on elk migration vs. big $$$ we leave out the human experience. Wherever we live, human beings want to feel like they have access to what we need, and that we belong.
I listened to a podcast where, around the 39-minute mark, Dan Seljak claimed it costs more to deliver services to rural and suburban areas. I think that’s a myth pushed by city staff to justify providing lower service standards in those areas. The idea that rural residents pay less in taxes is also false—the rate is based on property value, and there are more million-dollar homes in rural areas than in older parts of the city. Rural communities get volunteer firefighters, lower-tier snow removal, less police presence, slower street repairs, and rely on wells and septic systems instead of city infrastructure, which makes the “too expensive” argument pointless.
If it truly cost so much, why are smaller municipalities thriving? Outside of the GTA, Hamilton, Ottawa, and other big cities, surrounding communities deliver services well without issue?
Taxes aren’t lower, but the streets are cleaner, homelessness is less visible, there’s less open drug use, no one is sleeping on the streets, and people are moving there. To me, that makes his “big city” narrative nothing but propaganda—he’s spent too much time drinking from the City Hall water fountain.
My understanding is that the cost of linear infrastructure, like roads and water/sewer pipes, is proportional to distance. https://usa.streetsblog.org/2015/03/05/sprawl-costs-the-public-more-than-twice-as-much-as-compact-development
A recent news story from Penticton, regarding a private water system: https://old.reddit.com/r/britishcolumbia/comments/1n4vsi8/these_rural_bc_residents_may_have_to_pay_a_1000_a/nbp22z0/
The infographic in the first link is completely misrepresenting the data it comes from fwiw. The missing piece is the study assumes *less people* in the urban home, a little more than half as many. Many of the costs shown there (like police iirc) aren’t even modelled as depending on density, just the number of people.
There’s some differential left once you adjust, but it really doesn’t make me personally confident how many claims about the cost savings of density are using nonsense stats.
I live in Saskatoon about a five minute walk from the Wellness Centre run by the Saskatoon Tribal Council. This is the only one but it's overcrowded because NIMBY runs rampant so much so that when they tried to open a second one, across the city, residents lobbied to ensure a bylaw was passed to ensure a second one was not built.
It frustrates me that people complain constantly about homeless people but don't want to shell out to work on the problem. I'm a conservative, but on the side of a Red Tory, because I understand it's cheaper to fix the homeless issue than it is to bandaid it.
All this to say, I liked what your guest had to say about smaller, better supported wellness centres as they are the right thing to do.
My family lived in Dauphin, MB for 6 years. And I attended a junior high school named in Barker's honour. Neat to hear both the place and the person in the podcast.
It takes Balkan levels of absurd irony to have a guy named Seljak to be one of Toronto's most prominent urban advocates, but here we are. (Seljak literally means villager in the Slavic world)
Micallef and Bozicovic also being prominent advocates isn't a coincidence btw, their people come from places that have IMHO figured out zoning and urbanism way better than most places around the world.
My point is that Canada could learn a lot from Malta and Central Europe on how inclusive, family friendly and functional communities that are affordable can work.
Halifax remembers, I think your right it was the weather.