Planning Pool

The Neptis Foundation study learned that 80 per cent of Calgary's growth in the 1990s had occurred through greenfield development. Yikes! Thanks to Michael Soron on Flickr for the stunning Creative Commons aerial photo.

It’s been almost two years since I transplanted myself from Ontario to British Columbia, and I continue to be fascinated by the differences in attitude and political will around planning issues in the two provinces. I recently stumbled across an interesting study by the Neptis Foundation that compared recent growth patterns of three Canadian metropolitan regions: Calgary, Toronto, and Vancouver.

It’s a thought-provoking study, if not altogether surprising. It’s no secret that Vancouver is reputed as a model of sustainable development and good planning while … Continue Reading

Millions of dollars are collaboratively allocated each year according to the priorities of residents in Toronto’s public housing units. This participatory budgeting process was invented 20 years ago in Porto Alegre, Brazil, and is now transforming budgeting processes in cities around the world.

The Canadian Conference on Dialogue and Deliberation presented a panel on Toronto Community Housing’s experience with participatory budgeting from academic, management and participant viewpoints.

How Participatory Budgeting Works
Dr. Daniel Schugurensky, University of Toronto professor, outlined five stages of participatory budgeting: (1) diagnosis to identify community needs, (2) deliberation to understand, (3) decision-making, (4) implementation of agreements, and, (5) follow up, including monitoring and evaluation.

Each year, Toronto Community Housing spends $9M on capital projects (infrastructure, improvements, etc). Twenty per cent of this budget, $1.8M, is allocated by residents according to their priorities. Once a … Continue Reading