Planning Pool

Matt Hern is one of the irrepressible urbanists of Vancouver, Canada. He is an author, activist and educator, most widely known for founding Car Free Vancouver. He is also known by his immediate neighbours as the guy who hosts the 200-person potluck dinners in the park by his house! His new book Common Ground in a Liquid City: Essays in Defense of an Urban Future reflects on Vancouver from vantage points in other cities around the world.

This eight-minute audio clip captures Matt Hern reading aloud from his new book. He compares Montreal and Vancouver, considering Montreal’s more distinctive flavour:

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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

The sights and smells of street food can be one of the great experiential pleasures of a city, and every city is different. Carts sell roasted chestnuts on London’s street corners in the wintertime, while New York’s streets bristle with hot dog carts.

Portland, Oregon, shown above, is known for its array of food carts. They seem to sell every kind of food, and some even offer folding chairs to accommodate a leisurely meal.

Meanwhile, the City of Montreal, Quebec, has banned conventional street food carts for decades. While the waffle vendor shown here does technically sell street food, since it is both purchased and consumed on the sidewalk, the food is cooked inside a building and served through a window. Locally, the lack of street food is … Continue Reading

This post comes to you from an afternoon session entitled “Saving our cities: Contemporary approaches to heritage planning.” The two joint speakers are Phil Goldsmith and Antonio Gómez-Palacio, who have worked together on several projects. Mr. Gómez-Palacio works with the Office for Urbanism, while Mr. Goldsmith has extensive experience in adaptive reuse of Toronto’s heritage buildings.

Phil Goldsmith and Antonio Gómez-Palacio argue for a hybrid approach to heritage restoration and new architectural styles. Photo by author.

The session opened with the quote “Although […] heritage belongs to everyone, each of its parts is nevertheless at the mercy of any individual” (Amsterdam Charter, 1975). Intensification of urban fabric places stress on heritage buildings, so the present is an important time for the heritage of … Continue Reading

As community planners can attest, typical community engagement tactics like ye olde open house are not always the most effective in sparking meaningful dialogue, especially for youth. If only there were some relevant discipline that could inspire planners about effectively and equitably engaging young people!

Today’s blog post comes to you (more or less) live from a lecture at the University of British Columbia. Dr. Sandra Weber, an Education researcher, is speaking about her work engaging and empowering teenaged mothers and mothers-to-be in Montreal as part of Project M.O.M. (Mirrors of Motherhood).

Creative Commons photo (not from Project M.O.M.) from the Youth Affairs Network of Queensland.

The participants were young … Continue Reading

A cold beverage and urban people-watching on a summer’s day – this is the beauty of sidewalk patios. The “eyes on the street” that they bring can make for a safer and more interesting pedestrian environment. Sidewalk patios thrive in pedestrian priority streets like Copenhagen’s Strædet. The Project for Public Spaces even commends their presence overlooking children’s play areas so that parents can drink coffee and socialize while keeping an eye on their charges.

From a regulatory perspective, however, sidewalk patios can be tricky because they not only blur public and private space, but do so in a context where alcohol is served.  When patio space extends onto city property, restaurant owners must apply for a license, typically demonstrating that a proposed patio leaves sufficient … Continue Reading

Creative Commons Photo by Sean Munson

In recent months, many governments have decided to spend their way out of the current recession. The United States has seen a scramble to fund “shovel ready” projects that will create the most short term jobs, regardless of the usual criteria of worthiness. It’s the same old story – politicians taking the easiest, most expedient option. But word comes from Spain of the benefits of looking ahead. The Wall Street Journal printed an article last Monday about the success of the Spanish high speed passenger rail network, named AVE (meaning both Spanish high speed and bird). It’s the kind of epic, transformative project that requires not only billions of dollars but also the will … Continue Reading

Listen up, municipal governments – bike sharing is in. All the cool cities are doing it – Paris, Washington DC, Beijing. And why not? It’s effortless, sustainable, and it cuts down on congestion. But for so long, us Torontoians (and Vancouverites) have only been able to look on and dream. Well not anymore.

Despite being a planning student, I’m no fanatic of technology or industrial design. Whether the new technological wonder is a laptop or cell phone, what’s so great about this year’s model as compared to last year’s anyways? I tend to prefer the simple pleasures of a good book and a rocking chair, or a bicycle. 

The bicycle may be evolving.

I had the pleasure of attending a presentation about BIXI, Montreal’s new public bicycle system, at last week’s annual conference of the Canadian Association of Planning Students. All eyes were on the shiny bike in the centre of the room:

The Canadian Association of Planning Students and the Canadian Institute of Planners regional affiliate, ACEAU, is hosting a conference in Montreal from January 29 to 31. The conference, entitled Micro to Macro has been organized by students from all four Montreal Universities. The conference will create networking opportunities for students, faculty, and professionals from across Canada. It will also allow students to present their research and attend workshops. For more information, please see http://aeum-mupsa.org/index_files/CAPS.htm.