Using the Power of the Market to Shape Efficient Urban Growth

Reading recent accounts of Council’s reluctance to endorse, even if only in principle, the City Treasurer’s recommendation to begin the study of an “area rating” system for the calculation of development charges (DCs), I was struck once again by how shallow and unsophisticated deliberations by Council have become. A fully developed area rating system, a …

Advertisements

Our Councillors Say Some of the Darndest Things

Councillor Brown's recent off-the-cuff statement on the culpability of the library system in the demise of video rental companies was patently absurd on its face.  Ms. Brown is, I'm sure, at least as bright as the average Londoner, and the average Londoner had no trouble immediately identifying the statement as nonsensical.  I'm confident that Ms. …

An Open Letter to Council (June 2012)

As our elected representatives, you have asked us, the citizens of London, to become engaged with you in planning the future of our city.  Thousands of us have taken you up on this offer since you took office in 2010, on a wide range of local and city-wide initiatives: the Community Engagement Task Force, the …

London Councillors support Arva Shirkers

It’s not often I’m left gobsmacked by the actions of Council.  The actions of the members of the Built & Natural Environment Committee LFP story here, at its meeting of August 15, 2011, have left me asking this question:  Exactly whose interests are the committee members serving in this? The storyline is quite simple:  BNEC …

October 25 Was a Long Time Ago. It’s Time to Move On!

Much ado has been made recently about the level of political discourse in this city, and there is some justification for this.  In our wired world where everyone has a platform and the opportunity to speak at will and anonymously, we shouldn’t be surprised that public discourse is often banal, sometimes just plain stupid and …