Municipalities and urban development

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First published in the Winnipeg Free Press September 20, 2018 On Thursday September 20, Winnipeg City Council will vote on a motion to clear the way for True North Square (TNS) to receive an $8 million subsidy through the City’s Tax Increment Financing (TIF) program. Council will be asked to waive TIF rules that would require a minimum of 10% of the rental units it is building on Hargrave and Carlton Streets to be “affordable”.
 Nearly forty years ago, in March 1979, Winnipeg city councillor Joe Zuken led a band of a dozen or so pedestrians in what is likely to have been city’s most celebrated act of jaywalking. The day before, city council’s ban on pedestrian crossing of Portage and Main had come into effect. Zuken was making good on his promise to defy the ban by leading supporters on a short but windy trek that saw them complete a circuit, walking from each corner to the next.
Here at the CCPA, we're constantly thinking about what needs to change in our lives, our economy and our ways of governing to make society more equitable, and life more fulfilling, for the greatest number of people. Broadly speaking, you could say our mandate is transition, the theme of this summer edition of the Monitor. By transition we mean a fair and just progression from today's extractives-based, exhausting and unequal economy to a more sustainable, pro-worker and frankly more human future.
When we think of a “boom town,” we often imagine a formerly sleepy rural town suddenly awash in wealth and economic expansion. It might surprise some to learn that for many municipalities in oil-producing regions in Saskatchewan, the costs of servicing the oil boom can outweigh the benefits. 
Regina — When we think of a “boom town,” we often imagine a formerly sleepy rural town suddenly awash in wealth and economic expansion. It might surprise some to learn that for many municipalities in oil-producing regions in Saskatchewan, the costs of servicing the oil boom can outweigh the benefits.
This report, endorsed by more than 90 organizations, calls on Winnipeg’s Mayor to be a champion for poverty reduction and commit to leading the development of a comprehensive poverty reduction plan. Up to 107,000 Winnipeggers are living in poverty. The community-based plan offers fifty recommendations that the City can implement as part of its own plan in policy areas such as housing, transportation, food security, policing and safety.
Rush hour at Yonge and Bloor has been rough for some time now (Photo by Tibor Kolley/The Globe and Mail)
In Metro Vancouver, congestion-induced delays are the norm on the region’s roads and bridges. If nothing is done, these problems will only worsen. This report explains that mobility pricing is one solution to Metro Vancouver’s transportation challenges.
There is a power struggle going on at City Hall in Winnipeg that may open an opportunity for everyday Winnipeggers - if we get organized - to transform structural factors that have long entrenched business-led corruption and austerity on Main Street. Toews takes us on a historical look at the structures put in place over the years that continues to make City Hall a very undemocractic Hall.  When power over the entire community is structurally concentrated in the hands of a few - as it is in Winnipeg's civic governance structure - democracy is inhibited. 
Illustration by Amy Thompson