city hall
« Previous EntriesSpecial civic advocates for walking? cycling?
Sunday, May 10th, 2009Cities need to offer residents and businesses a variety of transportation options to maximize livability. Only facilitating automobile travel makes for a polluted, congested, and concrete-freeway-based environment. Only facilitating bikes or walking in 21st century life and you hamper citizens’ ability to go any distance or carry very much while doing it. As recently […]
Edmonton: Where Oil and Sustainability Meet?
Friday, February 6th, 2009Edmonton is an intriguing place. It sits next to the world’s 2nd largest oil reserves and the economy is dominated directly and indirectly by the oil extraction industry. Yet, it has also been ranked the most sustainable large city in Canada by Corporate Knights Magazine:
With the lowest unemployment rate of all cities [below 4% ] […]
Not the time for short term thinking
Tuesday, January 6th, 2009Many smart business leaders and investment managers are taking advantage of the economic slow down to stop, think, and put into place the foundations for the next 5 to 10 year business cycle — and even thinking much further ahead than that.
Unfortunately, it seems that many city governments, and those at other levels that impact […]
Are City Halls Too Isolated?
Monday, October 20th, 2008In most cities I’m familiar with, City Hall is a distinct, self-contained building separated from most of the key residential, business and entertainment areas of the city. The staff that work in the City Hall building typically don’t visit the neighbourhoods and the employees who work on the streets and in the communities rarely visit […]
Unintended consequences of a new bylaw
Saturday, April 5th, 2008In Vancouver a new bylaw came into effect last week banning cigarette smoking on restaurant patios and within 6 meters (about 20 feet) of doorways. Smoking has been banned at indoor public places for a long time.
I had a positive and a negative experience with this new bylaw this week. The positive […]
Creativity, anarchy and civilization
Tuesday, March 18th, 2008From Journalist Frances Bula’s City States Blog:
My son, who does visuals for DJs … sent me an email from Austin today. He’s of course at the South by Southwest music festival … It seems he also has something to say about city policy.
“we went to a show last night that started at 3am […]
Technology for improving city governance
Monday, January 14th, 2008For some, city hall, city council, and the planning department moves to fast. Initiatives for new zoning bylaws or transportation plans might go through the governance process in a matter of months, with many residents feeling they did not have enough time to digest the plan and comment on it. For others, of course, city […]
Cities as agents of change
Thursday, January 3rd, 2008“A new urban global community is emerging in which cities are collaborating with each other on common problems while simultaneously competing with each other in the global marketplace. The days of sitting back and waiting for national governments to act are becoming a memory, especially as cities are faced with challenges that require immediate action.”
- […]
Public toilets and cities
Tuesday, November 27th, 2007Jim Dwyer penned a fascinating story this month on the history of public toilets — or the lack thereof — in New York City. A temporary collection of port-a-johns in Time Square created quite a stir, as few other options exist if you need to go in the city that never sleeps.
This got me […]
Street names - do they reflect the true city?
Tuesday, November 20th, 2007Most people give little thought to their city street names. In older neighborhoods most streets have held their name for a century or more. But if you stop and think about street names in your city and community, do they reflect the region’s history?
In Vancouver there are some of Spanish names, honoring […]