Alright, sounds good, now we just need a bunch of cheap land following a world war that the city can buy followed by a sustained loss of population following the collapse of empire. www.cbc.ca/news/world/e...

i should be in charge of the marvel movies. i will cast mark rylance, jared harris, mark strong, paul dano, and paul giamatti as the avengers. their headquarters are the municipal planning office of a midsize american city. the supervillain they defeat will be various challenges to zoning reform

Love this: On the Disenchantment of Urban Spaces open.substack.com/pub/venat/p/...

"It turns out that no amount of bureaucracy, bickering or political division can slow Canada down when under threat. So what are Ontario’s municipal governments doing to assist in the economic war effort? Sadly, not much — especially when it comes to housing." www.thestar.com/opinion/cont...

An Indigenous-led visionary housing development in Vancouver - Senakw - shows us how housing abundance can help dig us out of our darkest hour. Learn more about this project here senakw.com and let's advocate for more like it! Credit: senakw.com and @futur.blue

Issue 5 of Policycraft is out! Inside we ask if the profession has all the ideas we need - except for an idea of how to implement them. policycraft.substack.com/p/issue-5-po...

"...this country must first acknowledge the depths of our sclerosis, our inefficiencies, our competitive barriers and our ideological rigidness... That doesn’t make you a traitor; it makes you a patriot." www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/arti...

An absolutely staggering amount of Toronto's city planning work ends up boiling down to a debate over whether a building should be 25, 27, or 29 storeys as if that kind of precision was in any way meaningful. It's not! Meanwhile, we burn time and money in a crisis. web.archive.org/web/20120322...

What flexposts say: "We could use steel bollards but a bollard might scratch a car and that would be a tragedy. So, we're going to use these instead — things literally designed to be run over — because protecting even one car from a scratch is worth thousands of pedestrian deaths every year."

Ontario: the provincial election is February 27. What would you like to see on housing? More Neighbours Toronto has put together our ideas. We'll be grading the party platforms and statements against this to let you know where they stand. www.moreneighbours.ca/platforms-po...

Some of us have been saying. www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/arti...

Issue 4 of Policycraft is out! Featuring a call for areas where we need more policy thinking, a clear schematic for making policy and its implementation work better, and some great examples of policy advocacy done well. open.substack.com/pub/policycr...

Toronto is making LONG overdue updates to its Avenues Policies to make it easier to build midrises! It's also adding new Avenues for the first time in decades. We've made it easy to voice your support to the Planning & Housing Committee at the link below: win.newmode.net/moreneighbou...

Issue 3 of Policycraft is out, covering policy experiments, red tape, and the fundamental flaw of everything bagels. policycraft.substack.com/p/issue-3-en...

A year ago, Edmonton rewrote its zoning from scratch. Among other changes, the base zoning in mature nbhds changed to 8 units, 10.5m. A year later, what has been the effect? I looked at building permit data to see. More in the 🧵 or in my blog post 👇 #yegcc #yeg www.jacobdawang.com/blog/2025/ed...

What a difference a few months and a little bit of framing makes. Condo vacancy rates that were once portrayed negatively have turned into lower rents. There is still work to do, but more supply lowers rents - yes, even in those evil condos. www.thestar.com/real-estate/...

"A collective noun for rapists? A violation, a banality, a shame." www.thetimes.com/world/europe...?

I say it every year, but I’ll take Winnipeg’s real winter over Toronto’s any time (having spent 14 years in Toronto). I’m sad for Vancouver and Toronto. www.cbc.ca/news/science...

Toronto is so frustrating because it's always been close to being an incredible place, and so many of its problems are self inflicted or imposed. The bones of a great place are here, we just need to build on them. What I mean is stop prioritizing cars and upzone the neighbourhoods.

Congratulations to our new board members, @zakls.bsky.social @stoneape314.bsky.social, Stephanie Bertolo, and Nicholas Harterre! They bring fresh perspectives and passion to the table, and we can’t wait to get started. Here's to a great year, and fixing the housing crisis for the next one!

Did you know, the hotel that #TaylorSwift is staying at in downtown Vancouver likely wouldn’t exist without Vancouver’s density/heritage system? The Hotel Georgia had a full renovation while I was chief planner, & we “paid for” the cost of the restoration with bonus density in that tower beside it.

The "Popular with Friends" tab is just the worst collection of takes ever assembled. What is wrong with you people.

THREAD: How to check if the screenshot of a social media post is real or fake? Fake screnshots of online posts regularly mislead people. So, here's a simple guide on how you can quickly check if a screenshot of a post attributed to an account is genuine or fake before falling for or sharing it.

Two big items that Toronto committed to for Housing Accelerator funding are on the agenda. They're not dead yet, but definitely need work. It's unfortunate that it takes so much effort to get Toronto to be as ambitious as Vancouver, Edmonton or London, ON.

16. Immigration is STILL GOOD and it’s killing me that NIMBYs and conservatives have allied to make that the solution to the housing crisis. Younger folks are again going to be the ones that pay for this.

Issue 2 of Policycraft is live, full of more content to make you a better public policy thinker policycraft.substack.com/p/issue-2-in...

Wine moms, Karens, girbosses, HR ladies, a plethora of euphemisms for it’s not sexism if it’s framed as punching up.

Opinion - The true cost of soaring development charges on new homes: Ontario cities need to wean themselves from the habit of hiking fees on new builds in order to subsidize low property tax rates for current residents

Gentrification isn't real And urbanism is too focused on men's urban/transportation needs

My latest in The Hub: “Your bribe is in the mail—Trudeau and Ford’s populist gimmicks play Canadians for fools” Cynical gambits demonstrate the disdain Canadian elites have for the public's intelligence. (1/3) thehub.ca/2024/11/26/e...

Toronto's best hope is that they give the removal work to Metrolinx. It will take 12 years to plan and design, and the cost will grow to $200 million per km and might never be finished.

Cities are incredible achievements that create multiplier effects for culture and prosperity. We should supercharge them instead of stifling them. www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/edit...

The federal government's Recruitment of Policy Leaders program is now accepting applications - great opportunity to do meaningful work on issues that matter. Certainly changed trajectory and nature of my career! www.dfo-mpo.gc.ca/career-carri...

I would like a podcast on the connection between Andor and public administration research (cc @pahlkadot.bsky.social @dandrezner.bsky.social @donmoyn.bsky.social).

Oh... that's not-

Some of us have been saying...! Better neighbourhood design helps affordability (for both people and municipalities), eases congestion, and lowers emissions, among other benefits. thehub.ca/2024/11/22/m...

embiggen the hog

"Bans people from taking the Government to court for its decision to remove bike lanes, including any individuals who are injured or killed due to a collision between a bike and a vehicle." Very normal stuff from a government confident that its decision won't harm anyone.

30 💅

A good reminder when people think of free transit fares - they are usually implemented in places with poor transit, because it’s seen as an “easy” way to make transit look more attractive. The issue is most people don’t care about saving a couple dollars to ride a crappy service!

Spot on. thehub.ca/2024/11/16/h...

Shout out to my home town Toronto for welcoming the Swifties this week. Via Reddit’s /r/Toronto

Just learned what my Boomer parents paid for the family home 40 years ago. Not an experience I can recommend.

This city has such fundamentally conservative tendencies. This fight is over whether Toronto should transform into a true global metropolis. Some councillors just want us to remain as a backwater village.

🚀Today I launch Policycraft, a free monthly newsletter curating fresh and insightful thinking on the practice of public policymaking in Canada 🗞️

zoning in theory: you can’t build a pollution factory next to that apartment complex zoning in practice: you can only build that apartment complex next to the pollution factory