Nenshi, Canada25 & Me
Yesterday I was surprised and pleased to find myself in the company of Calgary’s newly-elected Mayor Naheed Nenshi who dropped by my place for a cup of tea before heading back to Calgary. He had been up to meet with the premier and Mayor Mandel.
I first met Nenshi in person four years ago when mutual friends put us in touch, since he had run for Calgary city council in 2004. We learned a lot from those meetings which definitely helped me get elected in 2007.
Turns out I knew some of his work from before that, although I didn’t realize it at the time. Nenshi and I were both part of a project in 2002 that was put on by a group called Canada 25, which was a non-partisan public policy forum that ran for a few years back in the early 2000s. The core group was a network of former university student leaders who did this to stay connected.
In the summer of 2002 they held a series of roundtables on cities, competitiveness, creativity and attracting and retaining young people. This was a time when we were all fretting about the brain drain and when Canadian mayors were screaming for a new deal for cities. These discussions had a profound impact on my thinking about urban issues and in retrospect I’m sure this contributed to my interest in municipal politics.
I was a bit player but it was Nenshi himself who penned the very thoughtful final report: “Building Up: Making Canada’s Cities Magnets for Talent and Engines of Development”. So, if you want to understand his agenda and mine, to the extent that they may overlap, reading this report would be your best starting point.
11 thoughts on “Nenshi, Canada25 & Me”
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I’d like to see Edm become the first Canadian heart-healthy city from a planning design perspective. Communities should be designed/revitalized to facilitate walking & cycling. For example, access to neighbourhood groceries means that people can walk to their local store. Heart healthy would have the additional benefit of reducing our carbon footprint (smaller fridges) & reduce health care costs to the city & Province.
Lennea,
I’m not convinced that this utopia you seek is at all practical. Our society’s progress and change is largely driven by a seeking out of efficiency and cost reduction. This is something that individuals are clearly responding to and supporting enmasse; if it were not so then the corner store of 50 years-ago would be thriving, but the fact is that those outlets had a higher cost and died once it became a better economic (time AND money) decision for an individual to drive the miles to SuperStore for the jug of milk.
The second thing that you really need to consider is that we live in a northern climate. This isn’t California, Greece or Egypt, we exist in a frozen wasteland 6+ months of the year. I don’t know of anyone who is willing to bundle up children and go for a walk for groceries in January. (FYI – I tried it once when I was single in -35 weather and paid the additional price of having ALL my produce freeze solid and get destroyed – stupid me.)
Humans naturally seek a better life, both economically and socially. Part of this seeking means that we want superior spaces in which to live (single detached homes vs. soviet-styled concrete dormitories), the comforts of privacy (our own mini-van rather than a stinky overcrowded bus ride) and the benefits of time optimization (we go where and when we want in our cars rather than depend on / suffer through the inadequacy of public transport).
That said, you should know that I’m politically quite left, I take public transit for two hours every workday and I do think that we need to continue to improve our communities. However I don’t believe that the Canadian climate (too cold), geography (no shortage of land) and mentality (me first!) will ever be able to support the vision you have. (Well, maybe if you lived in the greater Vancouver area, but not in Edmonton.)
re: ron
I wouldn’t go so far to say that edmonton is a “frozen wasteland 6 months a year”. It’s november and I’m still wearing t shirts.
I get what you are saying, but no one is suggesting we ban cars or anything. just that we have more transportation options, like you see in other cities. that isn’t much to ask, and our climate does not make it unfeasible
“soviet style concrete dormitories”….. really??? do you want to go down that road?? you might as well just say, “if you live in a condo you are a pinko commie”,and really lend yourself some credibility.
public transit, if properly invested in, is not at all “inadequate”. Hence the need for lrt expansion.
there is a shortage of land…. that is if you don’t want a two hour commute into work in the morning, or a loss of some of the best farmland in the country. This being Canada does not mean urban sprawl is without costs, both physical costs and less tangible costs. living in a condo also has nothing to do with the soviets. please don’t needlessly engage in fear mongering.
just remember. Hitler had the same moustache as Charlie Chaplin, but that never made Charlie Chaplin, Hitler
Brian,
While Charlie Chaplin wasn’t Hitler, he DID take advantage of the visual similarity of moustaches in his most successful film; The Great Dictator. Chaplin used this film to call out the policies, priorities and practices of the Nazi party – beginning a fight against a totalitarian regime that wanted to change how Europeans lived, thought and behaved.
You may take issue with my verbiage (‘Soviet-style concrete dormitories’), but it is meant to point out the same outrageous dictatorship of social control of the supporters of such policies. Their call for the end of single family dwellings and a move to an ultra-dense urban future is something that I oppose being inflicted on our society. I certainly don’t want our cities to become concrete monolith wastelands where children only read of grassed yards and dream of the time before private outdoor spaces effectively become illegal.
I was born in Edmonton, and I have lived in Alberta for most of my life. When I was in University I rode my mountain bike to and from classes on a daily basis, even when it hit -33. I have walked the walk about changing our habits and practices to be less impactful on our planet, however there are practical limits that exist and that are imposed upon us both by the nature of our climate and the fundamental reality of modern life. It is unreasonable and impracticable to expect that a northern climate such as Alberta’s can adopt the same lifestyle pathways as southern California, Egypt, Vietnam, India or Florida.
Your derision of my point offers no practical means by which your vision can be accomplished. Remember, cities are all in competition with each other, and each community has its natural advantages. Vancouver and Manhattan have focused on high-density construction because they are surrounded by ocean. The compromise of living there IS the density. To suggest that we also need to chase after the same type of density of those centres is to lose sight of our natural advantages that they can’t possibly hope to provide the average citizen.
Instead, we need to focus on what our natural advantages are and how those advantages can be leveraged to grow and prosper our community in competitively attracting and retaining citizens for the decades to come. Edmonton will NEVER be Vancouver (and vice-versa) and to waste our energy, time and municipal policy towards building a Vancouver-like community will only diminish our potential and lose the opportunity to truly build on our strengths.
no one is going to make private outdoor space illegal.
stop trolling
it is not unreasonable to expect Edmonton to have the same transit options as montreal, now is it?
no one suggested we be California. no one suggested we be vancouver. all that has been suggested is that we remove height restrictions, zone for higher density in the core near lrt stations, and provide basic transportation options such as light rail and a few bicycle lanes.
this is not a cultural revolution, or the abolishment of private property, or the assumption that we live in a tropical climate. This is simple practical solutions to practical problems.
Height restrictions are there so that your backyard remains a private space; free of the shadowing and peering that a 40-story condo complex would bring. (This is what Calgary envisions for the Brentwood area Transit Oriented re-Development.)
The Spadina line in Toronto seems to have a fantastic no-rise neighbourhood penetration, why is the only option that people are pushing one of super-densification?
I’m all for extending LRT / subway systems to all sectors / communities (more than just quadrants) of the city! I’m even willing to pay double my current property tax level to fund it! (I pay $2450 a year now.) I am also a voice in the wilderness of Alberta.
In Calgary the cost for the SW LRT is $30,000 per foot for surface construction, but just $5,000 more per foot underground. Edmonton owns a Tunnel Boring Machine that is fit for use for LRT construction…it is time to build all future lines underground and put aside all the pain of surface LRT noise, accidents and weather delays that Calgary has suffered from since the LRT inception and that Edmonton (why does Calgary inspire them?) has recently made the mistake of emulating.
stop making stuff up.
height restrictions are there so planes do not fly into buildings. with the closing of the city centre airport they are no longer necessary.
concerns like where a building overlooks are all addressed long before development. I don’t think you need to worry about peeping toms. Edmonton has lots of space between homes, and it stands to reason there would be space between towers and single detached homes as well.
the word is densification…. not “super uber densification to the max dude”…. building a few highrises and townhomes around an lrt station is not as extreme a development decision as you make it out to be.
we can’t afford to build the entire network underground, and it is not necessary. we will build some sections underground where it makes sense.
I don’t know where you get your numbers from, but I believe you are also ignoring many of the costs of going underground such as relocating sewer and gas lines.
Brian (whatever your last name is), I do not make stuff up. I’m not sure where you’ve obtained your understanding of municipal height restrictions…they have NOTHING to do with protecting air traffic unless said construction is within the approach boundary of an airport runway.
The areas that I discussed (the community of Brentwood in Calgary) are over 10 km away from the Calgary International Airport and are not at all in alignment with any of the three in-use runways.
Perhaps you’d benefit from reading the ‘Updates for October 2010’ in this link:
http://brentwoodcommunity.com/stationareaplan.html
specifically item 1 of Project Concepts on page 2. There it states that the buildings of phases 1 and 2 will be “approximately 61 meters high”.
As well, I’d encourage you to read the “Brentwood Station Area Redevelopment Plan” document that is published by the City of Calgary here:
http://www.calgary.ca/DocGallery/BU/planning/pdf/tod/brentwood/brentwood_sap.pdf
You can cut to the chase of my arguement by turning to page 64 of the PDF and you’ll notice that certain areas of the plan allow for 55 meter high buildings that have less than a 25 meter distance from the closest residential home. That is a policy that will enable the development of new buildings that are intrusive to the privacy of these homeowners, which has been my point that you don’t want to agree with.
I’m good with the fact that you don’t agree, but I just wish that you’d have some decent arguement behind your opinion as to why you’re approach is superior to mine.
Montreal’s entire Metro is underground and it is over 69 km in length. Much of Toronto’s is underground as is New York’s, LA and even Washington DC. These investments are ultra long-term (100+ year lifespan) and should be funded in the same manner. I don’t know of anyone who has bought a house with cash, and I don’t see why we need to restrict ourselves to funding the building of critical core civic infrastructure with cash either.
Any number or fact that I state is something that I can back up with documents that I’ve READ rather than something that is solely opinion.
I look forward to hearing some solid fact-backed reasons that support your opinions as I’m all for being convinced by superior arguement and data that other opinions are worth taking on.
My last name is none of your business.
Almost half the city was within the approach boundary of an airport. Why do you think closure of the airport was so important? The talk about removing height restrictions in Edmonton surrounds that decision. The height restrictions are not going to be removed in a way that there will be high rises surrounding your single detached homes. you will have regions of high density some distance away from regions of low density. you are either fear mongering or paranoid. “oh no, if we remove height restrictions people will peer through my windows”
25 meters is over 80 feet…. that is not very close at all. I see no problem with that, from that distance no one can look into your window and see any detail without binoculars. The likelihood of someone in a tower seeing into your house is no different than the likelihood of your neighbours seeing into your house from across the street or yard. In fact I would say it is far more likely your neighbours would be the peeping toms, since they are only separated by a couple of feet, and can easily peer over a fence through a window facing your property. the single detached homes are far closer than those towers you are scared are watching you.
I think your fear must be psychological. because the tower is bigger you assume a person in it can see more. that is simply not true. the majority in it will be too high up to see in your house. they will see a tiny little roof. those on the lower floors might be able to see in your house, but only with binoculars and only if there is no glare on your windows.
The optics just don’t add up for your fears to be justified.
Montreal has more users. Montreal has more revenue. Montreal is a bigger city. same goes fro new york, toronto, ect. can’t compare there LRT to ours. they go underground because for them and there population the cost makes sense. in edmonton it does not.
we are going into some debt to build the LRT.
some of the LRT will be underground. likely any future downtown and whyte ave lines.
you never provided a source for the cost analysis of going under ground vs above ground. That’s the only reason I checked this site again. I don’t really care about your paranoid delusions that the towers are watching you.
Well ‘Brian’, your comments on building height, setbacks and encroachment indicate to me that it is likely that you’ve never actually been in a highrise that is close to private, single-family dwellings. Try it sometime, you’ll immediately understand my point.
It is obvious that you put no effort in to examining the links I did reference, as they clearly support my arguement. To that extent, I end up wondering if there would truly be any value in going to the effort to share with you further referencing for my other points such as LRT build-out costs.
I continue to wait upon you for solid arguement (facts help too) as to why your opinion should become mine, but all you seem interested in is throwing dismissive insults, and that isn’t what I’m really putting this effort in for.
I’m happy to go on sharing my facts and arguements with you if you’ll put in a concomitant effort, but if it is just me pitching, well then I’m done.
I have been in highrises near residential property, with far less of a setback than the projected development you linked.
when you look out the window you enjoy the view, you don’t peer on your nieghbors.
the visual acuity of a human at 80 feet is 3 inches. anything smaller than that is blurred. it’s a matter of the eyes resolution. you won’t see any detail at those distances. you can’t recognize faces, ect.
that is in perfect conditions. since you are looking down on an object the angle of approach and density of the glass makes light bend, refract and reflect…. further blurring anything you might see.
the physical laws that govern optics do not lie….
since you refuse to share your sources on lrt cost I will assume you don’t have any
– have a good day