‘Hood-winked?

Winnipeggers were promised a utopian suburb in Waverley West, but scaled-back plans have dashed expectations and created a very different reality

The Manitoba government and land developer Ladco promised, in January 2003, to transform 1,200 hectares of mostly empty land into the largest residential development in the city’s history: Waverley West, which could eventually see 12,000 homes and about 30,000 people spring up on Winnipeg’s southwest fringe. A new ‘burb the size of Brandon was precisely what Winnipeg home builders wanted to see, given a shortage of lots in the city’s highly desirable southwest quadrant. The Doer government stood to gain from the transaction because it owned about half the land and could garner two forms of revenue: short-term cash from the sale and future education taxes.

Aging society likely to strain infrastructure - Windsor Star

Canada’s aging population will drive up infrastructure costs and threaten public health in a wide range of sectors including water management, public transit and roads and sidewalks, concludes a new government report.

Infrastructure Canada  website for the above article and lots of statistics and graphs

The report here: Population Aging and Public Infrastructure: a Literature Review of Impacts in Developed Countries

Editorial comment: With what was given in the above report and growing infrastructure needs of an aging population does Windsor and Essex County really want to become the retirement centre for Canada? Can we afford it along with the demands?

Spending slowdown will last 15 years, author says: Depression Ahead

Stock markets and commodity prices may have one last gasp and climb back toward their highs on the back of massive government stimulus programs, but a spending slowdown by Baby Boomers will create an even weaker economic environment that will last for the next decade and a half, according to Harry Dent.

The demographics-based economist and author of The Great Boom Ahead, published in 1993, and The Roaring 2000s back in 1998, outlines a gloomier long-term future than even some of the most bearish economists are currently forecasting. In his new book, The Great Depression Ahead, How to Prosper in the Crash Following the Greatest Boom in History, Mr. Dent warns that the de-leveraging process coming out of the banking crisis and the collapse of commodities is too big a tide for government to fight.

“The demographic slide is just beginning,” he said in an interview. “We’ve seen the worst for now, but were going to see worse ahead. (see above article: Infrastructue.)

The author points out that older people don’t need to buy a bigger house or drive a car as much now that their kids are gone. Add to that the fact that they are scared and extremely concerned about the sharp decline in their retirement savings, and it doesn’t bode well for durable goods spending.

Ontario (really) lags in race to turn grids clean, green

The air could get a lot cleaner around Toronto over the coming years. At the very least, less dirty.

You can thank Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm, a transplanted Canadian who celebrated her 50th birthday earlier this month by putting an interim and potentially permanent moratorium on the development of coal plants in America’s automotive heartland.

According to Toronto’s medical officer of health, Dr. David McKeown, “as much as half of the pollution that Torontonians experience during smog alerts comes from American sources.” Ontario plans to shut down all its coal plants by 2014, but it can only do so much. In border cities, like Windsor, up to 90 per cent of air pollution comes from the Michigan side through Detroit

Michigan has seven new coal-fired plants at various stages of development, representing 10 per cent of all proposed new coal plants in the United States. It gets 70 per cent of its electricity from coal and a little bit from natural gas. Granholm said she wants that reduced to 45 per cent by 2020.

On Feb. 3 she imposed a temporary moratorium on coal development, and directed her environmental department to seek “all feasible prudent alternatives before approving new coal-fired power plants.”

In a speech to Michigan lawmakers, she emphasized that demand for wind and solar power is “about to explode.” With environmental benefits a given, she then highlighted the economic opportunity. “As the nation’s demand for renewable energy goes up, so too does the demand for the technologies and products that are critical to the new energy industry. We will seize upon this surging demand for renewable energy to increase the supply of good-paying jobs in Michigan.”

In other words, instead of spending billions of dollars importing coal and natural gas, spend that money to support the creation of new industries that build wind turbines, solar panels and energy-efficiency devices.

What does all this mean? It means Ontario has to move fast. It means McGuinty isn’t the only political leader (with the exception of our prime minister) to figure out this is “where the puck is going.” It means competition is going to be intense.

Already, we face an uphill battle. Even though the “Buy American” language in the U.S. stimulus package has been watered down, it still has psychological potency south of the border. Several Ontario-based clean-tech companies I’ve spoken to in recent weeks have been told by potential U.S. customers and investors: You need to relocate to the United States if you want our business or money.

Meanwhile, U.S. companies such as Comverge Inc. and Trilliant Inc. – both smart-grid suppliers – have been able to leverage sales in Ontario to drum up business in the United States. In fact, Redwood City, Calif.-based Trilliant announced recently that it deployed its millionth intelligent grid device. “You might be interested to know that the majority of devices deployed by Trilliant have been in Ontario,” a spokesperson proudly shared.

Editorial comment: While our Mayor and city council fight DRIC over who’s EA and pollution research and findings is right, the majority of pollution in Windsor comes from coal generation plants in Michigan, Ohio and Indianna and not from trucks! Why aren’t they trying to close the Con Edison’s coke plant right across the river … a major polluter of West Windsor … did they factor that pollution into each of their reports.

‘European cities have a lot to teach us:’ Miller: Mayor brings home lessons on transit, green legislation from climate change forum

Here are five things he learned:

“EUROPEAN CITIES have a lot to teach us about public transit. My hotel was on a square outside the railway station. All the streetcars came into the depot outside the station. There were no cars allowed except taxis. They had designated rights-of-way for their streetcars, which include whole streets that were streetcar only. There were buses there, including the bus to the airport.

“So when we were leaving, I left my hotel, walked across the square and got on the bus to the airport, and was at the airport in 15 minutes. Now, it’s a smaller city with a population of 200,000.

“It was extraordinary. The train linked with the streetcar, linked with the taxi, linked with the bus. There were facilities for bikes … They viewed this all as integrated. It’s what we’re trying to do through Transit City. It showed me it worked…..”

Architecture worth savouring … Christopher Hume

The school’s current quarters, a handsome 1984 structure designed by Carruthers Shaw, has now been remade and expanded by another Toronto firm, Kearns Mancini, with help from Gow and Hastings. Located on Adelaide St. E. at the top of Frederick St., the new piece stands in stark contrast to the original.

Size of your food bill depends on where you live.

When the numbers started rolling in, Stephen Samis was dumbfounded.

Help our hubs rebuild ..Editorial Toronto Star

Small communities have taken root across Canada, from the outports of Newfoundland to the islands of British Columbia. But they also blossom within big cities – neighbourhoods with their own boundaries, character, history and challenges that are communities in the real sense of the word.

The 2009 budget allocates $500 million over two years to accelerate infrastructure work in “small communities.” In fairness to people living in such communities, wherever these might be found, the money in this fund should be distributed as broadly as possible.

Urban activists in Toronto are hoping to tap the small community fund to help pay for badly needed projects in some of the city’s most troubled neighbourhoods. These are communities under immense stress from the overlapping pressures of poverty, crime and discrimination. There is “shovel-ready” infrastructure work waiting to be done to bring residents in these areas some measure of relief.

Five hubs are at a stage where construction could start this year or in 2010, for a total cost of about $17 million. Queen’s Park has already committed $6.5 million and the city is providing $1 million. Federal officials are being asked for up to $9.5 million.

This sort of project, however worthy, doesn’t easily fit into the big $4 billion infrastructure initiative that is at the heart of the budget. But it could reasonably be considered under the “small communities” fund.

Local advocates have been pressing this interpretation upon federal budget officials. It all depends on how political leaders and finance mandarins choose to define “community.” In our view, selected neighbourhoods are entitled to that designation as well as cities, towns and villages.

Energy security calls for a continental vision …Pierre Alvarez, The Globe and Mail

[Yet] recent developments in the U.S. energy industry reduce the urgency for such an agreement. Energy prices have collapsed to levels not seen in years, domestic oil consumption is down almost 10 per cent, the U.S. natural gas industry has reversed decades of decline with increased production, and the stimulus package promises hundreds of billions of dollars to upgrade and modernize the U.S. energy system.

What, then, is the Canadian case for a continental energy and environmental partnership?

First, there is the breadth and depth of our cross-border energy trade. Many commentators, pointing to the Conservative government’s Western Canadian base, have oversimplified the issue by saying it is all about securing American market access for the oil sands. True, Canada is the biggest supplier of crude oil to the United States and the oil sands contributes significantly to those exports. However, the oil sands is only part of a much larger energy picture that includes the growing export of Saskatchewan and East Coast crude. Refined petroleum products (gasoline, diesel, aviation fuel, motor oil, heating fuel) from refineries that employ thousands of Canadians across the country are also major exports to the United States. And Saskatchewan is the largest supplier of uranium to the United States at a time when the nuclear industry faces a possible renaissance under the Obama administration. In total, energy trade is the largest component of Canada’s trade surplus with the United States.

Second, pollution doesn’t respect borders. Natural gas and hydroelectricity exports from Canada have played an enormous role in replacing acid-rain-generating coal-fired power plants in the United States, and Canadian lakes have been among the beneficiaries.

Third, improved environmental performance from Canada’s own resource industries will be easier to achieve within an open and transparent continental marketplace. A common approach to carbon pricing based on full cycle analysis, for example, would mitigate against penalizing heavy oil on account of its source rather than its actual carbon footprint. At present, heavy oil from California, Venezuela, Mexico and Alberta all have the same carbon-emissions profile, yet only the Canadian oil sands faces the threat of discriminatory measures.

Technology is the fourth area where Canada-U.S. co-operation is crucial. Energy research and development is a national priority in the United States, whereas in Canada, it has been an afterthought, despite our obvious competitive advantage. In areas such as unconventional natural gas production, carbon capture and storage, nuclear waste remediation and clean coal, access to the massive scale of U.S. research could be twinned with Canada’s huge resource base to the advantage of both countries.

Fifth, our energy systems are interconnected with the United States. The Northeast blackout of 2003 that also darkened Southern Ontario was triggered by a U.S. generator, clearly highlighting how the two national electricity grids have become intertwined. Tinkering with one part of the energy system without understanding its ramifications across the entire spectrum is naive and dangerous.

A Different Perspective on Climate Change from those that can not speak!

400 Miles North  Editorial New York Times

Urban Research Sites, via Planetizen and Where blogs

Cities all over the world face the challenge of providing healthy and attractive places to live. A recent post by Jackson titled Bringing Soil Back (read this link for full details of idea) offers a striking example. There is a need for solutions that are ecologically and economically sound. One approach might be the establishment of local research sites to monitor and improve the health of urban ecosystems. While I don’t know of any exact precedents, there is a related concept in a translated Soviet planning document from 1967. *

Launching Michigan Solar Advantage

Three economic development organizations — Bay Future Inc., Midland Tomorrow and Saginaw Future Inc. –  have combined to form a new partnership, the Great Lakes Bay Economic Development Partnership. These organizations promote Bay City, Midland and Saginaw.

This month, the partnership launched a new initiative to accelerate development in solar energy.  They have launched a new website, Michigan Solar Advantage.  to indicate how the economic development workforce development lines are blurring, Saginaw Valley State University, who manages the region’s WIRED initiative, has invested in the partnership’s solar energy initiative.

You can read more here.

People say if farmers don’t want problems from Monsanto, just don’t buy their GMO seeds. 

Not so simple. Where are farmers supposed to get normal seed these days? How are they supposed to avoid contamination of their fields from GM-crops? How are they supposed to stop Monsanto detectives from trespassing or Monsanto from using helicopters to fly over spying on them?  

Monsanto contaminates the fields, trespasses onto the land taking samples and if they find any GMO plants growing there (or say they have), they then sue, saying they own the crop. It’s a way to make money since farmers can’t fight back and court and they settle because they have no choice. 

Editorial Comment: Is this important in light of Scaledown’s philosophy? Yes! To sustain a city we must sustain our agriculture and farmers. If they don’t have access to seeds except through large corporations, it could mean that we don’t eat! Grow Local, Eat Local!

A road map for tourism sector

While we don’t often look at it this way, tourism is a major sector in the Ontario economy, with $22 billion in business – or more than the whole primary sector (including forestry and mining). At its peak, the tourism sector employed almost 200,000 Ontarians.

But lately the sector has fallen on tough times, due not only to the global economic slump but also to the thickening of the Canada-U.S. border, the revaluation of the dollar and high gasoline prices – although these last two factors have moved in a more favourable direction in recent months.

Also, it must be said that many of our attractions are getting tired.

Timely, then, is last week’s report on the future of tourism in Ontario, (report) Discovering Ontario, prepared under the direction of former provincial finance minister Greg Sorbara.

Rather than a prescription for what ails tourism, Sorbara’s report is a road map to a rejuvenation of the industry. The report sets an ambitious goal – a doubling of tourism in the province by 2020 – and suggests various ways to get there, including:

Quietly, cleverly, patiently, Geoff Cape has pulled together one of the biggest environmental coups of the new century.

In case you haven’t heard, Cape is founder of Evergreen, the organization behind, among other things, the Brick Works. Construction has started and won’t finish until spring 2010. In the meantime, programming at the site will begin this summer.

That site, the former Don Valley Brick Works complex, dates back to the late 1800s. The factory has long since closed, but the heritage buildings and the land have been given to Evergreen, which is transforming them into what Cape calls “a national centre for sustainable cities.”

Buildings could become the new power 

BRUSSELS — In the city of the future, could power suppliers be rivalled by innovative construction firms? An embryonic movement is growing in Europe to build “smart cities” that will challenge the status quo.

The vision is fuelled by the fear of climate change and the need to find green alternatives to dirty coal, unpopular nuclear power and unreliable gas imports from Russia.

Such cities would become self-contained units, their buildings gleaning energy from the powerful weather systems sweeping across their roofs and feeding it down to homes below and vehicles in the streets.

Tags: Aging, Architecture, biogas, bird migration, border security, Canada, cities, coal, depression, electric cars, energy security, European, Food, gas, GMO, grids, Heritage, Infrastructure, Medieval, Michigan, neighbourhoods, Ontario. Genetically modified seeds, population, Reuse, self-sufficient cities, solar, Suburbs, Tourism