The Ottawa Sun - January 2, 2008
Time is now to weigh
priorities
By Walter Robinson
ola
from the warm but a little wet Mayan Riviera south of Cancun, Mexico. With
another New Year's Eve over and done (no mas tequila, por favor) it's time
to turn our attention to the key questions and debates in which city
politicians and leaders must engage in 2008.
Principal among these debates is the question of what sort of local
infrastructure we need to build and what takes priority in this growing
list. However before diving right in, city councillors (along with their
federal and provincial counterparts) should gain some perspective on what
makes cities tick by reading a recent piece by Patrick Luciani, senior
fellow in urban policy with the Atlantic Institute for Market Studies
(AIMS).
Luciani's commentary provides a succinct overview of a divided debate
between those who subscribe to the "new urbanism" of creative cities with a
bohemian index and those that believe this approach is folly and fantasy and
subscribe to the approach of "sewer socialism" espoused by bestselling
author Joel Kotkin (The City: A Global History).
At the moment, our city's development policy is heavily weighted to the
new urbanism school of thought as evidenced by the priority projects on the
docket, including the downtown concert hall, the intense lobbying for a new
central library and the ever-present demand for a modern municipal archives
facility. Moreover, the 20/20 Growth Summit, held shortly after
amalgamation, featured keynote speaker Richard Florida, who is an ardent
evangelist for new urbanism.
Florida and others posit (think Jane Jacobs) that an urban region rich in
cultural institutions, amenities and one that is tolerant to a variety of
lifestyles will ultimately win out in the global battle to attract highly
educated, innovative and modern 21st century workers. In turn, these
cities/regions will achieve above average — if not globally leading —
economic growth, or so the theory goes.
Meanwhile, Kotkin and others like influential demographer and policy guru
Wendell Cox argue that cultural institutions are a by-product of high
performing cities that have focused on first things first, like roads,
transit, sewers, bridges and other hard assets. Yours truly is more inclined
to this way of thinking.
Luciani captures this sentiment well on his AIMS commentary by noting
that, "Kotkin may be on to something. He makes the case that cities in the
U.S. that are growing the fastest are family-friendly cities. According to
Kotkin, the ability to lure skilled workers depends more on affordable
housing and short commutes to their jobs rather than where one can get a
great latte."
With council set to approve a comprehensive zoning bylaw in March, engage
in the Official Plan Review and continue to pressure senior orders of
government for more funding to help erase the $120-billion (and growing
daily) infrastructure deficit, a few days of debate on what our
infrastructure priorities are (and why?) is a crucial task which should not
be delayed or discarded.
From this scribe's vantage point, transit, sewers and roads are the Top 3
priorities followed closely by fixing up the slum properties we ask many of
our seniors and low-income families to live in. If there is an appetite for
softer cultural amenities, a new municipal archives and a national portrait
gallery in our city deserve attention and support.
This debate may also broach the question of what is core and what is
non-core in terms of the local tax bill and this would be a welcome bonus
... especially since the mayor and council ran away from this debate during
this past December's budget deliberations.
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