The Burnabarians at the Gate
Plus: Cities win big in budget, Sobey’s vs Edmonton and making friends on the bus
Originally published March 29, 2019 on the Local newsletter. Subscribe now.
Hello! It’s been more than a week since edition two because I’m adjusting to a weekend-ish publish schedule, when maybe you have more time for reading? Let me know. Also, enjoy this amazing video showing the growth of Canada’s biggest cities.
And speaking of cities…
Cities are the billion-dollar winners in Budget 2019
In my last newsletter I shared an interview with an urban consultant who argued municipalities need more direct access to money to spend on whatever they need to manage their communities. It seems this year, at least, the federal government agreed, doubling the amount of money it transfers directly to local governments. Interestingly, though, not a lot of high-level coverage on it that I can see aside from the Maclean’s piece I’ve already linked to and this one from CBC. However, I did get to speak to Federation of Canadian Municipalities President Vicki May-Hamm about it, asking what it says about the relationship between the feds, cities and the provinces they sit in.
How Vancouver is attempting to solve it’s broken citizen participation
Another theme we’re likely to return to regularly here: how do we make city council meetings more accessible to the public? As Gabrielle Plonka writes, Vancouver city council hears from more speakers than any other municipality in North America — averaging 30 a week, but regularly pushing higher. So come April they will be experimenting with giving potential talkers a three-minute window — somewhere between 3 pm and 10 pm.
“If there is a better solution, Leckovic wasn’t able to find one in other municipalities. Most Canadian councils don’t allow speakers at all, and those that do — Calgary, Edmonton, Halifax, Ottawa and Toronto — average 10 speakers or fewer every week.”
Dignity down the toilet: Public bathrooms as a human right
My city has a public bathroom problem (as evidenced by the below tweet). Which is why I am eager to read Halifax journalist Lezlie Lowe’s “No Place To Go: How Public Toilets Fail Our Public Needs.” But short that you can also listen to her radio documentary on the same subject, which aired on Ideas recently.
Lonely Together: The Plight of Urban Isolation
Another Ideas documentary on urban problems, this one loneliness and how some cities are trying to solve it.
Burnaby city council won’t adopt Burnabarian as the city’s official demonym
There’s an ongoing (albeit very low level) debate in my city about what we should call ourselves: Prince Georgers? Prince Georgites? (My personal favourite) Prince Georgian? But it never occurred to me to attempt to settle this problem at the city council table, unlike Burnaby’s Ben Coli who presented his pitch to officially dub residents of the Lower Mainland community “Burnabarians”, which just so happens to be the name of a beer he makes.
However, Burnaby council rejected the idea in an exchange I absolutely love recorded in Burnaby Now:
“While we appreciate your gracious offer to officially share your exceptional demonym, already embraced and beloved by thousands, in order to continue to honour all of our Burnabians, Burnaby-ites and Burnabites — as well as our Burnabarians — we must graciously decline this generous offer,” council wrote.
I also like Coli’s response:
“I think the people of Burnaby should know what to call themselves, instead of having to give a qualified response, like ‘Well, some people call us X, but …,’” he wrote in an email to the NOW.
“It’s understandable that mayor and council didn’t want to wade into this fray, especially when there are people who have been in Burnaby a lot longer than we have, who already have another (incorrect) opinion on what our demonym should be.”
Fear not, though! Coli says he plans to return to council soon. And if they say no again?
“Hopefully, in 20 years, there will be such a consensus that we won’t need Council to declare a demonym, because it’s obvious that it’s Burnabarian.”
Saint John’s homeless squad fast-tracks people off the street
An interesting approach from Newfoundland, in which a variety of front-line agencies collaborate on getting people into homes on a rotating, priority basis.
Is Sobeys suffocating this north Edmonton neighbourhood?
Difficult to summarize this one but I’ll try: a developing neighbourhood has a big, ugly, empty lot in it because Sobey’s planned to open a grocery store there, but then bought the Safeway across the street instead. And now instead of letting the neighbourhood develop it’s just keeping the lot empty, and holding on to rules it got with the land that prevent other businesses — butchers, bakers, florists — anywhere nearby.
Meet ‘Team 263,’ the Stittsville bus riders who became fast friends
CBC Ottawa put together a series on commuting and this is my favourite: a group of people who became a social club after deciding it would be more fun to talk to each other on the ride into work than simply stare into space.
“We actually have a few people that are on the bus … that could take the one sooner, but opt to wait an extra ten minutes just to hang out with us,” said Martin Stein, who’s been part of the group for the past three years.
“There’s a few people on the bus who tend to eavesdrop a little bit on our conversations [and] eventually become part of our team!”
North Scarborough: 200,000 people, and nowhere to have babies
I’m used to doing reporting on small, rural communities dealing with the lack of maternity wards, but it’s an urban problem, too.
Edmonton’s missing sidewalks
Likely a frustration in many places, Edmonton’s sidewalk network is full of incomplete paths, reducing mobility for walkers, wheelchair users, etc. A crowd-sourced project is attempting to draw more attention to the issue.
The Globe and Mail opens in Thunder Bay
Not much to say on this only to note that while it’s clear Thunder Bay has underreported stories, I’ve also no doubt there are plenty of other communities across the country that could benefit from more journalism.
Should we move government offices out of capitals and into struggling rural economies?
This is happening in the United States, but it’s an idea I’m sure is intriguing to many in Canada: North Carolina is planning to move its Division of Motor Vehicles from its capital of Raleigh to a struggling rural town. The idea is that larger cities do just fine on their own, so maybe the economic benefits of government towns could be spread more widely across the region they serve.
How public transport actually turns a profit in Hong Kong
Another story from elsewhere I think might have lessons for cities here: even in Prince George I’ve noticed apartments along our main bus university/college bus run seem to be getting more desirable. Imagine if cities anticipated this, bought up adjacent properties and then re-invested that money back into improving transit elsewhere.
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