One of the most important ingredients of a healthy democratic society is citizen voice: do regular people have the ability to speak up about issues they care about, address themselves to their elected officials, and have input into the matters that affect them? Democracy is about much more than just voting every four years, andContinue reading “How to Speak to Council”
Category Archives: Uncategorized
Property Value
Two things came up in Northumberland in the past week about property value. One was a training session our council had about the Municipal Property Assessment Corporation (MPAC) and how they determine assessment for our tax rolls; the other was concerns about property value suffering from stigma associated with the increase of visible homelessness andContinue reading “Property Value”
Year One
It’s been a year since this council was sworn in, and what a year it’s been! I started this blog during a campaign in which I focused on Vision, Communication, and Collaboration, and I feel like those have been central to the way that council has operated so far. My Highlight The End of 2022Continue reading “Year One”
Housing and Finance
In the last few posts I quoted the former Deputy Mayor of Toronto, who pointed out that there are three things you need to get housing built: “You need the approvals, you need the people to build these things and you need a way to finance it…Right now, we’re having issues in all three.” We’veContinue reading “Housing and Finance”
Housing Hurdles: Labour and Materials
In the last post I quoted the former Deputy Mayor of Toronto, who pointed out that there are three things you need to get housing built: “You need the approvals, you need the people to build these things and you need a way to finance it…Right now, we’re having issues in all three.” The FordContinue reading “Housing Hurdles: Labour and Materials”
Municipalities and Housing
In the last post we looked at how a lack of housing supply has driven prices up, and how this is a feature of a housing market that treats housing as a commodity to be traded and invested in rather than as a human right and necessity. But why are there so few housing units?Continue reading “Municipalities and Housing”
Housing Supply and Markets
In my last post we looked at the context of the housing crisis. For the next few posts we’ll look at elements of the problem — because there are many angles to it. Today we’ll look at housing supply. Economics 101 One of the most fundamental notions of economics is the relationship between supply andContinue reading “Housing Supply and Markets”
The Housing Crisis, an Introduction
Once again this morning, the news was dominated by discussions of the housing crisis. If you haven’t been following it closely, it can seem like an enormous mess that’s difficult to untangle; my goal in this post is to give you some context for untangling it. Over the next few weeks we will pull onContinue reading “The Housing Crisis, an Introduction”
How Subsidized Housing Works in Ontario
I think we’re all quite aware at this point that there’s a massive dearth of affordable housing in Canada. Politicians are (finally) competing with one another to propose solutions, and I’ve had a lot of residents lately reaching out to me to do likewise. It’s wonderful to see, especially because so many of these residentsContinue reading “How Subsidized Housing Works in Ontario”
Artificial Intelligence vs Democracy
Run to the hills, the computers are coming! Whether you’re excited about the growing potential of AI to change our world, or deeply concerned about it, you’re also probably getting tired of hearing about it by now. There’s been a ton of analysis about whether or not a computer will take your job (the answerContinue reading “Artificial Intelligence vs Democracy”