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This paper examines how policymakers interpret and deploy cultural economy approaches within municipal economic development strategies and cultural plans. Focusing on the 33 largest municipalities in Ontario, Canada, we conduct a keyword analysis of 63 municipal planning documents, supplemented with key informant interviews with economic development and cultural planning staff. Our analysis reveals that the use of cultural economy approaches in economic development and cultural plans varies depending upon city size, municipal governance structure and municipal organizational structure. However, despite the widespread use of cultural economy ideas in planning documents, we conclude that its uptake in municipal policymaking fails to reflect its professional and scholarly popularity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines indigeneity and spatial production in the city of Winnipeg, home to the largest urban Indigenous population in Canada. Using data from semi‐structured interviews with Indigenous inhabitants, municipal officials, and Indigenous leaders, this paper argues that the right to the city and to difference are deradicalized for urban Indigenous communities. Indigenous engagement in processes of everyday urbanism occurs through broadly participatory public consultation and through mechanisms designed by City Hall to communicate with Indigenous communities about municipal initiatives. To arrive at a more robust and meaningful Indigenous urban visibility in Canadian cities, spatial production and programming mechanisms will need to be reconstituted. Guided by the perspectives of Indigenous participants, this paper considers some of what Indigenous urbanism might yet entail. Fulfilling coexistence and reconciliation is dependent on enabling Indigenous urbanism to guide the course taken in urban governance, spatial planning, and the built environment of Canadian cities. Key Messages: Contemporary planning and design does not recognize Indigenous social, cultural, and symbolic presence in cities and continues to marginalize Indigenous peoples from urban life.Indigenous peoples expect to play an unmediated role in shaping the sociality and spatiality of the city, building cultural density through its institutions and practices.Enabling Indigenous urbanism begins with creating a material and discursive sense of place for Indigenous inhabitants in the everyday lived experience of Canadian cities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Whether it's a big city or a small town, all Canadian municipalities have core issues that their elected politicians are concerned about. Regardless of size, the daily business of a municipality must be managed and policies determined about such bread-and-butter issues as garbage collection, snow removal, wastewater and sewage, fire protection, economic development and fixing potholes. However, when size increases, so do the layers of issues that engage municipal politicians. This paper examines the results of a cross-Canada survey of more than 1,000 mayors and councillors from communities ranging in population size from 5,000 to more than two million. With an increase in population size, the numbers and complexity of issues creep up as well. Tiny municipalities typically aren't concerned with issues such as immigrant settlement, homelessness and public transit. Those issues are much more pressing for larger municipalities. A focus on some types of issues, such as public transit, grows right alongside population growth. The physical size of large municipalities means they contain a population whose needs are naturally more diverse than they are in smaller cities, towns and villages, thus shifting politicians' concerns to such things as homelessness and climate change. However, issues such as relations with Indigenous people and climate change also tend to hold regional, not just municipal, importance. They may be extremely important to a small municipality because of its geographic location and less important in a larger municipality located elsewhere. For example, municipal politicians in British Columbia reflect regional concerns with their emphasis in the survey on the importance of tackling homelessness, affordable housing, climate change and Indigenous relations. Yet, next door in Alberta, Indigenous relations and climate change ranked in the survey as being of low importance, along with climate change, despite the presence of two cities in the province with populations hovering around the million mark. The number one issue for municipalities regardless of size is economic development, since job creation and attracting investment are key for a healthy municipality regardless of its location or size. And nearly every politician surveyed listed planning, water supply and transportation infrastructure (roads, highways and bridges) as being of deep importance to their communities. Of almost equal importance in the survey were a second slate of issues including emergency planning, parks and recreation, public health, solid waste removal and policing. The results of this survey are intended to lay the groundwork for future researchers who want to focus on specific problems in the area of urban policy-making. Those who want to study the bread-and-butter issues can do so among a wide range and size of municipalities, knowing that these issues are vital to all. Those with an interest in homelessness and immigrant populations can focus on the big cities while being assured they are not missing out on key points among smaller communities. This survey will be highly beneficial for researchers in urban policy issues as it will help them to decide where to look and exactly what to look for. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is growing attention across the social sciences to the mobility of people, products, and knowledge. This entails attempts to extend and/or rework existing understandings of global interconnections and is reflected in ongoing work on policy transfer—the process by which policy models are learned from one setting and deployed in others. This paper uses a case study of the development of an innovative approach to drug policy in Vancouver, British Columbia to deepen our understanding of what I call 'urban policy mobilities.' It details the often apparently mundane practices through which Vancouver's 'four-pillar' drug strategy—which combines prevention, treatment, enforcement, and harm reduction—was learned from cities outside North America and is now increasingly taught elsewhere. In doing so it draws on a neo-Foucauldian governmentality approach to emphasize the role of expertise (specialized knowledge held by many actors, not just credentialed professionals) and the deployment of certain powerful truths in the development of the policy. The paper concludes by discussing the spatialities of urban policy mobilities and raising questions about the political and conceptual importance of also maintaining a focus on the causes and consequences of policy immobilities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Canadian municipalities have direct or indirect control or influence over approximately 52% of greenhouse gas emissions. As early as 1988, some Canadian municipalities embraced the challenge of climate change and through municipal programs recorded emissions reductions. Given the recent publication of the Government of Canada's climate change plan which clearly emphasizes a prominent role for municipalities in meeting greenhouse gas emission reductions, and equally, the federal government's declared intent to provide further financial support to cities and communities through its ‘New Deal for Cities and Communities’, it is important to consider the potential role that Canadian municipalities can take in responding to climate change, and most importantly, the barriers they face in responding. Based on these observations, this paper presents evidence from a survey of 392 Canadian municipalities (all municipalities with populations of more than 10,000 people) conducted between the summer of 1998 and spring of 1999. The survey provides information on a key issue, which despite the date of the survey remains centrally relevant today: barriers to Canadian municipal response. Building on both quantitative and qualitative results from the survey data and updated information on the number of municipalities participating in Federation of Canadian Municipality (FCM) climate change programs, the paper concludes with recommendations as to how municipal capacity to respond to climate change can be increased. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Substantial efforts in housing and community development have been focussed onto the West Broadway neighbourhood of inner city Winnipeg in order to stem processes of decline. This paper focuses on the effects of housing work in which residential buildings have been purchased and / or renovated with the support of public or philanthropic resources. Beyond the upgrading of housing stock and the provision of improved quality accommodation, the impacts of such housing work are poorly understood. The paper seeks to document and interpret the relationship in space and time between supported housing work and improvement to the stock undertaken without support. It finds that in some cases in West Broadway, assisted housing work appears to have had a stabilizing influence on the local area and in others there are indications that private sector activity has concentrated near assisted interventions. Indications of gentrification pose particular tasks for community development workers and funding agencies in West Broadway and provide lessons for this work in other areas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using the example of the Saint-Roch district in Quebec City (Canada), this paper is an analysis of the rhetoric of urban discourse which for the last decade or so has driven and justified the revitalization project of older urban areas in North American cities. The goal here is to add from a cultural geography perspective to the understanding of this so-called new urbanism which seems to have great success in both practice and public opinion. This paper will firstly demonstrate that this discourse is built essentially as a self-criticism, since its fundamental principle is to recognize the failure of post World War II urbanism which favored the renewal of older urban areas through large scale demolition and systematic reconstruction. Next, this paper explains that on this basis a set of figures has emerged which have paradoxically been used to justify: (1) the protection of built heritage while at the same time allowing for innovative uses of this heritage; (2) the diversity of uses of urban heritage while at the same time actively excluding certain options; (3) the necessity for participatory urbanism while at the same time acknowledging the impossibility of including certain social categories. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Contemporary planners see mixing residential, retail and other compatible uses as an essential planning principle. This paper explores the challenges that planners, developers and municipal councillors encounter in trying to implement retail uses as part of the mix in suburban areas in three Canadian cities. The study finds that planners employ evolutionary theories of urban development to naturalise their normative visions of walkable and sociable communities. By contrast, developers point to consumer behaviour to explain why planners’ ideas on mix do not work. In a society where people shop at big-box outlets, making the local café or pub commercially viable proves increasingly challenging. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In a context marked by globalization and rapid urbanization in metropolitan regions, new issues appear and generate new forms of governance, which in turn aim at elaborating new territorial strategies. The similarities of the French and Québécois political agendas for metropolitan reforms are the basis of this paper. The comparison evaluates up to what point these new Marseilles and Montreal metropolitan approaches are innovative forms of urban planning. The Marseilles metropolitan network is characterized by the projet métropolitain (metropolitan project) approach, which fits in the now familiar strategic planning trend, whereas via its metropolitan institutions Montreal is working out a schéma métropolitain (land use and development plan), which appears closer to a "traditional approach." The political-institutional profiles resulting from the metropolitan reforms in Marseilles and Montréal differ but share the common difficulty of creating a workable forum for discussion on a metropolitan scale. These two metropolises thus illustrate the reappearance of a practice of metropolitan planning that is less spatially based than that developed during the 1960s, more strategic, but not yet completely collaborative. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Canadian political science often neglects the municipal level as a legitimate research subject, even when large-scale transformations are implemented, such as the 2001 territorial reorganization in Quebec. This paper shows how mayors were involved in municipal mergers, mainly led by the provincial government, and especially how they played different roles in order to ensure their legitimacy as leaders of their communities. Specifically, the creation of the City of Saguenay has been studied through an examination of the activities, strategies and discourses of the mayors of this agglomeration in order to highlight normal and extraordinary levels of action. In doing so, this article contributes new knowledge of the mayors' own conceptions of their duties and roles and also of the rescaling process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper is a study of a Canadian decision-making model in urban design review process. The study focuses on the Ontario Municipal Board (OMB), a provincially-appointed administrative tribunal, which is unarguably a powerful decision-making body with respect to matters of urban planning in the province of Ontario. The design decisions made by the OMB have a significant and lasting impact on the physical fabric and visual make-up of cities in Ontario. This research assesses six Board decisions to explore how design decisions are made, identify factors used to evaluate the design quality of development proposals, and examine whether such a decision-making model has helped enhance the quality of the built environment. The study suggests that the OMB model has both pros and cons but is certainly not fully conducive for reviewing and adjudicating designs. It further suggests that the OMB makes conscious attempts to recognize urban design as an important and integral part of planning and supports less rigid design control measures despite being mainly concerned about the "measurable" impacts of a design on a community. Overall, this adjudicative process attempts to balance private and public interests but while doing so may not have led to the best design solution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is growing awareness that Canadian urban transportation systems are not sustainable. However, we have only a limited understanding of how travel decisions are affected by policy or other circumstantial changes that are purported to address sustainability concerns. This paper reports on an in-depth, small-sample experiment designed to explore issues that require nontraditional travel data. The focus is on household-level responses to a vehicle-reduction scenario in the context of teleworking households in a mid-sized Canadian city. The study design allows for comparisons of 'actual' versus 'gamed' activity and travel patterns. Two themes were explored: telework as an enabler of travel changes; and the persistence of and reasons for auto-dependency within teleworking households. Results suggest that teleworking households have a high capacity to adapt to a vehicle-reduction scenario, while making only minor changes to activity patterns. Despite the ability to change, the six participating households displayed continued auto reliance. Barriers that prevent telework from reaching its potential as an auto-reduction strategy emerged during the game. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reviews the work of the Prime Minister's Caucus Task Force on Urban Issues which reported in November 2002. It outlines the current federal role in urban policy, describes earlier attempts to articulate a national policy, particularly through the short lived Ministry of State for Urban Affairs in the seventies, and examines the recommendations of the Task Force in the light of contemporary challenges. The reports of the Task Force adopt the new regionalist discourse of competitiveness uncritically. The recommendations of the final report are judged reasonable so far as they go. However, some of the more worrying problems of urban areas that are within federal jurisdiction, notably increasing urban poverty, are neglected. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The number of Aboriginal people in Canadian cities is rising, presenting opportunities for economic and cultural growth in urban Canada. There are many problems facing Aboriginal people as they establish themselves in cities. They are the most poorly housed social group in many cities. Individual and systemic racism persists in the housing sector, and Aboriginal people have specific housing needs and aspirations. This paper argues that planners in every sector and jurisdiction that have a role in housing programming should practice some basic principles of Aboriginal engagement when drafting new urban low-cost housing policy. Aboriginal people should be involved in every stage of program design, delivery, and evaluation. Proper engagement should occur to make mainstream programs more sensitive to the needs and aspirations of Aboriginal people and specific housing strategies should be facilitated for this group to take account of the legitimate Aboriginal desire for self-determination in urban programming. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

New models of urban planning, including the lofty design principles of City Beautiful architects and the comprehensive schemes of Garden City and Garden Suburb reformers, were introduced to Canada during the first decades of the twentieth century. Despite their widespread advocacy by professionals and civic-minded enthusiasts alike, the impact of these new models on the contemporary Canadian city was actually quite limited. However, selected principles of these models were used rather pragmatically in several locations, including the northwestern suburbs of Montreal where the Canadian Northern Railway built the 'Model City' of Mount Royal, a corporate suburb that was planned, designed, and developed as a real estate venture to help offset the costs of building a railway tunnel into the centre of Montreal. This paper examines the process of city-building in Mount Royal during the town's formative years, from 1910 to 1925. It demonstrates how the idea for the town emerged as a speculative residential scheme at the height of the pre-First World War land boom; how the City Beautiful ideals of Frederick Law Olmsted, Jr and the Garden Suburb principles of Henry Vivian were introduced to Montreal during their visits there in 1910; and how, one year later, their ideas and other planning models converged and were incorporated to form the unique design for Mount Royal's urban plan by Frederick Todd, a protege of the junior Olmsted and Canada's most prominent landscape architect of the early twentieth century.' [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With increasing urbanization, climate change poses an unprecedented threat, and climate-sensitive urban management is highly demanded. Mitigating climate change undoubtedly requires smarter urban design tools and techniques than ever before. With the continuous evolution of geospatial technologies and an added benefit of analyzing and virtually visualizing our world in three dimensions, the focus is now shifting from a traditional 2D to a more complicated 3D spatial design and assessment with increasing potential of supporting climate-responsive urban decisions. This paper focuses on using 3D city models to calculate the mean radiant temperature (Tmrt) as an outdoor thermal comfort indicator in terms of assessing the spatiotemporal distribution of heat stress on the district scale. The analysis is done to evaluate planning scenarios for a district transformation in Montreal/Canada. The research identifies a systematic workflow to assess and upgrade the outdoor thermal comfort using the contribution of ArcGIS CityEngine for 3D city modeling and the open-source model of solar longwave environmental irradiance geometry (SOLWEIG) as the climate assessment model. A statistically downscaled weather profile for the warmest year predicted before 2050 (2047) is used for climate data. The outcome shows the workflow capacity for the structured recognition of area under heat stress alongside supporting the efficient intervention, the tree placement as a passive strategy of heat mitigation. The adaptability of workflow with the various urban scale makes it an effective response to the technical challenges of urban designers for decision-making and action planning. However, the discovered technical issues in data conversion and wall surface albedo processing call for the climate assessment model improvement as future demand. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]